Wednesday, July 26, 2006

Law Enforcement Quotas

Feel like you're being written up for no particularly good reason?

You are.

1) TSA apparently has a written policy that each Air Marshal must report at least one Surveillance Detection Report (a fancy term for a suspicious person report) per month. Of course, being the subject of SDR can lead to being put on a watch list. But failure to make the quota is taken as proof that the Marshal isn't being alert. (HT: Of Arms and the Man)

2) One of the children tells me that the recent spate of silliness on Wisconsin highways was merely a method of collecting Federal moneys. Lots of motorists were pulled over for "5-over-the-limit" violations (huh???), only to get a warning for the speed--but a TICKET for not wearing a seatbelt. (I was among them, of course.)

The seatbelt violation was the Federal-money rider. Seems the more tix written for seatbelt violations, the more grant munnies were given to the coppers.
at

3 comments:

  1. Brian Michael Page7/26/2006 6:37 PM

    Up here speeding is the big ticket. Problem is - in most of Rhode Island, there are roads that are geared for 35-40 mph that are posted at 25 mph, roads geared for 50 are posted 35-40 tops. People know those speed limits are ridiculously low in RI, so they take them as a joke - bam - the instant state revenue generator (and many cities and towns here too). For a small state, we're big on corruption.
    BMP
    PS: You've made our blogroll, friend. Your turn! ;)

    ReplyDelete
  2. steveegg7/26/2006 8:09 PM

    That's how the federales get around the inability to Constitutionally mandate primary seat-belt-usage enforcement.

    Have you tried the "I only took off my seat belt so I could get to my wallet and show you my driver's license" defense?

    Completely off-topic - congrats on breaking Jessica McBride's blogroll again :-)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Brian Michael Page7/26/2006 8:24 PM

    Have you tried the "I only took off my seat belt so I could get to my wallet and show you my driver's license" defense?

    That ALWAYS works around here. Then when I get the speeding ticket (which here is the greater of the two fines), he decides not to hold the seat belt crap against me.

    One former dayjob co-worker once did this:
    Cop: Do you have a medical reason why you're not wearing your seat belt?
    My former co-worker: No, I have a political reason why I'm not wearing my seat belt!

    Now there's an unexpected reply from the driver, eh?

    ReplyDelete