SHREDITORIAL

TRAFFIC TICKETS BREAK SPEED LIMIT 

Remember the good old days when you only infrequently saw a police car with an occupant intent on giving out traffic tickets?  Compare that with today’s situation of a trooper around just about every turn?

Why have they proliferated so rambunctiously?  Issuing traffic tickets is a good business.

Figure it out. You pay a guy a thousand bucks or so a week – and he writes a thousand bucks worth of traffic tickets even on a slow morning.

Appreciating this potential gold mine, municipalities across America have tapped it as a principal means of support.  Frankly, it’s been years since I’ve been on a road that isn’t a speed trap.  The usual subliminal question that haunts me when I drive is, not is there a cop hidden along the road somewhere, but where is he?

Articles proliferate, noting the treacherous situation and offering complaints about it.  Should the unsuspecting driver go even one mile over the speed limit in some towns, he or she can be assured of a ticket.  The very frequency of the cop’s flashing lights, the accused heart’s thumping, and the unpredictable roadside pullovers create a driving hazard. 

When confronted about such difficulties in their quest for untoward lucre, the municipalities admit they need the money and, if you really want to know, it’s easier for them to get it with traffic tickets than to tax their own citizens.

What can be done about jack-box ticketing?  A ridiculous question, because whatever can be done about it is very likely not to get done.  So what’s the alternative to reining in this roadway mayhem?

It’s time the perpetrators admitted the goal of their own game and acted accordingly.  Fine us if you can catch us but don’t continue to issue points as if safe driving is really still the goal of all the ticketing. 

Then at least our drivers’ licenses won’t be threatened and our insurance rates won’t escalate. 

Seems like just the ticket to a mutual game of hide and seek to me.

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