[viraptor]

What do you mean by "targets"? If people are fined for something they did, then it's not a problem. If they're going to be fined even though they're not guilty, they should be able to challenge it and go to court. Or is it a different situation?

[dkarl]

I live in a city where speed limits are sensibly enforced. Lazy cops don't randomly set up shop and start ticketing people for normal, safe behavior. Officers here are known to sit beside the freeway letting hundreds of people drive by at 70-75 mph and then go lights flashing after the one guy weaving in and out of traffic at 90 mph. That kind of sanity is impressive to me, who never expected professionalism and intelligence (of all things!) out of police officers.

The reason people complain about speeding tickets is that speed limits are inconsistently enforced. Speed limits are usually about 10 mph too low for normal conditions, and enforcement reflects that. Yet in some places, enforcement is strict, and it's impossible to predict where without local knowledge. For instance, on a major road near my apartment that goes out to some major suburbs, there is a little stretch going through a separate municipality where the speed limit drops inexplicably and is very strictly enforced, practically 24/7. All the locals know it, but woe to the out-of-towner who fails to heed the locals' example and hit the brakes.

But at least that's consistent. Where I grew up, inconsistency was the key. You never saw them set up twice in the same place, unless the speed limit was especially unreasonable at that place. Enforcement was so random that everybody ignored it, and everybody had paranoid theories. (It's the end of the month; they're just filling their quotas. My ex-wife's brother is a cop, I bet he asked his buddy to go after me. Goddamn white cops don't like seeing a Mexican with a pretty white girl. Goddamn Mexican cops don't like seeing a white guy with a pretty Mexican girl.) There was no pragmatic benefit to ticketing people for driving safe, normal speeds, so naturally everybody came up with unflattering theories and nobody changed their driving behavior.

So yeah, traffic citations can be bullshit even if the driver is guilty.

[matwood]

I think I understand what the poster was talking about. I live in a decent neighborhood where it's mostly on street parking. The way my street sets up, even though it is a 2-way street it's mostly one way traffic. This leads to people parallel parking on both sides of the street while facing the same way (it's a fine to parallel park facing opposite of traffic). When I moved in over 18 months ago everyone was parked incorrectly. I parked incorrectly for 13 months before one night on the last day of the month we all received $30 parking fines at 3am.

I talked to a few of my neighbors and this was the first time they had seen fines given. I along with others parked the wrong direction for at least 13 months without a fine. So, either police never patrolled our neighborhood during that time or they decided to apply the law only when they feel like it, i.e. to meet their quota. Revenue generation at its finest!

[viraptor]

That is something I don't really agree with. Maybe they didn't patrol that area, maybe they didn't have enough people, maybe for some other reason...

Anyways, you know you can get a fine for parking the wrong way, yet you did it. If you said you don't agree with that rule, I might concur. What exactly did they do wrong? I hope that since then everyone is parking correctly. Isn't that the whole point of fining people?

[matwood]

If you're right about not patrolling then that means they NEVER drove through my rather small townhouse community in almost 13 months. So much for police doing routine patrols.

What bothered me about the whole thing was inconsistent enforcement. It's okay to park that way for over a year and then one day it's not. Enforcing an ordinance or law only when it's convenient (to hit a quota) for the officer makes me think the particular law isn't about safety but about revenue generation. If it was truly about safety it would be enforced all of the time.

[stcredzero]

A friend of mine in college challenged his "wrong wheels to curb" ticket and got it summarily dismissed because the officer didn't want to bother.

[pmichaud]

This identical thing happened to me.

[steveklabnik]

I got a fine once. Yeah, I was speeding: a 4 lane road with no turns and actual curbs, 35 mph. I was going at the speed of the rest of the traffic, 45mph.

They keep the speed limit like that and set up traps all the time. Laws != morals, and when the police are treated as a revenue center, it's bad.

[Anechoic]

What do you mean by "targets"? If people are fined for something they did, then it's not a problem.

A lot of it has to with "equal enforcement" - take a look at mj enforcement in CA as described in http://reason.com/blog/2010/07/01/california-naacp-backs-mar... (leave aside for a moment the wisdom/necessity of the drug war) - I'm sure most of the people arrested for mj broke the law and deserved the consequences. but it as a negative effect on the targeted segment and not the population aa a whole. That puts one segment at a disadvantage in other aspects of life (getting a job, getting housing, etc).

BTW, don't know why you got downvoted, you simply asked a question.

[tbrownaw]

> broke the law and deserved the consequences

Not much connection there, even for reasonable laws the sentences are often a bit on the extreme side.

[ronnier]

Aggressively patrol certain areas. (Yes I'm bitter and somewhat ranting)