On 8/2/2014 10:22 AM, wrote:
On Sat, 02 Aug 2014 11:10:13 -0400, Wayne.B
wrote:

On Sat, 02 Aug 2014 10:15:08 -0400, wrote:

In a lot of places "traffic enforcement" is actually used as a means
to conduct unconstitutional searches, involving more than a little
profiling.
It seems to be fairly productive, generating lots of non-traffic
related arrests but a lot of innocent people are harassed in the
process.

===

I agree with you on that. LCSO seems to be particularly adept in
that department. I don't know about Estero but the cops in the Cape
seem to catch a fair number of DWIs and red light violators. That's
all good in my opinion. I wish they'd do more about noisy motorcycles
and late night racing on the bridges however. There are also way too
many LEO resources wasted on manatee enforcement in the river.

Down here LCSO seems to be more interested in crime than traffic and
that is a good thing.
The problem with most of these efforts is it gets judged on production
more than effectiveness.
In that regard Maryland was much worse than anything I have seen here
in Florida. They used to put 20 cops in one spot of the beltway and
stop 20 cars, write them up as fast as they could, then stop 20 more.
Everyone was speeding before they got to the speed trap and resumed
speeding as soon as they passed it (knowing all the cops were there).
It was purely revenue. The cops were ranked by how many tickets they
could write in a day. They didn't do much else. Working a trap like
this could get you 3 or 4 dozen in an 8 hour shift.
They would have about half of the ticket filled out before you were
caught. They just filled in the time, your info and the speed but it
was usually 11 over, no matter how fast you were going.
Show up in court and that was automatically reduced to 9 over (half
the fine, half the points) if you would just pay it.
Pure production at it's finest, not much about safety tho.

Where I hang out in my boat, I seldom see any law enforcement. They
are scared to come back here.
http://gfretwell.com/ftp/Local%20Knowledge.jpg

It seems that Maryland cops are well trained to work the system and
produce revenue. Wonder where they got their training?

--
"I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the
government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of
taking care of them".
Thomas Jefferson