"Speed Trap Cities"

We, you and me, have hired, trained, fielded, and hopefully managed, some 889,500 LEO's here in 'Murica.  That means sworn Law Enforcement Officers.  Uniformed and armed personnel dedicated to maintaining the peace.  

One hopes.

Or, perhaps a substantial portion of them are dedicated only to thanking the Lord for their immunity and covering their own ass, first, last and always.  While maximizing the revenue they collect for their states/cities/towns/villages.  

Which is abhorrent in the extreme.

Which brings me to one of my primary bugaboos.  That means something that really pisses me off.  And that would be "Speed Trap" cities.  The ones that make their nut* on the backs of motorists who make the mistake of driving through.  And if you hadn't thought about the subject, a recent poll conducted by Google indicates there are more than 8,900 of them.  If you find that hard to believe, here's an example of several:

     -  Peninsula, OH:  Using only hand-held cameras, the police there issued more than 8,000 traffic tickets in only 5 months this year.  Screwing the public out of more than $1,300,000 in fines.  That's more than 16 tickets per resident in this tiny town of 536 people.  

This village collected another $400,000 in fines via their speed cameras.  And the company that supplied those cameras took more than $250,000 of that total.

Worse yet, the Village requires those wishing to contest their tickets must first post a non-refundable deposit of $100.  With no guarantee they'll win their case if they choose to appear.  And if they appear, the Village demands another $100 to do so before a judge.  Last year a judge ordered them to suspend that demand.    

BTW, the Village's annual budget is only $1,000,000.  Somebody's living large off this town.

     -  Brookside, AL:  This town of only 1,200 residents saw its revenue increase 640% in only 2 years.  Once their police started an "aggressive" traffic ticket campaign, fines now make up more than half of their budget.      

      -  Coffee, TX:  Here's a town with 250 residents.  It hired more than 50 police officers.  One for every 5 residents.  They wrote 5,000 tickets last year, bringing in more than $1 Million in fines.  I tried to find something worse than Peninsula and Brookside.  Let me know if I did. 

Like I said, there's almost 9,000 of them.  But let me end with one I found most aggregious.  

     -  Haverford College, Pennsylvania:  Here's a college that's a town.  Of nearly 50,000 presumably nice students and citizens.  But not the city council.  They enacted a law back in 1965 "to maintain a speed trap on Lawson Avenue with a maximum speed of 13 miles per hour.  Thirteen Friggin' Miles Per Hour?  Yes, 13.  And they write an average of 15 speeding tickets a day.  

Turns out being a town can bring in the Big Bucks!  And I haven't even mentioned another 100-plus places I have in my "Most Hated" files.  And I'll close with this: the average ticket in Taxifornia is $685.00.  A weeks' pay for a large number of our citizens.  Just stolen from their pockets, without even a thanks.

They ought to at least get a kiss and dinner with that screw job... 

*    "Making the nut" is a term first used in the 1,800's.  When the circus came to town they might lack the money to feed and support their employees for the week.  The stores' owners would take the hand-made nut from the axle of their wagons.  So they wouldn't escape town after their last performance without first paying their bill and "making the nut."