🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <6vaaep$93n$0@208.198.206.123>, BobHope <BHope@pathway.net> wrote:

>If people follow the law,  they will not get tickets!!

    The following article has already been posted to la.general,
    Chi.general, and other groups.  However, for your edification:

http://www.phillynews.com/daily_news/98/Aug/20/local/CRUS20.htm


               Small town went a ticket too far

                         by Kurt Heine
                    Daily News Staff Writer

Finally, all the suburban towns whose cops lie in wait for speeding
motorists have a reason to back off.

It's Macks Creek, Mo., the little town that lived by the speeding ticket
and died by the speeding ticket.

Macks Creek was a no-stoplight village of 272 people and a number of
zealous cops who liked to pull people over for coasting down the hills
too fast as they came into town.

The town is right on U.S. 54, the two-lane highway on the way to Lake of
the Ozarks, one of Missouri's most popular tourist resorts. The road
into town from both directions goes downhill, making it a perfect speed
trap.

Cops were so zealous, according to newspaper accounts, that if they
couldn't catch a motorist speeding, they'd follow the car through town
and write the driver a ticket if the car wheels touched the white line
on the shoulder of the road.

In the early 1990s, cops were writing 2,900 tickets a year -- about
eight a day. By 1994, about three-quarters of the town's revenue was
coming from traffic fines.

One day, a town cop stopped a Missouri legislator. The lawmaker
introduced a bill limiting the amount of income a town could generate
from traffic tickets to 45 percent of total revenue.  It became law in
1995.

Cops tried to adjust. They cut down on writing speeding tickets. They
tried to get around the new law by writing parking tickets. But there
weren't enough cars being parked in the little town and Macks Creeks'
cash cow fled south.

Now -- three years later -- Macks Creek is $160,000 in debt and about to
file for bankruptcy protection.

The town's cops -- four full-timers and one part-timer -- were fired
last year. The mayor resigned.

The hated arsenal of radar guns and patrol cars that used to nail anyone
who didn't slow to 45 mph in time has been repossessed or sold. City
Hall has been turned into a senior citizens center.

Deputies from the county sheriff's department now patrol Macks Creek.

Nobody has received a speeding ticket in 18 months.

None of the towns surrounding Philadelphia make anywhere near a Macks
Creek percentage of their revenue from speeding tickets. But some appear
to rely on traffic fines as a source of revenue.

Macks Creek is a lesson -- a timeless one about living by the sword.

Now, if only the towns around here -- Horsham and Springfield,
Montgomery County, come immediately to mind -- could get the message.

    -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

    By your logic, this Missouri legislator abused his power by
    introducing the described bill.  "If people follow the law, they
    will not get tickets!!"  Of course, you'd better stay off that white
    line, too..

    Small towns like this have become as cliche as the motorcycle cop
    hiding behind the billboard.  The above article describes an extreme
    case.  Nevertheless, we can learn from it that 1) it requires an
    abuse of public trust that's this extreme (not to mention the
    unusual outcome) to gain any attention, and 2) a politician has to
    become personally affected by it before any sort of change takes
    place.

    Is the problem this extreme in the urban areas this thread is being
    crossposted to?  Without a doubt, it is not.  However, that doesn't
    mean it doesn't exist.

    It sometimes amazes me how much abuse people are willing to put up
    with.  For the legislator described in this article, even once was
    too much.

-- 
jhurwit@netcom.com                                       Jeffrey Hurwit
         "Sometimes, I just can't help myself!"  --Babs Bunny