Speed Laws Good, Speeding Tickets Bad

First, I have not recently (nor ever) gotten a speeding ticket. Though, this has less to do with any virtue on my part and more luck or providence. I have, however, moved into a neighborhood where a cop has a speed trap setup just down the street at least once a week.

I like speed laws, mostly. When speed laws are intended to improve general road safety, I think they are good. I believe that many roads have speed limits set too low and a few set too high, but overall, speed laws improve the general safety of roads. A law that is not enforced isn't obeyed, so I believe that enforcement of speed laws is also a necessity.

However, the goal of such enforcement should also be the goal of the law itself, to improve safety. Yet, I do not believe that the goal of speeding tickets is that of safety, but rather that of revenue. This because completely apparent when one, generally around the age of 10 or 12, discovers that traffic officers are often assigned a "quota" of revenue they must bring in via speeding tickets. That is, each officer is expected to bring in a certain number of tickets to be paid to the city in the form of tax revenue. This is sick. In my opinion, this turns an otherwise straight peace keeper into a tax collector and a highway robber. I wouldn't be at all surprised to learn that this isn't the view held by many police officers.

Add to this the fact that the places cops stake out aren't places where safety is an important issue. For example, just west of where I live, I pass a cop running a speed trap on Kimble (in the parking lot shown in the center here). The speed limit on this stretch of road is 30, for a very wide, straight 4 lane stretch. Cops sit here because you have to brake while coasting down the hill if you want to stay within a reasonable approximation of the speed limit. This is stupid. I have a hard time imagining this particular stretch of road being nearly as dangerous as other places in town, such as around Aggieville, or even other stretches of Kimble that are very narrow, include and S-curve, and the speed limit is 40.

My solution? I don't know if I have thought through a complete one, but I think handing out community service punishments rather than fines would be a very good deterrent for speeding and would eliminate the profit potential for the city. Another alternative would be to force the city to donate all procedes from speeding tickets to charities for victims of traffic accidents or something similar, though this still strikes me as a little too convenient. Of course, none of this is ideal, but I think fines simply encourage abuse by localities and this form of taxation should stop. Let traffic laws be for safety, not so that your town can make a few extra bucks.