Dwindling property tax revenue has forced local governments in Michigan to look to motorists to refill their municipal budgets, according to a Detroit News analysis. In 2002, the city of Detroit issued a total of 126,007 traffic tickets. Last year, that figure grew to 245,249– a 94 percent jump. The percentage increase was even greater in small towns like Plymouth, which saw the number of tickets skyrocket from 440 to 2,584 — up 487 percent — over the same period. “When I first started in this job thirty years ago, police work was never about revenue enhancement,” Utica Police Chief Michael Reaves told the DetN. “But if you’re a chief now, you have to look at whether your department produces revenues. That’s just the reality nowadays.” Utica issued 3540 tickets in 2003 and 5518 in 2007 — a 56 percent increase. A few communities like Pontiac saw ticket revenue decrease in proportion to the number of police laid off, but eighteen jurisdictions overall reported a ticketing increase of more than fifty percent. The National Motorists Association cited Detroit suburbs as home to the worst speed traps in the country.
“When elected officials say, ‘We need more money,’ they can’t look to the department of public works to raise revenues, so where do they find it? Police departments,” Police Officers Association of Michigan President James Tagnanelli told the News.
Other local police chiefs deny that they use ticket quotas and insist that their sole motivation is to increase public safety through ticketing. Some state officials suggest the obsession with speed is misplaced.
“I’ve spent eight years in traffic services, and I was a crash reconstructionist for five years before that,” Michigan State Police Lieutenant Gary Megge told the News. “So I’ve seen my share of fatal wrecks, and I can tell you: Deaths are not caused by speeding. They’re caused by drinking, drugs and inattentiveness. The old adage that speed kills just isn’t realistic. The safest speed is the speed that is correct for that roadway at a given time. A lot of speed limits are set artificially low.”
The Michigan State Police advocates setting limits according to the 85th percentile rule. This commonly accepted engineering principle is used to determine the legal limit by measuring how fast the vast majority of traffic, 85 percent, travel in safety.
“It just doesn’t seem right to me that we would enforce a law where 90-98 percent of the people are in violation of it,” Lieutenant Megge told the News. “It’s not the way we should do business in this country.”
While Detroit police focused on increasing the number of traffic tickets by 94 percent, every category of serious crime increased significantly. The total number of murders, rapes, robberies, assaults and burglaries increased by 19,370 — a 56 percent jump — between 2002 and 2006.
The real question is: did those got caught actually speed?
If yes, then please shut up and pay and do not speed next time.
If you think the speed limit doesn’t make sense, please voice your opinion through your democratic representatives, instead of breaking a law.
I’ve always tried to make the argument that ticket enforcement is what killed the american auto industry. Having cars that drive at 55 makes for crappy cars. Might as well drive a big-ass SUV. All the roads around detroit are flat and straight which is why handling isn’t important. The fact that the Detroit-area police are handing out tickets left and right…
makes them responsible for GM failing.
Or not.
snabster:
In defense of the police, they’re just enforcing the speed limit, not setting it.
And on the highways around Detroit that limit is 70.
Most tickets take place on suburban streets, not the highways.
The ones that catch my wife around here: the “no turn or reds” where the sign is posted ten yards back from the corner.
@WSN: Just because YOU lack the ability to safely drive your vehicle above the stated speed limit does not mean other people do. But usually such responses come from cops who have their hands in the cookie jar on this thing to begin with.
The majority of Americans obviously don’t support many speed limits, but the decision is taken out of their hands by a government as a form to ‘tax’ them in the name of safety. If Americans could effectively challenge it with no strings attached, we wouldn’t see such ridiculous speed limits. Period.
@Michael Karesh – I see too many cops hanging out in speed traps to give them such a benefit of the doubt.
Let’s look at it this way, if your visually speeding “going faster than other traffic”. or driving to endanger. than yes i believe you should be ticketed. But a few miles over or just keeping up with traffic and being singled out out of ten to thirty other vehicles because your car is “sporty” is rediculus. Also not even just speeding but even something as stupid as no turn signal should be disiplinary. Believe it or not the highways in america were designed after the autobahn in germany. So speeding is not a problem stupid people are. Also we need to start getting police officers to obey the law just like we do. Theres more of a do as i say not as i do attitude going on here. And this is not just happening in michigan its happening all over the country. I mean what ever happened to the “spirited” american driver clearly it died off in the 70’s with the muscle car. Or maybe it was the introduction of the minivan who knows all angles are arguable.
Word to the wise, watch out. I was parked semi-illegally the other day in my neighborhood with my resident sticker in plain view and they booted my car, booted it. I’ve parked in this spot many, many times and only occasionally receive a ticket much less a boot. I got the message. Desperate times…
Metro Detroit is pretty bad, but Ann Arbor takes the friggin cake. There are THREE major blvds with speed limits of 35 or less. Freeways that pass around the city have their speed limits drop from 70 to 55. IIRC, the State has been trying to force Ann Arbor to raise its speed limits.
But an increase in speeding tickets to make up for insufficiently high property taxes? Thank’s again, Engler. It was bad enough when he raised the sales tax from 4% to 6% to cover his Republican fantasy: a flat income tax.
wsn: Have you never seen the ridiculous speed limit changes some places do?
Long time ago I was cruising at 70 (legal speed) on a 4 lane highway. Next thing I know a cop is on my ass, because I passed a poorly marked 45 mph sign.
Keep in mind this is a 4 lane highway. There is no legitimate reason for a 45mph limit here. It was a speed trap to raise revenue. There are some places in Kansas City with 6 lanes of traffic where the speed limit is nominally 45. Everyone ignores it and the cops don’t enforce it because its so blatantly stupid, but now that tax revenue is down I wouldn’t be surprised to see cops hanging out there.
I think its legitimate to worry about the government doing like that. It’s not in the legitimate public safety interest; it’s just there to make them money. Like lowering yellow light times to increase revenue from cameras (which increases accidents!). It encourages people to view the law as something to be disregarded if they won’t get caught, since it is just a scam by the government to extort some money from you instead of rules designed to promote public safety and order. It also disguises the amount of public expenses and makes it harder for the democratic process to work since the public is disconnected from the taxes it knows it pays and the anti-lottery tax imposed unilaterally by the police.
The government viewing petty violations as a revenue source is pretty troubling in principle.
Since I live in Metro Detroit, I can provide a very good point of view on this. Michigan ns going broke from all this bullshiat spending they do. And this mad level of spending trickles down to local municipalities and eventually screws them over.
The WORST speed trap in the area is on Van Dyke, starting at 696 and working all the way up to GM Tech Center. Warren is bleeding cash and needs a way to fill the holes. When i went to court for my ticket, the judge had people come up mone after another like a revolving door. He must have brought the city a good $10,000 in a matter of 20 minutes.
wsn:
Tell that to the victims of McCarthy’s Witch Hunt. You’re not living in a democracy here, this is a republic. The ones in power only need to agree on the most important issues with the majority (and by agreeing, I don’t even mean acting on it). All the smaller issues, like tickets, state subsidies, and so on, will always be resolved to the advantage of the politicians.
Besides, an average voter’s gullibility leaves a lot to be desired – a population that is almost entirely under control of organized religion and marketing media can hardly make an intelligent decision regarding speeding laws when all the politicians are singing the “save lives” song.
Therefore, the best thing to do at the moment is to bitch and complain. Barring a social revolution, the only way you can get rid of a “fad” is by ridiculing it hard enough that the majority will become ashamed of it. In that sense, I can only hope that we’re gonna get a lot worse than England, real fast. The best way to get rid of a stupid law is to strictly enforce it, they say.
What rips my onion is that the insurance industry uses speeding tickets as an invitation to rape. Everyone, and I do mean everyone speeds all the time, but if you are unlucky enough to get tagged the fine is just the beginning.
And cops never seem to hang out and write tickets where they would actualy do some good. For example on my narrow suburban street that happens to be a heavily traveled connection between major state routes on opposite sides of town. Posted at 30mph, average idiots go 45-50 at rush hour. No, instead they hang out on the 4 lane (interstate style) bypass that is massively underposted at 45mph, then goes to 35 mph 1 mile before an intersection.
krhodes1:
Bingo. The extra insurance cost is the real problem with tickets, not the ticket price itself.
The Detroit-area fix: if you go before the magistrate, and don’t have multiple offenses, they’ll almost always write the offense down to something that has the same fine but does not go onto your record for insurance purposes…
Want to hear the funniest one?
Out next to a subdivision in Joliet, just off I-55 at exit 263 where a friend moved, there is a long, large (not sharp at all) winding curve that goes a mile or two and ends at a stop sign. No houses or driveways or businesses on either side. NO parks nearby, just grass on one side & the some bushes w/expressway on the other side.
Speed limit ? 5 mph.
My motorcycle manual says not to ride in 1st under 10mph because it chugs the engine…and you can feel it. So am I supposed to ride with the clutch in ? a mile+ to the stop sign ? Are they forcing hypermiling?
SUV’s take this turn at 20mph+ easily. My STi can’t take it at 40-45 and my bike about the same (and I’m nowhere near knee dragging).
Haven’t seen any cops nearby yet, but I’m always watching….
That curve is “ripe” for revenue.
Being very familiar with the Livonia/ Northville area I have seen the driver tax in action.
I275 between 8 Mile Rd and I696 is a goldmine.
I have seen, in the middle of the week 1-2PM, a radar/lazer cop on an overpass with seven motorcycle cops– every one of them with a vehicle pulled over in a two mile stretch of the southbound 275.
They are also writing tickets for going thru a “late yellow”. They even tell you you (as in me) you didn’t go thru a red light, you started your (rush hour) left turn too late in the yellow cycle — you’re supposed to stop for a yellow. $115 & two points. Went to court: “obstructing traffic (i.e. double parking. $125/ no points).
Moral: Be very wary of going thru yellow lights. On the freeway, stay in the middle lanes in a pack of cars as much as possible.
VK
Residing in both Germany and the US, I’m always amazed at the different priorities for the nation’s police force (primarily talking about those that cruise the highways and Autobahns). Funny story…while driving to Stuttgart one morning, as I was making the connector to the A8 just outside of Karlsruhe, I had to laugh as an Polizei officer on his motorcycle actually drove up to the car that was ahead of me and flagged him on to MOVE FASTER! And it isn’t uncommon for me to pass said Polizei while driving on the Autobahn…here in the States, at the mere sight of a Crown Vic, everybody slams on their brakes! Sad that it’s come down to revenue generation rather than safety enforcement.
threeer :
November 17th, 2008 at 4:15 pm
…here in the States, at the mere sight of a Crown Vic, everybody slams on their brakes! Sad that it’s come down to revenue generation rather than safety enforcement.
Yes, the last thing they want are a bunch of law abiding citizens. Where is the fun in that?
In my city, they keep the interstate at 55 mph when no one, not even the Crown Vic’s drive that speed and it’s not because of safety… but instead they can just point at any car and write a ticket at anytime. One night after working late, I drove through four speed traps within 10 miles! Anyone going over by 5 mph was a target. &#$%@&#!
For the last 7 years I have lived in a town that is notorious for speed traps. At first it bothered me as I was young and stupid and always in a hurry. I was never pulled over, but the threat was always there.
Now I know where they sit (everywhere on every major road) so I know not to speed. I just set the cruise control for the speed limit and chuckle as people fly past doing 15-20 over since they are subsidizing my communities services. Keep up the good work speeders!
My town just added 2 red light cameras to their arsenal as well.
krhodes1,
While I am not going to try to argue that the auto insurance pricing structure is entirely fair and not subject to random occurrences of bad luck, it can be shown statistically that those that receive speeding tickets are much more likely to be involved in an accident than those who don’t. That doesn’t mean that speeding causes accidents (although despite what you here on these boards, to some extent it must), but it definitely means that there is a correlation between those who speed and those who cause accidents. Also, not everybody receives speeding tickets: I drive 25,000 miles a year and have never received a speeding tickets. I am sure I got lucky to some extent, but I am also sure that my responsible driving habits have also played a part.
There’s also the fact that you can typically get a ticket busted down to something that doesn’t show up for insurance purposes if you have a clean record, so if it gets on your record there’s a pretty good chance you’ve burned your mulligans with the DMV and so are probably a higher risk.
I am shocked! SHOCKED! To find out that speed enforcement is actually about revenue. aside-“Your winnings sir”
It’s not just traffic enforcement. I’ve had the pleasure of successfully fighting parking tickets I’ve gotten in Detroit during the NAIAS. One was a defective meter and the other was for parking in front of the Detroit Club where it was clearly marked one hour parking.
While waiting for the magistrate to call my case I got an education. About 80% of people fighting parking tickets had gotten cited for parking in a handicapped space. The fine is $100. Judging by the number of people fighting the tickets and assuming most don’t fight and just pay up, my guesstimate is that the city takes in $5000-$10,000 a day from handicapped parking fines. Now normally I’d say throw the book at them, but a large number were indeed elderly and had disability placards in their possession. The law says the placard must be displayed in a prominent place. They’re designed to be hung from the rear view mirror but it’s against the law to drive with it hanging from there, so many people just leave them in plain sight on top of the dashboard. The parking enforcement team has digital cameras and they take pictures of the nude rear view mirrors, being careful to frame the shot to avoid showing that the placard was indeed in plain sight.
I believe the correct term for this revenue enhancement is scam.
Meanwhile, there’s a cop in Warren, Michigan, David Kanapsky (I figure jerks with badges shouldn’t be anonymous) who’s pulling in over $86K a year, including more than $21K in overtime, for issuing over 2300 tickets a year for running stop signs. He has enough seniority that he works the night shift. All but about 50 of the 2400 citations he issued last year were stop sign violations, so it’s not like he’s out there looking for DUIs and such after 2AM, what he’s doing is obvious. He plays gotcha on folks doing ‘California stops’. Because he’s on the night shift, every ticket he rights is worth 4 hours of overtime pay to him for court appearances. When one of the local tv news crews did a story on him, he was smirking at the camera.
http://www.wxyz.com/news/story.aspx?content_id=6247586b-8dea-43ab-8e1b-a74082ffe280
The ones that catch my wife around here: the “no turn or reds” where the sign is posted ten yards back from the corner.
On southbound Woodward Ave. just north of Ten Mile Rd. adjacent to the Detroit Zoo, there’s two lanes that veer off to the right so you can turn on to 10 Mile. Right after you veer, there’s a stoplight. There’s a sign at the light that says Right Lane Must Turn Right, but the road at that point doesn’t curve, you just proceed through the light. It seems to me, based on the Must Turn Right sign that there’s the topographic and legal equivalent to a right turn at the light, even though it isn’t really a turn. I don’t, however, intend on testing my theory with the legal geniuses who staff the Royal Oak PD.
Where I-696 and Ten Mile cross Coolidge Hwy, westbound traffic on the service drive (Ten Mile) has a no turn on red sign. The problem is, that the Huntington Woods (east of Coolidge) and Oak Park (west of Coolidge) PDs have no place where they can play gotcha. Any legal location they can park their cruisers would be visible from the drivers’ position at the light. So what do they do? About a block north of the intersection they park their cruisers in the left turn lane in the middle of Coolidge. Makes me want to scream because there’s a safety reason, not to mention traffic obstruction reason, why it’s illegal to park in the middle of the street. I once got hit by a car on my bicycle within line of sight of one of those cops and he was too busy trying to play gotcha to notice the accident. Finally, after hearing me yell and call him a lazy ass he came over. Pissed him off enough that he wrote it up as my fault even though the geezer cut me off when he turned into my path.
# toxicroach :
November 17th, 2008 at 5:27 pm
There’s also the fact that you can typically get a ticket busted down to something that doesn’t show up for insurance purposes if you have a clean record, so if it gets on your record there’s a pretty good chance you’ve burned your mulligans with the DMV and so are probably a higher risk.
Depends on what you plead to. If it’s a fine with no points it might no show up on your insurance record.
Though who knows? I got dinged insurance rates wise because of a collision claim I never really made. When I was turning in a leased vehicle, the back bumper had some minor damage from a parking lot incident, so I contacted AAA but never actually went through with a claim because the dealer offered me a better deal than paying my deductible (high residual value gave them some work to work with and they had an in house collision shop). I called AAA and canceled the claim without ever having their adjusters look at it.
Later, when getting quotes on insurance that seemed kind of high I found out that the system insurance companies use had flagged me as making a claim. When I questioned that, I was told that it didn’t matter if I actually went through with the claim as long as I’d reported some damage.
Remember, insurance companies have had a big role in the current financial crisis.
Continued buildup of symptoms of breakdown of US society if you ask me.
What if they were honest and said ” We pose tax increase as one more $ per thousand or we put in traffic revenuers” Answer “no, we wont pay for your increased pension costs, ticket those out of towners.”
Do we think this will cease if and when we return to prosperity? Give up revenue stream?
I have cop as tenant. Good guy. Boston area. He says if the paid details (any construction zone needs a sleeping or newspaper reading off duty cop idling roadside at OT pay rates paid by whoever is doing the construction) are removed, all cops will write 3x tickets to get the OT in court. AND the costs of utilities etc wont reflect reduction of cop detail pay.
Thank’s again, Engler. It was bad enough when he raised the sales tax from 4% to 6% to cover his Republican fantasy: a flat income tax.
There’s almost nothing true or accurate in this statement.
The Michigan state sales tax was raised by a vote of the citizens of the state who voted overwhelmingly for it, 69%, not by the governor’s fiat. The hike in the sales tax rate was done to provide property tax relief, shifting support of education from property tax to sales tax. At 4%, Michigan had one the lowest sales tax rates in the country, while rising property values were killing homeowners on their property taxes.
As for the arrant nonsense about Engler and a flat income tax, as far as I know Michigan has always had a flat income tax rate. It certainly was a flat rate long before John Engler came into office.
Being very familiar with the Livonia/ Northville area I have seen the driver tax in action.
I275 between 8 Mile Rd and I696 is a goldmine.
They also like hanging out under the overpasses in the I-94/M-14/I-275 interchange.
As far as I’m concerned, the worst speed trap is in Allen Park on the Southfield freeway. They work in pairs with one cop (usually parked in a traffic lane in the wrong direction) sitting up on an overpass with a radar gun and his buddy that he radios to down in the ditch.
Once, when I noticed them, when I got home I called up the APPD and reported an illegal parked car that was blocking traffic. When I told them it was an APPD cruiser, they transferred me to the deputy chief who tried to give me a lecture about how hard their job is and how they put their lives on the line. I told him to spare the propaganda and that they should realize that when the police casually break the law it ends up causing disrespect for both the law and police and makes their job harder.
To many cops think that “I’m a police officer in the performance of my duty” is carte blanche for just about anything they chose to do, from parking in a fire zone to putting on the lights to run a light on their way to the donut shop.
Forget about GM, the hardest culture to change is your local police department.
liechter,
The people who receive speeding tickets do so not necessarily because they were speeding. Everybody speeds but plenty of folks who routinely do 5-10 over never get a ticket. I’ve been driving for 37 years and believe that I’ve gotten a total of three speed related tickets and maybe three or four warnings.
Sure there are plenty of gotcha traps, speed and otherwise, but driving in a manner that grabs the LEOs’ attention is what catches plenty of speeders.
People who have a lot of points usually deserve them. They’re not just doing 80 on the interstate. They’re doing 85 in traffic, changing lanes constantly.
threeer:
Residing in both Germany and the US, I’m always amazed at the different priorities for the nation’s police force (primarily talking about those that cruise the highways and Autobahns).
It’s been 10+ years since I’ve visited, but aren’t German fines for tailgating (a behavior ignored in the states) sadistically (and appropriately) brutal?
@ ihatetrees,
You have to remember that tailgating at 100+ MPH is a pretty insanely stupid thing to do. While accident rates tend to be less in Germany, they also tend to be, uh, more catastrophic (I’ve actually seen a VW Golf completely disengaged from the floorpan…not pretty). Germany also frowns upon the once-accepted art of “flash to pass.” For the most part, rules, regs and fines are geared towards safety versus revenue. It’s sad that we haven’t progressed away from the “Smokey and the Bandit” (or name whatever other stereotypical TV show/movie out there involving police) mentality. Traffic police here are in the majority business of generating revenue.
MMmmmm…..revenue enforcement.
In days long past, armed men waiting alongside the roadway to relieve the unwary traveler of “fees” or tariffs were known as highwaymen or bandits. The more things change….
As for posted speed limits, there is a famous amateur film made a few years back by a group of college students called “A Meditation On Speed Limits”, showing what happens when drivers on Atlanta’s I-285 perimeter loop (8-10 lanes) actually followed the absurd 55mph posted limit. Let’s just say that 99.9% of drivers are normally going 75+mph on this major metro highway, and you can figure it out pretty quick.
Selective enforcement is both arbitrary and capricious, the very definition of injustice, and the Supreme Court has ruled it unconstitutional. Yet that is exactly what passes for traffic enforcement almost nationwide.