Don't Blame the Cops
It's only business... really.
by Craig Peterson
7/18/2005
(Updated 6/14/2011)
Many of the hundreds of police officers I've encountered during my career don't particularly like working traffic. It's not, in the majority view, "real police work". And, unlike when working in the patrol division, as a traffic officer they're rarely helping people, the reason most joined the department in the first place. This doesn't include the times when the officer is the first responder to an accident scene. Frequently they pick up the pieces; occasionally they're able to save a life. In either event, the aftermath isn't something you'd care to witness on a regular basis.
Instead their days are spent listening to a litany of lies and excuses, enduring some seriously bad attitudes from angry drivers they've stopped. Their only respite is when they're 10-7, out of service, or eating lunch with fellow traffic officers. Their work day is spent checking speeds with radar or, increasingly, with a laser. Sometimes they use a time/distance computer (TDC) like VASCAR or Tracker to work speed and write tickets. The remaining time is devoted to responding to accident calls and working wrecks. Hardly the stuff of dreams while at the training academy.
Fellow officers assigned to the Patrol Division often forget that some of the biggest cases of all time began with routine stops by traffic officers. (Timothy McVeigh, for instance, was only caught because he was pulled over by an alert Oklahoma Highway Patrol trooper for a minor license plate violation.)
Most speed limits are set at least 10-15 mph too low, the result of bureaucratic meddling by politicians who ignore the professional opinions of their own traffic engineering departments. That's why you'll most often notice artificially low speed limits and, in many cases, so-called "traffic-calming" measures, (speed bumps, closed lanes and other obstacles to free-flowing traffic) in the upscale sections of town. These people vote, pay lots of taxes and have access to the politicians. (When's the last time you saw speed bumps in the local barrio or ghetto?)
But I've never heard of a politician (or a traffic engineer, for that matter) asking the opinion of veteran traffic officers before tinkering with speed limits. If they had, they'd have raised the speed limit to the 85th percentile, the speed at which 85 percent of all traffic is flowing and where the ITE (Institute of Transportation Engineers) and common sense dictate the limit should be set. It's left to the traffic officer to mete out justice on the street according to his or her own set of rules. And that's why most allow a 10 mph leeway over the artificially low posted speed limit before taking enforcement action. Aside from being easier to prevail in court, nobody asked their opinion before setting the limit; 85 percent of the drivers are speeding as a result and traffic officers are expected to enforce the law. It's a no-win situation.
So the next time you get stopped for speeding, realize that it's not personal, it's just business. And money. Every city in the country depends on the revenue generated by traffic tickets. (Think not? Then notice that whenever the chronically underpaid cops get into a pay dispute with the city, as a last resort they'll simply stop writing tickets until the city caves in.)
Photo enforcement is the latest example of how technology is used to generate ticket revenue for cash-starved municipalities and states. Former Arizona governor Janet Napolitano approved a plan to saturate the state with Redflex photo radar vans and fixed speed cameras, saying that she hoped to help close a record budget gap with the proceeds. (Then she prudently left town to become director of the Department of Homeland Security.) After 18 months of operation, the cameras had generated nearly a quarter-million speeding tickets, infuriating motorists and, aside from increasing accidents, have had zero effect on travel speeds.
In another newsworthy--and unguarded moment of candor--the mayor of Washington, D.C. was quoted as admitting that automated enforcement (red light cameras in particular) was being used solely for revenue generation. (The city reported $15 million in net profit during the red light camera program's first 30 months of operation and $9 million net profit in only seven months from their five photo radar vans. As usual, the number of accidents at D.C. intersections monitored by red light cameras jumped significantly, the same result experienced by cities worldwide after installing RLCs and largely due to rear-end collisions.)
I've never met a traffic officer who's a fan of automated enforcement. While the camera sits there impassively clicking away in response to every speed or red-light violation--and, increasing, for failing to come to a complete stop when turning right on red, even with a total absence of other traffic--drivers blithely roll past, usually oblivious to the transgression. There's no deterrent effect whatever. And with no traffic stop, every impaired driver, every driver with outstanding warrants or no license, every stolen vehicle, every rolling meth lab, every terrorist suspect, you name it, sails right past.
The remainder of the time, the traffic or highway patrol officer's time is spent dealing with the unpleasant consequences of traffic accidents. Most are not caused by speeding, incidentally. As a primary cause of accidents, speed in excess of the posted limit has never ranked above the low single-digits as a percentage of overall fatal accidents, even according to the National Highway Transportation Safety Agency's own FARS (Fatality Analysis Reporting System) that compiles nationwide annual accident reports.
The real cause of traffic accidents is driver error. Unlike nearly every news story I've ever read, the vehicle doesn't simply leap out of control and crash for no reason. The driver caused the accident by 1) Failing to yield to a traffic control device or another vehicle, 2) Driving into another vehicle, a fixed object or off the road, the latter event usually climaxed by a yank on the steering wheel, a stab at the brakes and, inevitably, a spin and often a rollover, particularly on the highway. If the driver's unbelted, he or she will generally be thrown out of the vehicle and die. ("If you fly, you die" is how traffic officers refer to the phenomenon.)
The cause of the bulk of the remaining accidents: brain-dead driving. This includes yakking into a cellphone, tapping out a text message, reading while driving, dealing out discipline to the kids, conversing with passengers or, in a large number of cases, particularly in Western states at night, simply falling asleep at the wheel.
The mantra of speed enforcement is: 1) Writing speeding tickets will slow drivers down, 2) If drivers are moving slower, they'll have more time to react to an emergency and 3) The slower the speed, the less severe the impact. Of the three assumptions, only the third is valid.
Giving a driver more time to react is meaningless. About 99 percent of all drivers are looking no farther than 30 to 50 feet ahead of their vehicles, often less, and couldn't react to an emergency even if given an extra day or two of warning.
Every intensive-enforcement traffic program I've ever seen has failed to affect accident rates in the slightest. (The accident rate is the only meaningful road-safety statistic and is universally expressed by fatalities or crashes per hundred million vehicle-miles traveled. At present, it's at an all-time low, 1.1, a number that has dropped continually since national statistics were first recorded.)
Saturation patrols accompanied by media blitzes are regularly announced just prior to holidays--hey, those in law enforcement have careers, too, give them a break--and follow-up stories by the totally uncritical media dutifully report the number of tickets handed out, mostly for speeding, sometimes for DWI or license infractions. And nothing changes. Driver behavior is unaltered, the city and state collect more revenue and life goes on.
So don't blame the cops. Next time you get a ticket, if you want to get angry, send an e-mail to or call your elected representatives.