From the desk of Edna Police Chief Clinton Wooldridge

Brace yourself; I plan to use some ugly language in this month’s installment. This month I’m going to talk about traffic enforcement.

I read a letter to the editor in another newspaper a few weeks back and it irked me enough to make it the focus of this article.  In the letter, a self proclaimed “professional truck driver” claimed that one thing he learned in his training course is that we in law enforcement are taught in the academy that we should target truck drivers because they pay their tickets.   I promise you, traffic fines are not a part of the curriculum of any police academy.  

Let me take a moment to address some commonly spoken misconceptions. It is a myth that police officers must meet some quota of traffic tickets during their shift. I’ve always been told it was illegal for an administrator to assign a quota, but I’ve never actually read the law. No need to. To impose a ticket quota seems so unethical that there shouldn’t be a need for a law.  It is also a myth that police officers receive some type of extra compensation for the number of tickets they write. (Like if they write 5 in a day they get a free toaster). Our salary is our salary, period.  

In my career I have never had a police chief or city manager or mayor who encouraged me to write more tickets for the sake of bringing in more revenue. Fine monies are not designated to offset the cost of police or court employee’s wages.  Fines are simply a penance. (I just chose that word because I once heard a priest say that “even a traffic cop knows that contrition without penance does not change a person’s behavior).  

The fact is, if we’ve been trying to make money from traffic fines then we’ve failed miserably. In order to apply some perspective I consulted with our municipal court to find out how much fine money the court actually generates for the city.  

For the entire year of 2012 our court brought in $113,675.67 in fines. Of that total we sent $47,197.44 to the State to satisfy various court fees imposed by the legislature. As you can imagine, with 13 full time and 2 part time employees (between the police department and the court), the remaining $66,478.23 that we actually deposit doesn’t even come close to offsetting our expenses. And I promise you, nobody would really want us to try.  

I’ve told you that to tell you this. Most police officers won’t admit it but, especially early in our careers, we secretly imagine ourselves saving people’s lives. We’re talking guns blazing, cars speeding, foot chasing, football like tackling, hero on the front page kind of stuff. But those things just don’t happen too often and thank God for that. On the other hand, an officer who goes out and enforces traffic laws, gets cussed at, fussed at, and is generally disliked for doing his or her job, will most likely save untold numbers of lives in their career and never know it.   

The deadliest thing we all do every day is get into our cars and drive down the road. Part of human nature is to be selfish, and to be selfish while driving a few thousand pounds of steel at a high rate of speed is not just a character flaw, it’s potentially catastrophic. It’s also normal human behavior to push the limit of everything we do. The City or State can pass any law they want but the rules people follow are the ones that are enforced.  So yes, traffic enforcement, like it or not (and if you know me you know it’s not my favorite part of the job), is one of the most important things an officer does during the course of their day. 

So, next time you get stopped, whether the officer writes you a ticket or a warning, be nice to them. They may have just saved someone’s life.

Thank you for taking the time to read this.