Ticket quota drives Colorado Springs, Colorado officers to falsify their daily activity reports.

News organizations in Colorado Springs, Colorado this week uncovered a ticket quota that drove a pair of cops to falsify speeding ticket records. Officers Dan Myers and Elvin Hill were not accused of ticketing innocent motorists. Instead, they issued 197 citations but claimed credit for 407 in their official Daily Activity Report database entries between January 2 and February 12 this year.

Their actions suggested a ticket quota to the Colorado Springs Gazette and KRDO television, who put in requests for departmental records. They discovered a number of documents outlining “Performance Objectives” that said “Officers will average a minimum of 2.2 violations” per hour. That means officers on ten-hour shifts had to write 22 tickets per day. Departmental supervisors said this was an easy burden for officers.

“I’ve had several guys that write more than several times that,” Sergeant Steve Weber told the Gazette. “The majority of these guys don’t even have to worry about these numbers. These are really for our low performers.”

Still, officials denied that this requirement amounted to a ticket quota designed solely to raise revenue. In 2005, the number of citations jumped twelve percent, generating $8.6 million in revenue as the number of accidents also rose fifteen percent.

Myers and Hill retired on July 2, avoiding any sanction for their actions.

source: www.thenewspaper.com

Montana state lawmaker seeks to outlaw red light cameras.

The Montana state House Transportation Committee yesterday held a hearing on legislation designed to thwart municipal attempts to install red light cameras. The city of Bozeman had hoped to have its automated ticketing machines operational by May, but state Representative Bill Nooney (R-Missoula) wants to cut the program off before it can begin.

“An automated enforcement system designed to detect traffic violations that is attached to a traffic control device may not be used to enforce traffic laws,” House Bill 531 states.

The Bozeman City Commission voted 4-1 last October to enter into a multimillion dollar agreement with an Australian firm, Redflex Traffic Systems, to set up cameras at six intersections. Under the deal, Redflex would pay for the right to issue the $135 citations in the city’s name. These tickets would go to drivers who make right-hand turns on red, slide through an icy intersection during the winter and who enter an intersection a fraction of a second after the light turns red.

After a number of independent studies began to show that the devices fail to deliver the promised safety benefit, some states moved to ban their use (view studies). Mississippi’s state House voted nearly unanimously last week to ban photo ticketing. Alaska, Arkansas, Minnesota, Nebraska, Nevada, Utah, West Virginia and Wisconsin banned automated citations either through judicial or legislative action. In other cases, the public has taken matters into its own hands. Cincinnati and Steubenville, Ohio recently voted to ban speed and red light cameras. Between 1991 and 1997, voters also turned out in Batavia, Illinois; Peoria, Arizona and Anchorage, Alaska to reject photo radar.

Source: www.thenewspaper.com

You’ve known it was coming. Now, a $100+ fine will await those who run a red light at the first red light camera monitored intersection in KC.

A camera system has been watching red-light scofflaws since last month at 39th Street and Southwest Trafficway, but it won’t involve penalties until Saturday. By the end of next month, five other Kansas City intersections will join in.

(Click on the picture below to enlarge.)

Motorcycle officers in Colorado Springs should each be writing a minimum of 11 tickets a day, and their counterparts in patrol cars should issue at least one, according to internal police documents. But these aren’t quotas, Police Chief Richard Myers said.

During an impromptu media briefing Friday, Myers described them as guidelines that help supervisors keep track of their officers’ job performance while ensuring the Police Department is delivering on its goal of reducing the injuries, deaths and property damage that result from traffic crashes.

“We have more people killed on highways in this city than we do in homicides,” he said. “This is not about revenue.” A form for evaluating motorcycle officers includes the following “performance objective”: “Officers will average a minimum of 2.2 violations” an hour.

Two violations can be written on the same ticket, so the objective asks for at least 11 tickets during a 10-hour shift and up to 22, police said. They are to be issued at the top 25 crash locations in the city, the form says, underscoring Myers’ directive that police “go where the crashes are” in a bid to prevent them.

“I’ve had several guys that write more than several times that,” said Sgt. Steve Weber, a supervisor in the motorcycle unit. “The majority of these guys don’t even have to worry about these numbers. These are really for our low performers.”

Ticket quotas – feared and despised by drivers everywhere – demand that officers meet goals or face mandatory discipline, Myers told reporters. That’s not the case here, he said. Most officers have little problem exceeding the guidelines, and those who fail are excused if they can demonstrate they were busy pursuing calls and other duties, he said. Written and verbal communication, “customer service,” initiative and use of time, teamwork, leadership and problem solving are among other categories considered during an officer’s three annual performance reviews, documents show.

“We look at the total package. That’s the difference,” Myers said.

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Mississippi state House votes 117-3 to ban red light and speed cameras. Public protest against photo ticketing grows in Maryland and Missouri.

A near-unanimous Mississippi state House of Representatives voted Wednesday to ban red light cameras and speed cameras while anti-camera citizen protest movements gathered steam in other parts of the country. Mississippi state Representative Edward Blackmon, Jr. (D-Canton) inadvertently kicked off the effort when he introduced a measure designed to give legislative approval to the use of photo enforcement so long as ticket records were not shared with insurance companies. Blackmon’s proposal was a clever way to encourage the city councils of Columbus, Jackson, McComb, Natchez, Southaven and Tupelo, all of which have approved red light camera ordinances, in the guise of placing limitations on automated ticketing machines.

The state House Judiciary Committee would have none of it. The panel rewrote Blackmon’s measure to ban not just the reporting of photo tickets to insurance companies, but also the issuance a photo ticket for any offense other than a toll violation.

“A civil or criminal traffic citation may not be issued as the result of the use of automated recording equipment on state, county or municipal highways, roads and streets, and any evidence obtained from such use shall not be reported to the Department of Public Safety for any purpose, to any person or entity for the use on any credit report or to any insurance company for insurance purposes,” House Bill 1568 now states.

Blackmon was one of only three House members who voted against the revised legislation which now heads to the state Senate for its consideration.

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