Sitting in Pittsburgh with some time to kill.
Geoff, of William Cut fame, writes about an anti-police bumper sticker today.
The bumper sticker in question reads:
To serve and protect, not to serve and collect
The guy’s got a point. Issuing tickets for revenue is taxation without representation, which is exactly what we Americans (yes, I know Geoff is Canadian) fought a war to prevent. It’s terrible that public safety can’t make budget with tax revenue, but perhaps that’s because public funds are being poorly managed. There’s no reason spending on other programs couldn’t be cut in favour of public safety. Ticketing people for doing something decidedly unsafe is a good policy, but ticketing people for going 5-10 MPH over the limit only serves to pad department coffers, especially when you have police chiefs setting ticket quotas.
Driving 41 in a 40 isn’t endangering anyone. Forgetting your new licence plate registration sticker isn’t endangering anyone. Having a failed turn signal (or forgetting to use it) isn’t endangering anyone, especially since half the drivers out there don’t use them anyway. Don’t make up excuses to ticket people.
Ticket the people who are truly a danger on the road. Ticket the d-bag in the Explorer who thought running the light on the cross-street three seconds after my light turned green was safe. Ticket the two or three people who, every single cycle of the light between about 1600 and 1800 daily, run the red light turning left from eastbound Stadium Drive to northbound Drake Road in Kalamazoo. Ticket the guy who just passed me on a motorcycle on the shoulder on I-94 going about 95 and weaving in and out of traffic all over the place. Those folks are a menace to society, and deserve to be assessed huge financial penalties.
Don’t even get me started on red-light cameras and the concomitant shortening of yellow lights at intersections where the cameras are installed.
Listed below are links to weblogs that reference Modern-Day Taxation Without Representation:
» Psuedo-witty bumper stickers from What the Deuce?
I was driving to school this morning and saw a truck up ahead with a bumper sticker pasted to the rear canopy window. Intrigued, I disobeyed s. 71(1) of the Highway Traffic Act and caught up to read it.
To serve and protect, not to serve and collec… [Read More]
Tracked on March 27, 2005 2:21 AM
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