Are Traffic Tickets a Revenue or a Safety Issue?

The Post & Courier reports that a decline in State Troopers has resulted in a decline in revenues from traffic citations. Does anyone else find it odd that law enforcement repeatedly informs us the purpose of traffic enforcement is safety and not revenue? Yet the P & C, the county magistrates and the state are lamenting the loss of fines resulting from Troopers leaving the agency prior to court dates.

We all know that the real goal of traffic enforcement is generating revenue. Some of us, who have served as police officers, know this better than others. Any department that maintains a full-time, fully staffed traffic unit also knows. These agencies will also tell the public they don't ticket quotas, but rest assured an officer that writes too many warnings vs. citations will have hell to pay and will end up transferred from the traffic unit. If the reader is interested in doing a little research, he/she might want to investigate just how much money is provided to their local police departments by insurance companies via grants and equipment purchases.

The Highway Patrol knows it because ALL they do is traffic enforcement. I can't count the number of times a trooper has rolled up on a domestic and called another agency to handle it because he had no clue. I remember one incident involving a chase in excess of 100 mph on the interstate and surface streets. Once the SCHP found illegal firearms in the vehicle they called the relevant municipal agency to handle that part of the incident for them. To his credit, the municipal Lieutenant on duty told the troopers they were responsible for the entire incident and all charges.


Don't get me wrong. I know a lot of troopers and in general they are a good group. Unfortunately, they seem to be indoctrinated during their basic training in much the same manner as the USMC. Troopers do not train with police officers, sheriff's deputies or public safety officers at the South Carolina Criminal Justice Academy. The SCHP training academy is basically a separate entity. This would be fine if the organization was of the same caliber as, say, the Ohio State Patrol, or the New Jersey State Police.

But they aren't. SCHP is nothing but a bunch of traffic cops. They believe they are the be-all, end-all of law enforcement until shit goes sideways on them. I even had one call for help to investigate a hit and run vehicle parked at the suspect's home. His exact words when I showed up were, "We are Highway Patrol, we don't knock on doors."

Why not? I guess there isn't any revenue in that.