Author Topic: Wrong numbers focus of Florida Highway Patrol’s ticket-quota scandal  (Read 1578 times)

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Offline RoosGirl

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I’m having a hard time getting worked up about the ticket-quota scandal unfolding in the Florida Highway Patrol.

It started this summer with an email written by FHP Maj. Mark Welch. He explained that he expected his troopers patrolling an eight-county section of North Florida, including Interstate 10, to ticket motorists at a higher rate.

“The patrol wants to see two citations an hour,” the email said. “This is not a quota; It’s what we are asking you to do to support this important initiative.”

The initiative is something called the Statewide Overtime Action Response (SOAR) program, which was started in 2002 to address the increase in crashes on Florida’s highways. SOAR authorizes troopers to work overtime if they do traffic enforcement in high-priority areas.

Troopers get time-and-a-half pay when they’re working SOAR hours, and while doing it, are expected to aggressively enforce traffic laws. Their overtime pay comes from a $5 million-a-year pot of taxpayer money allocated by the Legislature.

So Welch’s email was basically a reminder to troopers that if they’re being paid overtime to work SOAR they ought to be writing at least two tickets an hour. At the time, the SOAR-deployed troopers in Welch’s area were writing tickets at a clip of about 1.3 citations per hour.

Writing two traffic tickets an hour on the interstate doesn’t sound all that aggressive to me.

I’m guessing that even heavily distracted person can spot two wildly dangerous drivers on I-95 in any given hour, and still have 40 minutes left to do a crossword puzzle, play Candy Crush, or eat a panini in the emergency lane.

But Welch’s words sounded like a quota, even though he said it wasn’t a quota. And “quota” is a dirty word when it comes to traffic tickets, and one prohibited by Florida law.

The quota talk came at a time when the stingy Florida Legislature and governor had finally coughed up a 5 percent pay raise for FHP troopers, who are the lowest paid state troopers in the country.

The starting pay for an FHP trooper has been about $34,000 and it hadn’t budged in 12 years. By comparison, highway patrol troopers in Texas start at $73,000 a year.

Continued - http://www.mypalmbeachpost.com/news/wrong-numbers-focus-florida-highway-patrol-ticket-quota-scandal/cTGVlP807GuxCn2TltsOBK/

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Re: Wrong numbers focus of Florida Highway Patrol’s ticket-quota scandal
« Reply #1 on: September 02, 2017, 07:58:28 pm »
If there is an arbitrary number of tickets to be written per hour, then it's a "quota" no matter how somebody decides to try to rewrite Merriam Webster.  Citizens will then see it as a means to increase revenue rather than safety improvement.  This is especially apparent when the leadership of the Police says it's to justify the overtime.
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