Patrol institutes one-stop-per-hour requirement

[Pilgrim]

But I have a major gripe in general with LE using tickets/arrests/etc as a measure of effectiveness. If any LE agency is truly effective, there would be zero tickets/arrests because everyone is obeying the "law." Of course, that pre-supposes that the goal of LE in general is to provide a safer society rather than enhance the coffers and power of the almighty government.

For fines to be truly effective in ensuring compliance, they will have to be truly painful. As it stands in most states, the fine structure resembles more a tax on the unlawful behavior. The state tolerates the behavior as long as the state can make money on it.

One possible punishment that just might result in everyone obeying the "law" is upon conviction for a violation have the sheriff seize and sell the violator's car at public auction. The violator is still responsible to pay off the finance company for whatever he owes on the car.

Habitual violators will soon find themselves unable to buy a car because they owe so many finance companies for previous cars that were seized and sold. Eventually, your desired goal of zero tickets/arrests will be met because only the law abiding drivers can afford cars.

Pilgrim

 

[joab]

We're trying to set at least a minimum of one stop per hour

The average officer and sergeant now makes 0.88 stops per non-obligated hour,

that each Highway Patrol officer must issue a minimum of 12 tickets a year for alcohol-related offenses

The average officer now issues 17-18 citations a year for alcohol-related crimes now,

So the powers have set a goal of less in one example and only slightly higher in the other than what is now being done, and somehow this will result in mass abuse of police powers?

I am willing to bet, is revenue generation. Good ole money.

These stops do not have to result in a patrol officer issuing tickets to drivers,

Now that's a helluva way to run a slush fund

the need to reduce Montana's alcohol-related highway fatalities, which have been among the nation's highest.

I wonder if this distinction could have in anyway played a part in this decision.

 

[Igloodude]

For all of you that are (legitimately) pointing out that this is Montana and not some busy interstate in a megalopolis area, I agree that a 'guideline' of one stop per hour may be excessive if there are few vehicles on that stretch of road, but in that case what is the cop doing patrolling that road in the first place?

I don't much see the point of a traffic enforcement patrol that hardly sees any traffic.

 

[Greg L]

If there is only one officer on duty in the county, I for one would rather that he be out driving around rather than sitting at the station surfing the net.

If he is out driving around he'll be on some road somewhere, light traffic or not. I agree that running radar is not a good use of the officer on those roads, but driving around isn't completely a bad thing (showing the flag as it were).

But the article said that every officer (not just those doing traffic enforcement) must pull someone over every hour .

 

[scubie02]

For all of you that are (legitimately) pointing out that this is Montana and not some busy interstate in a megalopolis area, I agree that a 'guideline' of one stop per hour may be excessive if there are few vehicles on that stretch of road, but in that case what is the cop doing patrolling that road in the first place?

well, to MY mind the main function of the police should be to protect and serve--to be looking out for people. Being on the road so they can stop and help out a stranded motorist--thats a nice, useful thing to be doing. I don't even mind them pulling over some reckless driver that's weaving in and out of traffic and speeding at unreasonable speeds.

Unfortunately, much of traffic enforcement these days is self perpetuating in nature--you give out tickets to make money to help fill state coffers, police retirement systems, and to keep the system running at full speed. Not at all the same thing. Poo poo the idea that tickets are a revenue raiser? I used to work in the state senate on a transportation committee, and I can tell you absolutely that its a major revenue raiser, and it is used as such.

 

[centac]

Just a wild guess but I bet the officers will go to where the cars actually are, not lurk some desolate two-track waiting for Joe the lonesome sheepherder to drift left of center.

You would rather the cops do nothing? (clearly) You have to measure productivity somehow. They are called the Highway Patrol for a reason.

"..you didn't come to a full stop at that last lite...

...you failed to use your turn signal properly...

...your tail light appeared to function intermittently...

...your vehicle matched a description of another vehicle..."

These are all violations where I am at, the last being a legitimate form of PC if the vehicle does match.

 

[cropcirclewalker]

Yo, Mr. Amendment, you forgot

...Driving While Black...
and
...Driving While Poor...

Since I am not black, I get pulled over mostly in my old truck.

Yes, it's old and yes, it's rusty but I don't drive it much and it gets me where I want to go.

 

[centac]

Btw.....

While we are talking about traffic enforcement as revenue generation, try calculating the per-hour operating cost for a trooper- ya got pay, obviously, but then tack on benefits (insurance, retirement, etc), equipment (cost, maintenance, depreciation), fuel, vehicle bonds & insurance, dispatchers, supervision, training, and so forth.....not really a whole lot of profit to be made on one $75 equipment violation an hour.

There have been noteworthy example where small, low overhead departments have used tickets as revenue generators (see New Rome, Ohio) but by and large it doesnt really work that well on the average. Many Highway Patrols are funded by fuel taxes. Typically fines go into general coffers and not back to the agency. If I write a $150 speeding ticket it goes to the general court fund, there isnt any guarantee my agency will see any part of it. And no, if a county commissioner tells the Shuruff to crank out some paper he will be told to pound it, just like always on everything.

 

[TallPine]

You have to measure productivity somehow.

Well, how about something like reduction of accidents? (in the case of HP)
But basically, LE is not productive in the normal sense of the word in any event (X many hours --> Y many widgets). LE is most effective when they have nothing to do but drive or walk around and smile and wave. (Unless of course, the goal is to harrass and fleece the citizenry, rather than achieve a safe environment.)


Some of you don't know what you're talking about. There are a lot of miles of 2-lane roads with minimal traffic, compared with what you are used to. But if the state is going to have HP at all, then the lonely areas need it as much (or more) than the interstates. Accidents do happen, and you don't want the nearest HP to be 250 miles away at the time. I was a passenger in a minor accident a few years ago, and we had to wait in miserable cold foggy weather for over an hour for HP to arrive to investigate (county not allowed to on state/federal hiways ).

HP in MT also backs up county sheriffs on occasion, on anything from serving papers to wildfire evacuations. And you never know what the entertainment of the day will be ... a few months back, a HP and sheriffs of two counties were occupied with sheep on the hiway from a trailer that apparently didn't have the tailgate door closed. Scared, injured, and dead sheep scattered for 20 miles I wonder how many "contacts" that operation counted for ...?

 

[gc70]

Citing the legislators' decisions to boost patrol pay and staff, Grimstad said, "There is an expectation that they want some results, and we're trying to gear up for that to show we are worthy of the pay increase and the manpower increase."

Damned bureaucrats and administrators; they'll show their worthiness by bumping up the statistics.

 

[EVIL5LITER]

Look up the small town of Wilmer, AL. I grew up about 5 miles from there, along Hwy 98. At one time, it was the worst speed trap in America.

Before the city was shut down by the state, the officers on duty were required to issue 24 tickets per 8 hour shift. That's 3 stops per hour that result in a fine of some sort. And the fines were outrageous, usually $300+ dollars. Why is that outrageous? Because they haven't been a town in 20 years

 

[Ben Shepherd]

My youngest brother is a cop(one of the good ones, luckily). He and I were discussing this "quota" stuff. He sees it like most of us do as a BS revenue generating tactic.

Heck, you out to see one of our local pd's vs. the state highway patrol jockeying for position on the one major interstate through the area. Concerened about safety my A !!!!! More like keeping the city coffers full!!

You know cops used to be commonly refered to as "peace officers", now they are almost always refered to as "law enforcement". Subtle, but VERY IMPORTANT difference.

 

[cloudkiller]

A few rambling notes on this issue...

1. I don't know if someone mentioned this already, but the reason Montana may be doing this is because of bad publicity over their road safety. I think that they they were pretty high on a recent list of places with the most unsafe roads, or deadly roads or somesuch. Apparently people tend to die a lot more often on rural, 2-lane roads where you can drive way too fast, and where you likely will die before someone can get you to a hospital.

2. I think that pre-budgeting revenues from fines, violations, etc should be illegal. If agencies were required to put 90% of fine revenues into a state rainy day fund, or education fund, or superfund cleanup fund, revenue-driven law enforcement would stop. I work with a lot of state regulators who genuinely care about what they do, and who can only do their job because they pay their way with fines. I just think this is the wrong approach.

 

[mountainclmbr]

If you make enough arbitrary laws, you get to cash in on the guilt. You also create a huge class of people who no longer respect the people who have become back-alley tax collectors.

 

[cracked butt]

Our village is going through the same thing, they recently fired a cop because he wrote far fewer tickets than any of the other cops in the village. His defense was that he felt that his duty as a cop meant patrolling neighborhoods to try to reduce the property crime, rather than sitting near the freeway and ticketing the people coming through with the official offense of the month -tinted windows, speeding, seatbelt violations, trucks with brake linings .001" out of spec for fundraising purposes.

 

[Khaotic]

Ludicrous.

This is as bad as what a few of the local departments have tried around here.

They arbitrarily set up a "Seatbelt Checkpoint" - block up traffic, stop EVERYONE and hassle them to some degree, under the supposed guise of checking seatbelts, but what it amounts to is an illegal stop-and-search "dragnet", and they're especially hostile to DWA (Driving While Arabic, Dearborn, MI has a really high percentage of pretty cool arabic-descended folk..) and it's opened these departments to legal action, no doubt.

No going around em either, cause that "looks suspicious" and comes under probable cause, likely... of course, when one has sharp eyes and full offroad capability...

Be damned if I take the whole checkpoint-charlie routine very well, and the only time they stopped me and gave me the LE equivalent of "papers pleeze!", I handed them my lawyers card and told em to arrest me then, cause I wasn't giving over...
(I do not reccomend YOU do this, I am local, known to be eccentric and harmless)
He handed it back and waved me through.

"Sobriety Checkpoints" fall under the same general logic - if said checkpoint is in place for "X reason", then "X reason" had damned well BETTER be the ONLY thing they are enforcing - otherwise it's just an illegal stop and search dragnet and shakedown.

As far as the 1-per-hour scam, look... there are so many laws on the books that we're knee deep and trippin over em, basically you could arrest anyone on that logic, which is ludicrous and a waste of resources in an unfeasible enforcement environment, we trained the cop to make stop/no-stop decisions, so let him do his (or her) JOB instead of second guessing in this case.

It's an idiotic policy and most LEO's will resent it as much or more than we.
Nobody likes needless nitpick second guessing.

-K

 

[benEzra]

Apparently people tend to die a lot more often on rural, 2-lane roads where you can drive way too fast

Actually, you can drive faster on most Interstates (I've seen light traffic running 100mph on portions of I-85 in NE Alabama). The reason twisty, 2-lane, rural roads have a higher fatality rate are that they are twisty and 2-lane (think bad visibility due to curves, narrower lanes, worse road conditions, animals, people pulling out from driveways, people crossing the center line into your lane, people trying to pass in the face of oncoming traffic, etc.).

Lots of rural, twisty 2-lanes around here, and they are definitely more dangerous driving than a high-speed Interstate.