Taped evidence that Cottageville, South Carolina officials threatened to fire a police officer if he refused to generate revenue through traffic tickets.

A Cottageville, South Carolina police officer captured a conversation where the police chief and the mayor threatened to fire him unless he issued more traffic citations to generate revenue. On November 22, 2004, Mayor Bert Reeves and Police Chief Ray Taylor summoned Officer Jeremy Shomber to discuss his “poor performance.” Shomber’s wireless recorder used to document traffic stops had been activate at the time and the entire conversation was recorded. An anonymous source later provided the recording to the Charleston Post and Courier newspaper.

“The main priority right now when you’re driving is generating revenue,” Taylor said on the tape. “That’s in order to pay your position and yours is the lowest position. I’m just being point blank — technically, I’m not supposed to say that.”

Taylor and Reeves emphasized that details of the ticket quota — one ticket per hour — “needs to stay in this small circle.” Shomber, a rookie officer, objected to the idea that he should focus his police efforts solely on writing traffic citations, but Taylor and Reeves insisted that they would fire him if he did not comply.

“I don’t want to go around making people to be angry at me for doing something I shouldn’t be doing,” Shomber pleaded.

“If you’re not writing tickets, you’re not paying for yourself,” Mayor Reeves said. “You got a chip on your shoulder. As far as I’m concerned you’d be fired now. I want someone to play on my team…. If you got canned today, and you had to go out looking you’d come back in a couple months and say you know what, I had it made.”

In March, a Colleton County police officer ticketed Mayor Reeves for driving 103 MPH in a 55 zone. Listen to the exchange in a 2.8mb MP3 format audio file at the source link below.

Source: MP3 of Cottageville Quota Discussion (Cottageville Police, 7/3/2006)

Pendergrass, Georgia collects $1136 in ticket revenue for every resident.

Northeast Georgia’s number one speed trap for the past three years in a row is continuing to generate record profits from traffic fines. Last year, the Pendergrass Police Department collected $558,020 in fines with $312,636 in expenses leaving the department with a $245,384 net profit for the year.The two-square-mile town, through which U.S. 129 passes, has fewer than 500 residents. Police collect $1,136 in speeding tickets for every resident — an increase of $124 over the prior year’s figure. This amount far surpasses the revenue generated by the number two speed trap town of Arcade which pulled in just $264 in per capita ticket revenue. At number three, Madison County collected $118 in ticket revenue per capita.

“You could put Stevie Wonder out there, and he’d still give out as many tickets and make as many stops as we make,” Pendergrass Police Chief Rob Russell told the Athens Herald-Banner, which collected the statistics. “It’s just a function of our location.”

Source: (Athens Herald-Banner (GA), 10/8/2007)

Federal taxpayers fund effort by Galveston, Texas to raise revenue with low speed limits.

Funds from federal taxes on gasoline are diverted to uses unrelated to the upkeep and construction of existing and new roads.

In Galveston, Texas, for example, local officials are celebrating a $100,000 grant paid for by motorists around the country. The new money will be used to buy lidar guns — speed measuring devices that use laser instead of radar.

Galveston police will use these speed guns to issue speeding tickets to motorists in locations where the limits are posted so low that, in at least one case, 96 percent of motorists drive in perfect safety by ignoring it. In effect, the guns give local officers a license to write an expensive citation and hand it to any motorist of their choosing.

Traffic studies conducted on Seawall Boulevard showed that 87 percent of the public voted with their right foot against the 35 and 45 MPH speed limits. Eighty percent did not like the 45 MPH limit on Harborside Drive, a major commuter road. On the causeway, only four percent of motorists adhered to the low 50 MPH speed limit.

Federal regulations mandate the posting of speed limits that match the speed at which 85 percent of traffic moves in free-flowing conditions.

Engineering studies have long found this to be the safest speed and that enforcing lower limits can actually be counterproductive for safety (view traffic safety manual excerpt, in PDF format).

Source: (KTRK-TV (TX), 11/1/2007)

Ocala, Florida brings back the homeless cop speed trap.

Police in Ocala, Florida have brought back the practice of dressing up like the homeless in order to generate significant traffic ticket revenue. Sergeant Billy Woods, a white officer with a mustache, sat behind a cardboard sign in shabby clothes while wearing a Rastafarian cap and fake dreadlocks. The sign hid his radar gun and a radio used to summon a gaggle of chase officers hidden down the road at South Pine and Southeast 17th Street.A sting on Tuesday at an intersection where the speed limit had been temporarily lowered to 25 MPH resulted in 58 motorists being cited for at least one infraction, generally speeding. A few received an additional ticket for neglecting to wear a seatbelt. Ocala police are not concerned that their actions may be seen as insensitive to the plight of the less fortunate.

“If we can think of it, we’ll do it,” Sergeant Lou Biondi told the Ocala Star-Banner.

Police in other Florida cities such as Palm Beach have used the same tactics, even going as far as adopting military camouflage to hide their actions from the motoring public.

Source: (Ocala Star-Banner (FL), 8/31/2006)

A Summersville, West Virginia businessman fights back against a small town speed trap.

Fed up with excessive ticketing by the Summersville, West Virginia police department, local businessman Charles McCue is fighting back. He has put up a giant sign reading, “Summersville, The World’s Largest SPEED TRAP 4 MILES AHEAD” to warn motorists of the upcoming danger.

The $350,000 sign marks the portion of Route 19, a popular interstate shortcut, where the speed limit drops from 65 to 50 MPH — and police are invariably waiting with radar guns. Police write between 10,000 and 18,000 tickets a year generating millions in revenue for the town of just 3250 residents.

McCue, 60, maintains that the police are scaring away business. About ten years ago, he banned the police from using his shopping center parking lot as a staging ground for activities.

“I’ll be damned if they’re going to set up radar on my customers and take the money they were going to spend in my shopping center,” McCue told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

Despite giving away 6000 bumper stickers ridiculing Summersville’s efforts, McCue is not satisfied. He is planning on installing a second billboard on the other side of town to ensure that everyone entering and leaving the city gets the message.

“We definitely consider what they’re doing a speed trap,” said Eric Skrum, spokesman for the National Motorists Association. “There’s just a few in the country that really stick out like Summersville.”

McCue said the issue was simple. “Thomas Jefferson once said that opposition to tyranny is obedience to God,” he said. “If this is not tyranny, then I don’t know what the hell is.”

Source: (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 11/20/2005)