I posted back on September 5 on my genuine gratitude for getting a traffic ticket. Today, I learned that the cost of the ticket for my illegal right turn will be $410. It’s a bit pricier than I expected, but nothing we can’t take care of. Despite the surprise at the number, I stand by what I said:
I’ll pay the ticket gladly when it comes. It’s not that I enjoy paying fines, mind you. But I know that the money I will pay will go to help support vital services in the county and the community. I know that I have deserved innumerable citations in the past for unsafe decisions I’ve made behind the wheel from Pasadena to Perthshire, Carmel to Carmarthen, Fort Lauderdale to Fort William. Whatever the cost of this ticket, it’s a small price to pay for my many mistakes in the past. And if it has the effect I hope it has, it will remind me to be a more attentive driver.
It does make me realize that it was a great privilege for me to write a long post about my reaction to being cited — without having one of those reactions be fear about how to pay the fine! Better me who can afford it, I suppose, than some other poor driver who can’t.
The first time I got a ticket, for an illegal left turn in West Los Angeles in 1989, the fine was $45. I had just started grad school, and I worried about how to pay that citation much more than I worry now about the current one. The difference seventeen years makes…
$410 for a ticket and a lot of people would be burnt to a crisp. I’d be pretty toasted myself. And if that had happened to me, the “vital services” I’d want that money to go to would be my groceries, my heating bill, and my tuition.
And you can be sure, Hugo, that it wasn’t just people like you who got slammed for the high crime of not coming to a full stop before making a right on red.
Police, poverty, politics - they are joined real close. Our responsibility as people who can afford to pay the fine should be to fight this oppressive system - not lavish praise on it and then admit how we are privileged enough to be able to do so. Admitting privilege doesn’t buy anyone’s groceries. It doesn’t stop the police and the politicians who can’t find another way to raise $410 from continuing to pilage the poor. It’s not enough.
i recently procured a moving traffic violation ticket of $350 dollars for making a rolling stop right turn on a red light (in the middle of the night while on my way to in&out burgers for a late night snack; although that does not justify anything). i must say, to date, it is the most expensive take-out burger i have had (or about to) pay for. ouch. i have been trying to contest the ticket to no luck and i have till the end of this week to either pay the fine (and attend traffic school) or try once more, i wonder how it will go.
The nice thing about traffic tickets is that they are equal-opportunity pillage: the rich as well as the poor are forbidden to blow through red lights and force pedestrians to scramble out of the way.
I fight pretty much every ticket I receive, justified or not. In general, I can afford an occasional $300 ticket, but the thought of paying the insurance companies an extra $300 every six months for the next three years burns me up. They can go enrich plaintiff’s lawyers on someone else’s dime.
Mythago, they’re not quite equal opportunity. As is probably common knowledge, young and even moderately attractive females rarely get tickets. I have friends who have been pulled over more times than I can count on my extremities, and received but 1 or 2 tickets. I myself have been pulled over once for driving with expired tabs. He took a glance at my drivers license, flirted a bit, and sent me off with a mild warning and a smile. I also had my old, expired insurance cards in the car, but he didn’t ask for them.
Although I’m not necessarily complaining for being let off the hook, it is a bit odd how difficult it is for (male) officers to give tickets to young females. I suppose class was related as well, because I’m sure he assumed that someone who drives my vehicle can certainly afford tabs, but just forgot to stick them on. If I were driving a beat up Chevy, the result might have been different.
As is probably common knowledge, young and even moderately attractive females rarely get tickets.
I’ll have to pass that on to the young and moderately attractive female friends of mine who gripe about their speeding tickets. If only they knew that they shouldn’t be getting any…
Seriously, though, it’s one thing to argue that traffic enforcement isn’t fair (and something more than ‘everyone knows’ would be preferable for evidence). It’s another to insist that it’s per se evil and oppressive to enforce traffic laws. I mean, should we just decide everybody could drive however they want? Or should we substitute jail time for fines?
Perhaps I was generalizing, but it should be clear that I was speaking from personal experience only; there are probably few, if any, research studies done on the topic…I know my statement to be true, from the experiences of myself and all my female friends.
Your slippery slope argument (positing the alternative to a serious analysis of race and to a lesser extent class biases in the criminal justice system against complete lawlessness) is troublesome. Are you implicitly arguing that we should leave things the way they are? That when we start to analyze the huge structural problems within policing, we are heading towards a world without order?? If not, what are you saying? I generally agree with BJ’s post…
I’ve been treated better by police officers most of my life, largely because I am clean-cut, unfailingly polite, and white.
We should certainly enforce traffic laws, but I think it’s per se oppressive to charge everyone the same amount regardless of their income. The point is to deter bad driving, but it takes a higer price tag to deter a rich person.
Since traffic tickets are also a money-maker for the police, having income-scaled tickets would also encourage them to focus their enforcement on the rich — which might just balance out the current discriminatory enforcement.
Hugo, I applaud your attitude, though I have to say as a court employee in Washington State, I’m surprised at the amount of the ticket. I don’t deal much with infractions, though I have entered about a hundred of them. Most of them were for speedy, driving without insurance, improper lane usage, carpool violations, and haven’t encountered turning after failing to make a complete stop, but usually the fine is between $100-$200. Though here the officer would also have given the amount due on the ticket, you wouldn’t have received anything in the mail. But back to you, if only more people took that attitude. I can’t tell you how tired I get of receiving phone calls from people screaming vile things at me and I know our police officers get more of the same and worse in person.
As far as young females being let off the hook, that hasn’t been my experience. I have been stopped three times for speeding and was ticketed each time. I was stopped another time for expired tabs, but had the tabs in the glove box, apologized profusely and agreed to immediately put them on. It might have helped that I was still wearing my ID badge around my neck. Regardless, I did not get a ticket that time.
We should certainly enforce traffic laws, but I think it’s per se oppressive to charge everyone the same amount regardless of their income. The point is to deter bad driving, but it takes a higer price tag to deter a rich person.
Since traffic tickets are also a money-maker for the police, having income-scaled tickets would also encourage them to focus their enforcement on the rich — which might just balance out the current discriminatory enforcement.
I hear they’ve had this in place in Finland for several years already. Would it work here? Or would the rich “protest” too much about it?…
Traffic Tickets are much much more than just enforcing traffic laws. They are often abused as a sourse of income for cities. The small town speed trap is pretty common around here. Towns where more than 75% of their income is gathered though tickets. We in our state even had to pass a law limiting the percentage of income for a city gathered from traffic tickets. It was getting out of hand here.
Traffic tickets are often used as fishing expeditions. They often give officers the opportunity to observe you up close and to look for other more serious (bigger fines, jail time, court fees,etc) crimes.
Racial profiling is rampant in our state as well. Police will tell you that they are more likely to pull over minorities because they are more likely to find contraband or other reasons to make arrests ( the bigger the bust, the bigger the boost).
Are you really so sure that the money you’re paying is going to vital, positive services?
Traffic ticket money in my city goes to pay for “cleaning up downtown” programs that harass and ban homeless people from public space, wash away graffiti, and make the services harder for poor people to access. Maybe you live somewhere where the municipal government is nicer, but I’m inclined to think you’re being a bit naive.
This isn’t to say that I’m opposed to the idea of consequences for traffic violations, but I am against those consequences being monetary.