Speeding? You'll pay higher 'taxes'

MSN Money ^ | 01/02/09 | Christopher Solomon

[TigerLikesRooster]

Speeding? You'll pay higher 'taxes'

Watch out, leadfoots: Many strapped cities and towns are trying to fix their budgets by stepping up traffic enforcement.

By Christopher Solomon

MSN Money

Here's a tip for the next time you're barreling down U.S. 425 through northeastern Louisiana: If you see a sign that reads "Baskin Town Limits," slow down. Way down.

Baskin has been expecting you.

Between 2004 and 2006, little Baskin (population about 200) got 87% of its town budget from speeding tickets, the highest percentage of 304 Louisiana municipalities surveyed.

"It is primarily a tool in many communities to raise revenue," Louisiana state Rep. Hollis Downs, who represents two parishes in north-central Louisiana, says of the town's aggressive traffic enforcement -- what others might call speed traps.

Baskin is perhaps the most extreme example confirming what you've long suspected: Tickets are often as much about revenue as safety. And now, as a soured economy or other factors further empty coffers, many are turning to law enforcement to serve as part-time tax collectors -- with guns and badges.

Many states and cities no longer even try to hide that fact.

Making up for lost money

Cities, counties and other government agencies have found that there's lots of money to be made in stepped-up traffic enforcement:

* The Massachusetts Turnpike Authority said that it would collect an additional $1.2 million in fines from speeding tickets in 2008 to make up for lost revenue when troopers from the Massachusetts State Police were transferred the previous year to work around Boston's "Big Dig" project.

* In 2006, Massachusetts began a pilot program that rewarded state troopers for giving out tickets as opposed to warnings.

[M. Espinola]

Good point.

[swmobuffalo]

Eventually these “speedtraps” will fall the same way Macks Creek did here in Missouri. Bankrupt and a laughing stock.