Public Safety or Hidden Taxes?
I wrote an entry last year about how police in Kissimmee were posing as homeless people to catch motorists running red lights. I'm convinced that moving violations are just a revenue source. Glenn Reynolds found a good article about how police extend a courtesy to law enforcement officers and their familes. They don't get tickets.
Police Benevolent Association president Jeff Frayler said Thursday it has been union policy to discourage Suffolk police officers from issuing tickets to fellow officers, regardless of where they work.
"Police officers have discretion whenever they stop anyone, but they should particularly extend that courtesy in the case of other police officers and their families," Frayler said in a brief telephone interview Thursday. "It is a professional courtesy."
If it's a public safety issue then the courtesy isn't a courtesy. Right? Isn't the reason they pull us over to save us from ourselves and others? By entending the courtesy, they are making the roads more dangerous.
Of course, it's always been a revenue stream disguised as protection. Coming home from a baseball game a few weeks ago I was stopped in a speed zone doing 47 in a 35. My Dad happened to know this cop's training officer and he let me go with a lecture. I thought the name-dropping would mean a ticket for sure. In the movies, boy-scout type officers are always following the letter of the law.
In the real world, it's all about whom you know. Get in the know or be prepared to pay the speed tax that isn't deductible, by the way.
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