stiller fan
05-19-2007, 10:40 AM
Road-trippers face added risk of ticket
Published May 7, 2007
Drivers traveling out of state might want to pay extra-close attention to their speed to avoid getting a ticket in towns where voters recently rejected proposals to increase property taxes.
And if drivers have an 18-year-old daughter, they should stick her behind the steering wheel during a road trip this summer. Police issue far fewer citations to young women.
Those are among the findings of a new study by economists at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va.
It has long been suspected that race and ethnic background often influence the likelihood of a driver being pulled over for a traffic stop in many localities. But the George Mason researchers documented additional factors showing that all motorists are not treated the same under the law.
Drivers whose vehicles have out-of-state license plates have about a 50 percent chance of receiving a ticket when pulled over, compared with 30 percent for local drivers, according to the study.
The farther a driver lives from the courthouse where the ticket could be challenged, the more likely it is that a ticket will be issued, the study found. Also, the fines will probably be higher.
And drivers have a 28 percent higher chance of being fined when stopped in municipalities where voters rejected property tax increases, the study found. The amount of the fine is also likely to be higher when voters defeated a tax referendum.
"The police are almost exclusively writing higher numbers of tickets to out-of-town drivers in the year a referendum proposal fails. It's an interesting way to export the tax to non-voters," said Michael Makowsky, a PhD candidate in economics at George Mason University who conducted the study with economics professor Thomas Stratmann.
"It's hardly likely that drivers are becoming more reckless when they go through towns that are running out of money," he said.
The study, "Political Economy at Any Speed: What Determines Traffic Citations?" is based on traffic-stop data from about 350 municipalities in Massachusetts. But the researchers say the findings are universal and prove what many people already believe.
"The data showed us that while it is the job of police officers to issue tickets to violators, police also respond to incentives that are put out there by their supervisors as well as by the elected officials responding to economic issues in their communities," Makowsky said.
Stratmann said that when he began looking at the data he hoped to find, despite anecdotal information to the contrary, that justice was blind. But "what we found is that, in fact, people are not treated remotely equally under the law," he said.
Makowsky got the idea for the research after his Virginia-registered car was stopped for speeding in Massachusetts.
"A state trooper stopped me for going 75 m.p.h. in a 65 zone. I was in the right lane because everybody was passing me on the left," said Makowsky, 29.
Police are less likely to write tickets in cities that depend on tourism revenue, the study found. "In towns that want people to eat in their restaurants and stay in their hotels, the police departments issue fewer tickets," Makowsky said.
The study results suggest that people going on a driving vacation this summer should go easy on the gas pedal the farther they are away from home. But there are broader policy implications involving the motives of policymakers and the police forces that work for them, Makowsky said. "You certainly want to provide incentives for people to drive slower and more safely. But government officials should be careful about trying to generate money to support schools and the local economy outside of the standard tax system," Makowsky said.
"After all, you don't tell your police officers to catch more burglars as a way to increase a town's revenue."
Published May 7, 2007
Drivers traveling out of state might want to pay extra-close attention to their speed to avoid getting a ticket in towns where voters recently rejected proposals to increase property taxes.
And if drivers have an 18-year-old daughter, they should stick her behind the steering wheel during a road trip this summer. Police issue far fewer citations to young women.
Those are among the findings of a new study by economists at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va.
It has long been suspected that race and ethnic background often influence the likelihood of a driver being pulled over for a traffic stop in many localities. But the George Mason researchers documented additional factors showing that all motorists are not treated the same under the law.
Drivers whose vehicles have out-of-state license plates have about a 50 percent chance of receiving a ticket when pulled over, compared with 30 percent for local drivers, according to the study.
The farther a driver lives from the courthouse where the ticket could be challenged, the more likely it is that a ticket will be issued, the study found. Also, the fines will probably be higher.
And drivers have a 28 percent higher chance of being fined when stopped in municipalities where voters rejected property tax increases, the study found. The amount of the fine is also likely to be higher when voters defeated a tax referendum.
"The police are almost exclusively writing higher numbers of tickets to out-of-town drivers in the year a referendum proposal fails. It's an interesting way to export the tax to non-voters," said Michael Makowsky, a PhD candidate in economics at George Mason University who conducted the study with economics professor Thomas Stratmann.
"It's hardly likely that drivers are becoming more reckless when they go through towns that are running out of money," he said.
The study, "Political Economy at Any Speed: What Determines Traffic Citations?" is based on traffic-stop data from about 350 municipalities in Massachusetts. But the researchers say the findings are universal and prove what many people already believe.
"The data showed us that while it is the job of police officers to issue tickets to violators, police also respond to incentives that are put out there by their supervisors as well as by the elected officials responding to economic issues in their communities," Makowsky said.
Stratmann said that when he began looking at the data he hoped to find, despite anecdotal information to the contrary, that justice was blind. But "what we found is that, in fact, people are not treated remotely equally under the law," he said.
Makowsky got the idea for the research after his Virginia-registered car was stopped for speeding in Massachusetts.
"A state trooper stopped me for going 75 m.p.h. in a 65 zone. I was in the right lane because everybody was passing me on the left," said Makowsky, 29.
Police are less likely to write tickets in cities that depend on tourism revenue, the study found. "In towns that want people to eat in their restaurants and stay in their hotels, the police departments issue fewer tickets," Makowsky said.
The study results suggest that people going on a driving vacation this summer should go easy on the gas pedal the farther they are away from home. But there are broader policy implications involving the motives of policymakers and the police forces that work for them, Makowsky said. "You certainly want to provide incentives for people to drive slower and more safely. But government officials should be careful about trying to generate money to support schools and the local economy outside of the standard tax system," Makowsky said.
"After all, you don't tell your police officers to catch more burglars as a way to increase a town's revenue."