I just found this thread. the New York Troopers fought back raising the speed limi from 55MPH when the rest of the country was at 70MPH. They complained that an increase would cause more deaths. Fast forward some 20 years plus and national stats indicate both accident and auto deaths are down. I will concur that safer vehicles contributes to the good stats.
I have repeatedly read in this thread that police do not give tickets as a source of revenue. If not then why is it everytime police begin contract negotiations the first thing they reference is how they can slow up on issuing tickets. Police will never admit it but they patrol or park and wait in areas they know are easy pickings because of the nature of the area such as easily missing the speed limit changing from 45 to 35 ...and guess at which line the police officer waits? It isn't getting a ticket that gets me its the hypocrisy of it. The same applies to red light cameras wherein the timing of changes of the caution (yellow) can be manipulated. Keep in mind the companies selling, installing and maintaining theese lights split the revnue. But you will never win that argument because the public message is "we are keeping your roadways safe". Also keep in mind when an officer investigaterd an accident and can't pinpoint the cause he/she normally will default to "speed too fast for conditions" Its a catchall. Please understand I have great respect for police officers and the work they do but the ticket issuance has always set badly with me and I only got one ticket in my life. I don't like to putt putt around in my car but I do here because they have too many speed traps here and you are bound to get ticket no matter how diligent you are determined to be. But right or wrong that is why they do it. It doesn't make sense and the traffic engineer in an earlier post was spot on. Whenever anyone says "it ain't about the money", its about the money
By the way an ex-police officer (Florida) was looking in TV as he retired. He made mention as to his pension and free medical. His pension and benefits far exceeded in 20 years what most people from the private sector make after 35-40 years.
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