Stopped by the POlice Today!

[achtungpv]

Don't get pulled over in Martindale. You'll get a ticket for 1 MPH over. All the cops are part timers from Austin or San Marcos and they get a percentage of each ticket (I had heard $25 per ticket but don't remember if that was correct). A college friend was working out in Martindale one summer and he asked a cop how many tickets he wrote a weekend and the reply was 100-200.

[another_hot-day]

Put Florence on that list too.

[GANKS]

Originally Posted by achtungpv

Don't get pulled over in Martindale. You'll get a ticket for 1 MPH over. All the cops are part timers from Austin or San Marcos and they get a percentage of each ticket (I had heard $25 per ticket but don't remember if that was correct). A college friend was working out in Martindale one summer and he asked a cop how many tickets he wrote a weekend and the reply was 100-200.

Wow, I'm surprised that is legal. Does the $$ flow to the department or the individual officers? Seems pretty self serving and a conflict of interest. I do recall going on ride along about 15 years ago ( I wanted to be an FBI agent in another life) and we stopped a car with 2 felons in it with guns and an empty bag that set the sniffer dogs off. The cops were salivating at all the new stuff they were going to get for their small dept. So I know departments do things that are siezed in a crime but hadn't heard the officers get a direct payment.

[Trainwreck20]

Not sure about any direct payment, but Martindale is a speed trap in the extreme, or has been for years. During the Texas Water Safari (a canoe race), a lot of support people travel down through Martindale that are not familiar with the area. The police there happily write tickets for being small amounts over the limit to a bunch of out of town people (and many out of state). Gives people a wonderful impression of Tx, I tell ya .

[pilotskid27]

Originally Posted by Miami Vice

In Miami, I would have thrown the book at you! Unless you hand me a jelly-filled doughnut. (LOL!!) We're not all that bad.

We have an APD officer with the motorcycle unit who lives on our cul-de-sac. He's really a great guy with a teriffic sense of humor. We have kids the same age, so we spend a fair amount of social time together.

Anyway, he told us that one night he was out with his radar gun and pulled over a large delivery truck for speeding. He parked behind the truck to run the plates before he approached the driver. As he did this, he noticed strange looks from the other drivers going by. When he approached the truck driver, he read the writing on the side of the truck---it was a doughnut delivery vehicle!!!

He could just hear the stories all the other commuters were going to tell when they got home. So, he checked the guy's liscense, gave him a stern warning, and told him to move along.

Seriously, though--I have asked him how they determine where and when the speed traps will be set up. I had always heard rumors of quotas, and bonuses and such. He tells me the rumors are merely urban legend. Speed traps are actually set up in a pretty scientific manner--they pull statistics from where the most accidents happen!

On heavy travel days--like holiday weekends--State, and sometimes Federal entities will cover the costs of overtime to put more officers on heavily traveled roadways...and they specificially place them in accident-prone areas. That is why we see more cops out around those times.

It is so interesting to get the "inside scoop"!

[expgc]

Yeah, I'd put those new WA plates on as well for another year; you already paid a fortune for them in WA as compared to register a car in TX.