Federally funded "ticket blitzes" are thinly veiled safety programs which bring in revenue for police and the state.
Fredricksburg, VA - As politicians threaten to raise gas taxes and tolls to pay for needed highway work, hundreds of millions of dollars are being siphoned off to set speed traps and fund “ticket blitzes,” a motorists’ association charges.
Across Virginia, money-hungry municipalities enforce arbitrarily low speed limits and stage flashy red-light campaigns to nab drivers.
Traffic engineers at the National Motorists Association say the so-called “safety” initiatives are making roads more dangerous.
“Selective enforcement,” a catch-all category in federal highway funding, pays local and state police overtime to wage ticket blitzes by land and air. For fiscal 2011, the state obtained $28.3 million via the program.
In all, states received $773 million in selective- enforcement grants through the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
“It focuses on roadways with dangerously low speed limits and intersections with dangerously short yellow intervals,” contends Joe Bahen, a Richmond-based representative of the NMA.
The largest grant to Virginia State Police helped fund a two-day Operation Air, Land and Speed on Interstates 81 and 95 last May 22 and 23. The payoff was 5,814 tickets written May 22-23, with 90 percent of the citations for speeding.
There is scant data to prove that the millions spent on selective enforcement is making the roads safer.
Bahen, a public engineer, asserts that the blitzes “actually increase crash rates as they cause some drivers to drive below the prevailing speed of traffic.”
In fiscal 2010, off-duty state troopers received $875,000 in federally funded overtime pay to conduct six two-day blitzes.
“They wrote approximately 36,000 summonses, mostly at speed traps that have severely under-posted speed limits,” Bahen said.
“The return on investment at Bryan Park is huge,” Bahen reports. “The operating expense of a trooper and cruiser is less than $50 per hour. Since virtually all drivers are exceeding the unrealistic 55 mph limit, each trooper can easily write three tickets per hour.”
With fines averaging about $250 per ticket, one officer can gross $750 per hour. And if overtime is involved, the feds’ selective-enforcement fund also covers the added payroll costs.
Veronique DeRugy, senior research fellow at the libertarian-leaning Mercatus Center at George Mason University, said the percentage of gas-tax revenues dedicated to road construction and maintenance has been shrinking under the growing weight of “safety” initiatives.
“States are incorrigible spenders. They’re using these so-called safety programs to raise money, and to continue to spend more money,” she said.
Another federally financed ticket blitz, called “National Stop on Red Week is another thinly veiled money making program.
"The powerful PSA is a reminder to all drivers during Stop on Red Week – and year round – that failure to stop on red is life-threatening."
Once again these questionable"safety reports" are being published by the Texas A&M Transportation Institute & DHS.
Is the public really so gullible that we believe these programs are about safety?
http://watchdog.org/64378/va-federally-funded-ticket-blitzes-trap-endanger-motorists/
For more about who's behind this national safety(spying) program read:
Lawmakers propose bar codes & transponders to be put on every license plate:
http://massprivatei.blogspot.com/2012/12/lawmakers-propose-bar-codes-rfid.html