We (I wasn't driving but was in the car with my teenager) recently got caught in a speed trap. A street near our neighborhood, non residential, in fact, non anything except a golf course on one side and woods on the other, has always been 35 mph, then it would change to 25 mph at a certain point. Well, they changed the entire street to 25 mph, and "discreetly" placed the new mph sign.
So around the bend, where you would normally slow to the 25 mph area are 6 police cars, pulling folks over one right after another, because most of the cars, our included were above the 6 mph allowed before they write a ticket.
I was a little miffed that with crime in the city, they'd target cars on a 25 mph non-residential street, and charge them for going 35 mph. Good lesson for my teenager, I guess, that speed traps do exist, so pay extra close attention to all speed signs in case they've just changed the speed limit on a whim.
The ticket was around a hundred bucks and he also had to take a class online to remove points from driver's license etc.
It does not surprise me at all that police men are rewarded for tickets, that's their "bread and butter," unfortunately.
P.S. in the article, the name of the sporting goods stores that they received gift certificates to seems appropriate
Funny!
It wasn't that many years ago that in a case like yours, especially in your home town, the cop would have more likely than not given you a warning as long as you were courteous. And, if there were a ticket issued it was probably about ten or fifteen dollars. Today it's all about raising revenue for the municipality.
Cops fighting real crime don't generate revenue. Cops stopping drivers for minor infractions generates tons of dollars. It's a virtual goldmine.
Welcome to Waldo, FL.
Another good choice would've been "Target".
I have lived in my community more than 60 years and have watched the police lose the respect of the community for exactly this behavior.
Most recently the city was facing a huge budget shortfall and PC revenue generation just wouldn't cover it.
They had to go to the ballot for a tax increase. The Fire department proposed a hefty parcel tax and the Police wanted to join them. After sampling the electorate, the firemen told the cops to take a hike, as having them on the ballot as a fire/police assessment would cause the voters to reject the parcel tax. They went Fire dept. only to pass it.
Immediately the cops ratcheted down the traffic trap type tickets to try to slide under the people's attention span, and avoid being absorbed by the Sheriff's dept. and the low seniority positions that would bring.
They should have thought about their PR a lot earlier, and not gone PC.
You might even be able to challenge the speed limit. There are limitations on how speed limits must be set, and it sounds like that one might be out of line.
I'm paying a lawyer $275 to fix it - I might be able to get it dropped and just pay the $100 fine on my own, but it's not worth missing work for.