I feel safer already
Posted by BrianAlabama troopers issued five times their normal tickets during the first day of a statewide traffic blitz.
Troopers issued 5,989 tickets on Monday, the first day of the five-day “Take Back Our Highways” campaign. An extra 200 troopers are on the state highways during the blitz.
A comparable Monday — Aug. 14, 2006 — had 1,150 tickets issued by troopers, said Dorris Teague, spokeswoman for the state Department of Public Safety.
Of the 5,989 tickets issued Monday, 3,281 were for speeding and 944 tickets for seat belt or child restraint violations, Teague said Tuesday.
I’m not sure what speeding and restraint violations cost, but let’s pretend they are $125 each. That means our troopers raked in nearly $750,000 just on Monday. If each day is as “successful” as the first then they will take about $3.75 million out of the pockets of Alabamians by the end of the week. Based solely on last year’s number of tickets on the same day an average five day haul would be just over $700k.
Total state revenue for the month of July was $543.5 million, which breaks down to $87.7 million over an average five day period. If all of the ticket fines went to the state then the safety campaign would effectively increase state revenue by nearly 3.5% over that five day period. Think of it as a phantom tax increase.
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August 15th, 2007 at 8:25 am
“If each day is as “successful” as the first then they will take about $3.75 million out of the pockets of Alabamians by the end of the week.”
Surely some of the money will come from the pockets of out-of-state drivers unless we’ve closed our borders.
August 15th, 2007 at 10:38 am
Don’t forget the effect on car insurance rates. The insurance companies’ bottom lines just improved a bit.
August 15th, 2007 at 11:58 am
seat belts is $10 and child seats, I think is $25.00. No court costs in either case.
August 15th, 2007 at 3:20 pm
The beauty of this, however, is you don’t have to pay. Only those who are caught breaking the law pay.
August 15th, 2007 at 8:04 pm
Anon - thanks for the clarification on the restraint fines.
Tim - I would generally agree, but in this case they are boasting about fining people for driving one mile over the posted limit. That is absurd. Once I was driving on I-85 just west of Auburn and approached a trooper who was driving rather slowly. I followed him for a while at 5 mph below the posted limit and finally got up the nerve to pass him with my speedometer sitting at 1 mph below the limit. He pulled me over and informed me that I was speeding by a grand total of 3 mph. The guy was a total jerk, but let me go with a warning.
I’m all for pulling over and fining reckless drivers, but this campaign is little more than a revenue generating show aimed at working people who have places to go so that we can support the millions who choose not to do the same.
August 16th, 2007 at 6:59 am
Here is another “tax ” increase. The charge forgetting your restaurant health inspections went from 0 to $500 in 2 years, in Jeff Co. The restaurant pays it and passes it on
August 16th, 2007 at 5:15 pm
[...] The “Take Back Our Highways” blitz has tallied 16,697 violations as of this morning, mostly for speeding. Flashpoint points out how much revenue this means for the state. Still, I don’t like how fast some people go when I’m driving on the interstates. I think it’s reasonable to enforce some regulations on public roads. Even though I got a ticket, I was going to write a post giving some credit to the “Take Back Our Highways” campaign. [...]