|
It's not "speeding" as such that causes most accidents--it's bad driving. Everyone knows that, including the police. Yet instead of focusing on the tailgaters, the oblivious cell-phone "Chatty Kathys," or the drivers who refuse to yield to faster-moving traffic (creating a rolling roadblock of ever-angrier drivers stuck behind them), the emphasis is on radar-trap enforcement of speed limits, which are often set absurdly low and routinely flouted--precisely because they're set so absurdly low.
And everyone knows the reason for this: ka-ching!
Enormous sums are ginned up for cash-strapped (or just plain greedy) state and local governments for minimal cost. A single traffic cop--earning perhaps $40,000 annually--can generate more than twice his take-home salary if he issues 500 speeding tickets at $150 a pop each year. That's just 42 tickets per month--or about 10 per week.
Many cops issue that many tickets every day.
The economics of it are irresistible. Even a small town with only a half-dozen officers on the prowl can bring in millions every year--just by having those guys stand by the side of the road with a radar gun for a couple of hours each day.
But what about what's right?
While localities are socking away fortunes in "revenue" generated by the issuance of all these trumped-up speeding tickets, the really bad driving that ought to be the focus of attention is often--indeed, usually--ignored. When was the last time you heard of a person being ticketed for failing to yield to faster-moving traffic (you should get your butt out of the left lane if you're not passing anyone or going faster than the cars in the right lane); tailgating (a guaranteed rear-ender if you have to slow down abruptly); yakking on a cell phone (accompanied by wild gesticulations, drifting into the next lane, and so on); or for driving within the lawful limit but like an idiot, given conditions such as heavy rain, snow, or ice on the road?
Cops will write these things up--but usually only in the aftermath of an accident. Generally speaking, it is difficult to get an officer interested in anything other than his radar gun until there's some metal-on-metal action.
|
In more than 25 years of driving, I have never come across (or even heard of) a cop writing someone up for sitting in the left lane and refusing to move over to allow other cars to get past--which is illegal in most states, whether the driver is "doing the limit" or not. Tailgating, too, is ubiquitous, but there aren't any "smooth-operator," dragnet-style enforcement blitzes aimed at putting a stop to it. And yes, it's technically illegal in many states to use a cell phone while driving, but the enforcement directed at these folks constitutes a fraction of the attention directed against "speeders"--who are, at least, probably paying attention to the road.
And because the majority of a traffic cop's time is spent bent over his radar gun, parked by the side of the road, he's not out there on patrol keeping an eye out for the left-lane hogs, the tailgaters, the cell-phone junkies--or the nut job swerving across two lanes of traffic in his pimped-out POS '82 Camry with the "fart-can" muffler hanging off the bumper.
As a result, motorists--probably a majority--have become cynical about the police, and view them with contempt, even disgust. This is corrosive. Despite all the blather about "speed kills," sensible people know that there is nothing inherently dangerous about doing 75 or 80 mph on a modern interstate, and they resent it deeply when they are pulled over and issued $150 fines--plus the inevitable insurance-premium increases. Use of police power in this way is massively wrongheaded, no matter how much money is being raised.
If local and state governments need money, they ought to raise taxes or cut back on "services"--and quit using police as bagmen. Instead, charge them with the task of identifying and dealing with the ever-increasing numbers of bad and outright dangerous drivers. Sure, it would be a lot more challenging that hanging out on the shoulder, "painting" passing cars with a radar gun.
But it would be the right thing to do.
COPYRIGHT 2003 ERIC PETERS
|
