"and didn’t write the number of tickets that were expected"

and they always try to tell us, when it comes to quotas, there isn't one...

http://news.cincinnati.com/article/20140124/NEWS/301240132/Fairfield-police-officer-man-he-shot-had-met-before

I've had some run ins with the Fairfield PD. They were far and away the most corrupt that I've ever seen...at least until I moved to TN...

a few years ago the NJ State Police went on a work slowdown as their contract was up. Down at this end of NJ there are a lot of small (and not so small) towns that do not have their own police force and use the State Troopers as their only means of protecting and serving.

When the Troopers went on their work slowdown, all those small towns were complaining that their incomes were down due to a lack of tickets being written.

I would think that if you consider the business of running a town. The smart officer is the one who knows to "pay his way." Those who think to bring in enough income to cover their wages seem like the ones who will get the overtime.
It's an ugly view but I highly suspect it is true.

they can't raise taxes, but they can make everyone into a criminal that has to pay a fine for something..

nah... we don't live in a police state..

I can attest that Indiana State Police only has a quota for stops/semi inspection. Writing a ticket is at the complete discretion of the officer.

Some smaller places still do it though.

Oh, they CAN raise taxes and fund their government legitimately and do the right thing, but 'they' have backed themselves into a corner by training their base to come after them with pitchforks if they attempt any such common sense approach.

True story, I'm one of people affected.

One of the tiny local fiefdom boroughs changed the speed limit on one of their main roads from 35 to 25 MPH last year. They then began very heavily enforcing the new speed limit for several months.

I was stopped and ticketed a few days after the limit was reduced. I requested a court appearance in hopes of getting it reduced to a non moving violation. The court date was set up for several months later .

When I went to court there were literally over one hundred people there for the same thing as me. The only reduced charge that they were offering was 2 MPH over the limit. No points in PA, but the fine was only like $5 less. By the time they got done adding on the extra stuff that law allows, it came to about $135!

Multiply that by the 100 plus people in the courtroom that day, plus however many people decided to just pay it, plus however many other people had different court dates for the same thing. That adds up to a lot of cheddar.

It wasn't a surprise to me that that road was completely repaved right before the summer ended. They certainly had the cash.

The borough on the other side of my 'hood routinely runs a school zone speed trap on a road with no school. Roscoe P Coletrain would be proud.

Well, then only thing you can do in response is TRY.. something, anything. A lot of people in the same town getting ticketed by the same government over stuff they didn't want changed, have the potential to create massive blowback.

A lot of times it doesn't even take a whole lot. Theres a road right next to my parent's house that had the speed limit changed on one part down to something fairly low. Dad got a ticket and decided to start calling people and trying to find out why the speed limit had been changed. I guess he talked to enough people that he found someone willing to admit that it was basically changed over one old lady complaining. Looked up the laws and found out there was supposed to be some kind of traffic studies supporting a change. Found out they were never done, starting rattling cages about it, and the speed limit went back up and it's been left alone for probably 10 years now. Things usually arent THAT easy, but if all 100 people in that courtroom start making life uncomfortable for elected officials, in a small town that will have a huge impact. And if it doesn't, then you'll know that you have to escalate and keep going until you get your local money-grubbing despots out of office, because 100 pissed off people in a small town SHOULD make a difference. It would probably set a record for the most citizen feedback they've ever had.

It doesn't pay. You will not pull down a paycheck as a community activist working for common good. Good capitalists dont make good altruists. And this is what america looks like when the profit motive is universal. The people with power take money off the people who decide it doesnt pay to fight back. It's only $100. Surely it is cheaper to bend over in the long run...

In reply to HappyAndy:

You should verify that the new speed was implemented properly. Local town here dropped limit from 45 to 35 simply at the behest of the twon council because a few people on an adjacent street complained. VT law stipulates they must do a speed survey and or traffic engineering study. Chief of police told them it would be illegitimate but they said do it anyway and come back to us later with the survey. Seriously, that's bass ackwards. I will go to court if I ever get ticketed there.

Vigo wrote: Oh, they CAN raise taxes and fund their government legitimately and do the right thing, but 'they' have backed themselves into a corner by training their base to come after them with pitchforks if they attempt any such common sense approach.

they can also not have the government doing all sorts of stuff that it has no business doing and not need to either raise taxes or give out traffic tickets to pay for it..

vwcorvette wrote: In reply to HappyAndy: You should verify that the new speed was implemented properly. Local town here dropped limit from 45 to 35 simply at the behest of the twon council because a few people on an adjacent street complained. VT law stipulates they must do a speed survey and or traffic engineering study. Chief of police told them it would be illegitimate but they said do it anyway and come back to us later with the survey. Seriously, that's bass ackwards. I will go to court if I ever get ticketed there.

sounds like a street around where I grew up... on that road they have the elementary school at one end and the HS at the other with the middle school right in the middle, it's right at 1 mile long and the entire thing is 20mph. to get around that a lot of us would drive on some of the streets around the length of it as they where 35mph... the cut over street many of us used was in poor condition but still 35mph although my old diesel suburban could just get up to that speed by the end of it... we came back to school after a few days off and I was delighted to see they had repaved the road... it seems while they where at it they also dropped the speed limit to 20... yup the cops where sitting at the end of the street tucked behind some bushes... as soon as I was driving off they pulled over the next poor sap... 3 people in my first period class alone had been nicked (class of about 25)... they worked that street hard for the next week, I can only imagine the sort of $$$ the city pulled in.

Some interesting reading here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Rome,_Ohio

Basically speed trap town ended up being a crony hive of scum and villainy that was shut down by the state of Ohio. Sometimes - rarely, but sometimes - they do get their just desserts.

In reply to dculberson:

I remember those pricks.......berkeley them.

On another message board. I posted a link to a Local newspaper saying the local cops now have a quota.. There are a number of cops on that board..

They,(every one of them that I know to be a cop on that board) in the past (prior posts) denied having a quota, whenever I posted what my dad (a drivers ed instructor from the late 60's to mid 90's) told his students and kids (me and my bros) that the police have a quota...

Of course, after posting the link (acknowledging the quota) they denied their previous posts about there being no quota and said things similar to this..

"There has been a quota for years", "only an idiot would think there is no quota"..

Needless to say I had some fun bringing up past posts..

drsmooth wrote: On another message board. I posted a link to a Local newspaper saying the local cops now have a quota.. There are a number of cops on that board.. They,(every one of them that I know to be a cop on that board) in the past (prior posts) denied having a quota, whenever I posted what my dad (a drivers ed instructor from the late 60's to mid 90's) told his students and kids (me and my bros) that the police have a quota... Of course, after posting the link (acknowledging the quota) they denied their previous posts about there being no quota and said things similar to this.. "There has been a quota for years", "only an idiot would think there is no quota".. Needless to say I had some fun bringing up past posts..

enjoy all your new speeding and parking tickets... oh, by the way, it looks like your headlight is out...

I think the quota thing varies from town to town. My brother is on our local PD, and there is no requirements for stops or tickets. Yet a friend is on the PD of a neighboring town and they require a certain number of stops/tickets per day (I think 5 per day).

The initial cincinnati.com article in the first post is probably totally bogus. There is NO police department in the country that would release information from an officer's personnel file, especially derogatory info, under these kinds of circumstances. The entire thing is not worth reading, let alone drawing ANY conclusions on.

Personnel files are public property and available on request via the Freedom of Information Act. The only things they won't release are personal in nature (DOB, SSN, home address, telephone numbers, sometimes salary if it isn't based on pay grades)

The local news rags here have personnel files in nearly every article involving a public servant, positive or negative.

"quota" or not, once a set amount of revenue is counted into a city/county budget as a line item, a failure to provide that revenue stream will result in somebody's ass on the line.

Look upstream and follow the money. The ticket revenue is already earmarked to fund something.

If tickets were used primarily as discouragement instead of revenue, the derived income shouldn't be in any way utilized directly for planned spending. If you're counting those chickens before they've hatched, then the cops damn well sure will be told to generate the revenue.

I don't blame the cops, they're just trying to do what they're told. The laws are created in such a way that everyone is technically breaking some law every day, so they just lean on everybody's wallets a little harder.

I got popped for a 5 over freeway violation this past labor day weekend (no points, fine only, revenue scam). The cop said to me "it's a holiday weekend so we're trying to pull over a lot more people."

having driven through Waldo Florida and it's notorious speed trap this month, it is easy to see what towns use tickets as a main part of their budget. For a town that is a mile wide, I saw three cops busy either pulling people over or waiting with radar. I kept it under the limit, but have been warned that they will pop you for 1 over

I have been a police officer for the past 5 years. I work for a large agency (1600 sworn officers) and we do not have a quota.

Some officers like to write tickets, a guy on my squad writes 300 plus tickets a year. Last year I wrote 17, all of which were from crashes. Same Sargent, same lieutenant, neither of which have ever said anything to me about my lack of tickets.

On a side note only about 20% of the cars at my agency even have radar, so speeding tickets are not a major concern for the department. I am sure it is different for little Podunk towns but we have our hands full with real criminals to worry about speeders.

I'm more curious as to...

Reading an article like that, and the takeaway is that officers in the town in question have quotas?

That's a bit... obtuse.

Lived in a small town in Ohio for a few years along the OH river. Following Rt 52 from New Richmond you had to pass thru Pt Pleasant. 55 drops to 25 or 35, I forget, for about 1000 feet. You bet there was a state trooper that almost lived in the scenic rest stop in the middle.

I always slowed down but one morning coming home from 12hr night shift (I'm not a night person either, ugh) I saw blue lights as I passed through. WTF? I know I slowed down. Turns out he was bored and wrote me a written warning for no front plate (I didn't even have a place to mount one). I still think he was falling asleep at 7am and needed to move around.

Swank Force One wrote: I'm more curious as to... Reading an article like that, and the takeaway is that officers in the town in question have quotas? That's a bit... obtuse.

I have a lot of family in that area and a lot of people are getting very upset because they allegedly left the kid laying in the snow for something like 8 hours. I haven't read the article nor do I know anything about the incident other than what some family members have been posting on the book of faces.