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Police that collect more in fees and fines are less effective at solving crime

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Re: Police that collect more in fees and fines are less effective at solving crime

#61

Post by fmfm »

maxsilver wrote: post #52
ransom1538 wrote: post #40

Our local police department (Oviedo florida) takes a police car 200 ft from the station and sits it by a 25mph zone that feeds into a 50 mph zone [1]. Now that my wife and I have both been ticketed (30mph) we go the speed limit -- what is even more weird --- going 25mph near a freeway is really dangerous as cars honk and freak out behind you swerving to get around you. https://www.google.com/maps/place/28%C2%B038'57.…

This is one of the few areas where Michigan leads with strong quality legislation. Michigan Public Act 85 of 2006 requires speed limits to be set to reasonable speeds for traffic (generally based on the 85th Percentile rule), so as not to artificially incriminate the general population. It overrides local laws, so it also prevents corrupt municipalities and/or corrupt police departments from lowering the speed limits…

>Michigan Public Act 85 of 2006 requires speed limits to be set to reasonable speeds for traffic (generally based on the 85th Percentile rule), so as not to artificially incriminate the general population.

While I applaud the intention behind this law, I hope you're overstating Michigan's reliance on the 85th percentile rule. For the uninitiated, "The 85th percentile speed refers to the speed at or below which 85% of vehicles are traveling" [1] as measured by a speed survey of current conditions.

The problem with the 85th percentile rule is that it completely ignores the safety of other road users and the surrounding community, taking drivers perception of safety as fact. I think drivers tend to underestimate the risk that increased speed poses to pedestrians and bicyclists, especially in urban and suburban areas.

Problems exist even on roads that only allow drivers: 'Raising the speed limit to match the 85th percentile speed may lead to higher operating speeds, and hence a higher 85th percentile speed. This generates an undesirable cycle of speed escalation and reduced safety. As a 2016 Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) report stated, “The 85th percentile speed is not a stationary point. It is, rather, a moving target that increases when speed limits are raised” (Farmer 2016).'

Rather than relying primarily on the 85th percentile rule, I hope Michigan gives full weight to the additional factors the MUTCD manual mentions, like “(A) road characteristics, shoulder condition, grade, alignment, and sight distance; (B) the pace; (C) roadside development and environment; (D) parking practices and pedestrian activity; and (E) reported crash experience for at least a 12-month period” [1].

If after considering these factors the road is still a speed trap, then the road should be redesigned to align drivers expectations with the posted speed [2], not the other way around.

[1] https://www.ntsb.gov/safety/safety-studies/Documents/SS1701.... [2] methods include narrowing lane width, eliminating or reducing shoulders, reducing the number of lanes, increasing road curvature with pedestrian islands, speed bumps, etc

Re: Police that collect more in fees and fines are less effective at solving crime

#63

Post by prepend »

stevew20 wrote: post #38
prepend wrote: post #16

I wasn’t able to find any controls for the possibility of high percent fee-funded police department having lower ability to invest in quality workforce and training. I see the correlation, but not the causal link. Is high fee a symptom of lower effectiveness rather than high fees causing lower effectiveness? Or they have no causal link at all? This seems pretty important, anybody else get this from the paper? I’m int…

Instead of pushing for a data driven conclusion, what about this: A police officer has 1.0 amount of time in a shift. If he spends 0.2 of his shift sitting at a speed trap trying to meet some quota, he has 0.8 of his shift left to patrol / help solve crimes; however, the reciprocal of this ratio could occur to, depending on which duties he is assigned. Now step back... The entire police force has 1.0 amount of time p…

Logically it makes sense, but would there be no officer at all without the .8 spent on speed traps? So is it bad governing that underfunds police so it must spent .8 on ticketing? Or is it the spending .8 of time on ticketing that causes less effective police?

As a programmer, I don’t agree with the absolute that someone who spends 90% of their day playing solitaire will be less productive than another spending 0% of their day.

Re: Police that collect more in fees and fines are less effective at solving crime

#64

Post by mc32 »

poulsbohemian wrote: post #54
mc32 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Problem with that is that for the most part speed is a pretty objective measure —whereas “dangerous driving” isn’t, so will result in uneven interpretation/application.

As someone who was ticketed for going the speed limit on a bright sunny day on a rural highway with no other cars around, where the cop wrote down two different speeds and it just happened to be the last day of the month... I assure you it is not always objective. Cost me 5x to fight it what the ticket would have been, but it's the principle of the matter.

I'm not discounting this issue. I'm sure it happens but: 1. having a speed limit allows you to know the cop was objectively wrong (barring broken speedometer). 2. Imagine the leeway cops would have if they had the discretion in determining "dangerous driving". The abuse would be even worse.

Re: Police that collect more in fees and fines are less effective at solving crime

#65

Post by BLKNSLVR »

merpnderp wrote: post #7
kgwxd wrote: post #6

It makes no sense that money police collects goes directly towards funding any government department. It should go into a tax refund pool.

I was trying to think of a place to stick the money that wouldn't incentivize over-policing and couldn't think of one. But your option is perfect. There's obviously no incentive for government employees to return money to tax payers, so if anything, this would incentivize under-enforcement of fines and fees.

Use it to fund Internal Affairs...

Re: Police that collect more in fees and fines are less effective at solving crime

#66

Post by BLKNSLVR »

grimjack00 wrote: post #27
jmulho wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are governments in rural areas funded by speed traps.

It'll be interesting to see what happens when autonomous cars that stick to the speed limit become the majority of traffic.

That's one of the near-future threats to government funding that is going to cause some very interesting public arguments that don't match the private fears.

- Autonomous cars will massively reduce income from speeding fines

- Electric cars will reduce the incoming tax revenue from buying fuel (in Australia this is a large component that also goes into funding the maintenance of the roads)

- Solar power reducing overall household spend on power, which is potentially another large source of tax revenue

The last two things keeps more money in the pockets of consumers, which will therefore probably get spent on other things, so could be closer to a zero-sum game than it looks.

Until some kind of rule change comes in to create new government revenue streams, it's the early adopters getting the benefits so far (for example, Australia is considering additional taxes on electric cars to make up for the 'road maintenance' component the government won't be getting due to their not buying fuel. No word on incentives for "clean air" or "reduced emissions" benefits though...).

Re: Police that collect more in fees and fines are less effective at solving crime

#67

Post by dang »

SteveParker60 wrote: post #12

[flagged]

Since you've posted nothing but unsubstantive comments, I've banned your account. It's not what this site is for.

If you don't want to be banned, read https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and feel free to email us at hn@ycombinator.com.

Re: Police that collect more in fees and fines are less effective at solving crime

#68

Post by dylan604 »

BLKNSLVR wrote: post #66
grimjack00 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It'll be interesting to see what happens when autonomous cars that stick to the speed limit become the majority of traffic.

That's one of the near-future threats to government funding that is going to cause some very interesting public arguments that don't match the private fears. - Autonomous cars will massively reduce income from speeding fines - Electric cars will reduce the incoming tax revenue from buying fuel (in Australia this is a large component that also goes into funding the maintenance of the roads) - Solar power reducing over…

Not to worry. I'm sure there will be a new autonomous vehicle registration fee to implemented to help offset any losses. This registration will of course be on top of any existing registration fees.

They could also use some sort of algorithm that looks at each driver's record. If you have a history of speeding, they can just go ahead and asses extra fees for you since the algorithm extrapolated you would have had more tickets anyways. If you have a clean record, then the algo will go ahead and decide you're "due" for a ticket, and charge you accordingly. Why not, insurance companies do it.

Re: Police that collect more in fees and fines are less effective at solving crime

#69

Post by Gustomaximus »

kgwxd wrote: post #6

It makes no sense that money police collects goes directly towards funding any government department. It should go into a tax refund pool.

It should be the same for govt asset sales. It should go into some common pool and have delayed release so you dont get politicians financing their budget via community owned assets.

Re: Police that collect more in fees and fines are less effective at solving crime

#70

Post by jonathankoren »

One of the reason why fine collection and civil forfeiture is prioritized is because of the underfunding of police and other basic services.[0] Politicians encourage this because they cut taxes too much, and this is a way to essentially impose a tax, but not call it a tax.

The police know the game, and so you end up with these bizarre situations like when the NYPD union announced they they were going to stick it to DeBlasio by making arrests “only when necessary.”[1] (Which of course is an implicit admission that arrests were being made that weren’t necessary.) The real target was the NYC budget, because the NYPD brings in half a billion dollars a year. (Over 10 million a week) That’s insane. Ironically, even though the police stopped citing people, crime remained low and steady.

[0] https://www.rand.org/blog/2015/03/to-serve-and-collect.html

[1] https://www.vox.com/2015/1/6/7501953/nypd-mayor-arrests-unio...

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