Rat, in Texas it used to be legal to drink and drive (and I agreed with that position; what difference does it make whether you're drinking a beer while driving home from work or whether you stop at a bar and have that beer before driving home as long as you haven't had too much and are not impaired?). However, the MADD organization finally badgered our legislature, several years ago, to pass a law making it illegal to drink while driving. But since those legislators might want to have a drink themselves in their cars, they wrote the law so that it only applied to the driver of the vehicle, an officer had to actually see the driver take a drink while driving, and then the officer could only issue a citation with a maximum fine of $75, which could not affect your insurance rates (unless the driver really was intoxicated). /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif But then a couple of years ago, MADD finally badgered them into changing the law again, so that now it's illegal to have an open container in the passenger compartment of a vehicle in Texas. /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif So now instead of being able to drink one or two beers on the way home, folks have to stop at the bar first and get drunk before they get in their car so, in my opinion, the only thing an open container law accomplishes is a little more revenue, but if I, personally, disagree with a law, but that's what our elected officials want, then I think a police officer should either enforce that law or resign.
The maximum penalty for any traffic violation in Texas was $200 when I started in law enforcement 39 years ago, but the actual fine for defective lights was usually $10, and of course with inflation, those fines have increased, and I, too, think Richard's fine is unreasonably high (as are the current fines on the last list I saw for this area).
The thing that puzzles me is that Richard (and many other people in similar situations, and obviously some of members on this forum) blames the police officer. I'd really like to be able to understand that but have never had anyone explain it to my satisfaction.
The officer didn't make that light.
The officer didn't break that light.
Richard knew the light wasn't working.
Richard knew it was legally required to be working.
Richard didn't get it fixed because it wasn't yet convenient. Now since Richard's a friend of ours from this forum, we know he was going to get it fixed, but when, and how would that officer know that? And even though he still had one headlight working, well . . ., there's a reason cars have more than one. One burned out, what happens if Richard's driving the speed limit on a dark street with one headlight, and it burns out. If that causes him to crash, someone (possibly him, possibly someone else) is likely to get hurt. So, in other words, there's a reason for that law. Personally, I agree with it, but if others don't, that's OK, talk to your legislators. In any case, the officer didn't make that law. But he did take an oath to enforce the laws that exist. Does Richard think the officer should violate that oath?
So then Richard thinks the officer must just be trying to make his quota. /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif In nearly 25 years experience in law enforcement, and becoming acquainted with officers from all over this nation as well as around the world, I doubt there's a traffic officer anywhere who has not been accused of that. /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif And in polling police agencies, I found that there are (or at least have been) some police agencies with quotas, but it's far less than 1 in a thousand. However, contrary to what most people think of police officers, most officers really hate to write traffic citations (they'd rather be catching thieves, burglars, robbers, rapists, and killers), but the fact is that traffic accidents kill more people than all those others combined. As a result, most police chiefs have resorted to a wide variety of methods, incentives, training, and you name it to get the officers to do more traffic enforcement, and yet if your area's anything like mine, you can't drive on the streets 30 minutes without seeing a traffic violation. /forums/images/graemlins/tongue.gif
</font><font color="blue" class="small">( Who in the almighty name of the state comes up with the value of the fine? )</font>
State legislatures establish a range of punishment, city councils sometimes, or the head judge, sets amounts to be charged for those who simply wish to pay without appearing in court, and individual judges set the fines in individual cases (upon conviction) for those who do appear in court. Usually, in my experience, if a person appears in court and pleads quilty or no contest, the fine is smaller than if the person just calls and/or pays the fine before the court date. But of course, you're always taking some chance in appearing in court because then the judge can set the fine at any amount within that range, and I've actually seen people antagonize judges and get fined 5 to 10 times as much as they would have otherwise. /forums/images/graemlins/blush.gif
