5/22/03  Trading Respect for Revenue

RE: Dallas council eyes delay of police, fire raises 
By COLLEEN McCAIN NELSON / The Dallas Morning News -

The wisdom of increasing the number of speeding tickets to raise revenue:

We live in a culture characterized by increasing disrespect for, and resentment of, the law.  The fault for this lies not only with the law breakers, but also the law makers and law enforcers.  

Convoluted and incomprehensible income tax laws leave filers uncertain as to whether bureaucrats will accept even the most diligently compiled returns as accurate.  The questionable fairness of the progressive income tax law fosters resentment among taxpayers, to the extent that many see cheating on tax returns as morally acceptable behavior. 

"Hate Crime" laws, creating privileged victim classes based on the presumed (politically incorrect) thoughts and feelings of certain criminals impress many thoughtful observers as both blatantly discriminatory and threatening to civil liberties (like freedom of thought).  

Asset seizure laws, carefully crafted to circumvent the due process guarantees of the Constitution underscore the greedy and corrupt logic of the "War on Drugs" and desensitize the public to the extent that even planted chalk dust drug convictions generate little outrage in the public.  

Some laws and law enforcement policies may generate revenue and convictions, but they undermine respect for the law itself.

Colleen McCain Nelson reports that the City Council sees a revenue cash cow in writing more speeding tickets.  I reckon if speed traps work for Crandall and Plano, they will work for Dallas.  Interesting that nothing was mentioned about safety or traffic flow - only something about two million extra bucks.  

The Mayor states there are lots of speeders out there, presumably ripe for ticketing.  She's right.  Every day that I drive in Dallas, I see at least 75-85% of my fellow drivers significantly exceeding the posted limit on almost every road I travel.  So, it seems there is a veritable fortune to be made writing those tickets.  

There is a hidden cost to that ticket revenue.  When the vast majority of drivers "speed" on a given stretch, does it really mean they are doing something wrong, or does it mean that the bureaucrats posting the speed limits are ignoring the 85th percentile rule and posting speed limits significantly lower than the intuitively safe speed appropriate to the roadway?   

Speed traps may generate revenue, but the hidden cost of the increased revenue will be a decrease in respect for the law itself and those who enforce it.  

If you're really serious about making money off of traffic, go ahead and print more ticket booklets, lower the posted limits even further, install red light cameras (Hey, the companies manufacturing these devices can even program the lights to trap "red light runners" for a small cut in the revenues) and continue to raise the fines for violations.  

Make those raises for policemen contingent on meeting higher ticket quotas for Heaven's sake; those guys need to be generating revenue -- forget about that "protect and serve" baloney.  Who really cares about respect for the law, the police, or road safety when all that money is there for the taking?

At least it's a breath of fresh air to hear our politicians acknowledge publicly what traffic tickets are really all about.