More tickets...more money?

[tenfour]

Im going to quote someone and I was just seeking some truth to this...give me something to say back.

just because quotas are illegal doesn't mean that cops aren't encouraged to write as many tickets as they can. More tickets = more income = a bigger budget from the state/county for that department. And we all know how cops love new cars.

[acreature]

In my County, and in my state AFAIK, the money generated by traffic citations go to the Clerk of Court and the School System.

Our budget comes from Taxes.

And yes, encouraging to write more tickets is done. Because there are always dumbasses driving like their namesake.

[SeVere]

I could write tickets all day as the day is long and I would still be driving a patrol vehicle that has 80,000 miles on it. One has nothing to do with the other.

[Johninaustin]

We don't keep fine money. Goes both to the state and the city general fund. Same applies to fines for NON traffic related cites.

Sorry to burst your fantasy. My patrol unit is a 99.

[Retired Trooper]

Our state tickets go to the state. We get a very small amount of our city ordinances but not enough to get that much more funding.

[retdetsgt]

In some small towns around here, the police are ATM's for the city. The money may not go directly to the police, but they are rewarded in their budget if they get a lot of revenue.

A lot of them have municipal judges. A friend of mine who is retired works PT for one of the larger ones in photo radar. He was told by the city manager that if the judge didn't create enough revenue, they would fire him and hire another.

One town near me has a 45mph zone that extends way out into the country. There is absolutely no logic for that except it affords the police a place to work radar and get speeders. Periodically, they saturate that stretch of road. You can't convince me that money isn't the only motivation for that since, as I said the area is still country road.

Where I worked, we didn't have a municipal judge, only state judges so the money went to the state. We found it cheaper not to even fool with our judges as they cost enough to maintain that the revenue wasn't worth it.

Personally, I detest the idea of using cops for revenue. That should never be the motivation for traffic enforcement, but I know that it is in some places around here.

[txinvestigator1]

Jeesh, how many time do I have to write this? For about 98% of cities and towns, fines from tickets are less than 1% of the income.

[JD45]

Jeesh, how many time do I have to write this? For about 98% of cities and towns, fines from tickets are less than 1% of the income.

^^^^^^ditt

(btw, probably about 50 more times)

[samseed101]

We get nothing from the tickets we write, nor are we encouraged or discouraged from writing more. As long as we respond to the calls we are supposed to and patrol our zones, there are no problems. Hell, most of the time we are so busy on certain shifts that there is no time to run any traffic at all.

[tenfour]

Sorry, sometimes it's impossible to find something that has been covered before.

[retdetsgt]

Jeesh, how many time do I have to write this? For about 98% of cities and towns, fines from tickets are less than 1% of the income.

But why do I always seem to live near the other 2%? :eek: :D

[michiganstud]

I don't care where the money goes. I'm a firm beleiver that the more tickets that are written the safer people with drive and that means lives are saved.

[mcsap]

50% of the fine from our tickets goes to the state, the other 50% goes to the municipality in which the vio occurred. The municipality gets a check every month from the fine money but it can ONLY be used towards highway improvements. It cannot be used for police cars, pizza parties, uniforms etc.

On non-traffic ordinance vio's, the municipality gets 100% of the fine money.

Having said all of that, we are allowed to write as many tickets as we want to.

[corporal716]

just because quotas are illegal doesn't mean that cops aren't encouraged to write as many tickets as they can.

Your SGT. know about how many cites you should be writing in a day.
If you are a traffic cop and only write two or three a day, he or she will get on you for not doing your job. If your a Deputy working a rural area and you don't write more than two in a week the same SGT would not think twice.

[Legoate]

Personally I find it insulting that people think I write tickets to raise money for the city. I write, or don't write tickets as I see fit for violations of the vehicle code. I couldn't give a rat's *** whether or not the city gets a dime from a ticket I write. Truthfully, I generally have better things to do than enforce traffic laws...but just when I think I'm on my way to dinner to have that burrito I'd been craving all night some jackass will pull out right in front of me almost ramming my car, then immediately hang an illegal u-turn in front of me, causing me to slam on my brakes to avoid hitting them...I'll stop them and find they have no registration, no license, and no insurance...have been drinking, and have a car full of empty/partially empty beers (true story).

Truthfully crappy drivers force me to enforce traffic laws, I rarely initiate traffic stops for petty offenses. I pretty much have to see you almost cause an accident for me to stop you. If I decide to write you a ticket after the stop it's my decision, if I decide to advise you to slow down and quit being dumb and let you go, that's also my decision. The amount of money that goes to the city never comes into my thought process.