Most tickets have little to do with right and wrong. They have to do with the issuing departments budget. It's a form of tax lotto. Some cops are born ********, but many are doing what their boss tells them they have to, even if they don't agree with it.
What a load of crap! This "theory" of yours is perpetuated by people who have no idea what they are talking about combined with simply not liking getting tickets. First of all, very few cops go out and write tickets because they are told to or else. Second of all, most cops work locations because of citizen complaints or locations high in accident rates.
While I readily acknowledge there are departments across the country that actually get revenue from tickets, it is not as pervasive as your assumption that "most" tickets are for said reason. I challenge you to present factual information on how the ticket money written by the state police in your state, or the local department you received your last ticket from is disbursed. In Oregon, departments that write tickets into municipal court do stand to benefit from their ticket writing. Thankfully, they are rare. Most major departments, and the state police write their tickets into circuit court. The disbursement is drastically different. In muni-court, 80% of the money stays in the city's coffers and 20% goes to the state's general fund. But, like I said, that's somewhat rare. In circuit court, only about 10% stays local, and what does stay rarely goes to the police budget.
As for getting a criminal citation after an accident, there is actually a reason for it. In Oregon, Reckless Driving is defined as "recklessly driving a vehicle upon a highway or other premises in a manner that endangers the safety of persons or property". Recklessly is defined as "a person is aware of and consciously disregards a substantial and unjustifiable risk that the result will occur or that the circumstance exists. The risk must be of such nature and degree that disregard thereof constitutes a gross deviation from the standard of care that a reasonable person would observe in the situation."
Thus, in a single vehicle accident, where speed is a contributing factor, especially what we call "FJR speeds" qualifies. I highly doubt there are very many, if any, people here who can articulate getting a criminal citation while obeying all laws and had a mechanical breakdown that caused the get off.
Now, having said that, I highly encourage you to read HotRodZilla's posts in any one of the other "woe is me" threads relating to speeding. His insight is worthy of plagerism.
As far as my own traffic citation experiences, I've written countless thousands of tickets over my 20 year career. Never once was it because I was asked to, told to, or because our deparment needed the money. I set very high thresholds (16 over in 35mph zones and lower, and 21 over for any zone 45 and higher) before I'll even pull you over, and then there's still a chance of getting out of it depending on attitude, acknowledgment of culpability, etc. The locations I choose to work are places where I've responded to accidents (Barbur Blvd just south of Hamilton where we had a fatal and multiple serious injury accidents due to excessive speed and the Terwilliger Curves of I-5 where we used to have 106 accidents a month). Those two alone account for probably 2500 of the tickets I've ever written. Every single one of those tickets were for vehicles going more than 21 over the limit. I also worked neighorhood complaints and school zones. Again, my threshold was high (16 over).
EVERY cop I know writes tickets for the same reasons. NOT due to revenue collection or because they are told to.
