Island cops

[Joe]

Hawaii has gone heavily into video enforcement - personally, I think that's the way to go for traffic violations. We're the most heavily policed nation in the world - video cameras don't need pensions, salaries or health benefits. We need cops, we just don't need them writing traffic tickets. They're staking out stop signs in my town, looking for roll-throughs.

[BW from AZ]

Originally Posted by Joe

Hawaii has gone heavily into video enforcement - personally, I think that's the way to go for traffic violations. We're the most heavily policed nation in the world - video cameras don't need pensions, salaries or health benefits. We need cops, we just don't need them writing traffic tickets. They're staking out stop signs in my town, looking for roll-throughs.

sure thats fine but how long between snap shot an removel from the roads for a drunk or 100mph+ racer. thats right a camera can't do that. only a officer can haul their butt in on the spot. in the mean time the camera lets them go on for weeks. And if they cant read the plate right or get a perfect driver id shot, or name doesn't match gender on registration, or its reg to a p.o. box, its not even sent out.
i know this because we have it in az.
sucks, traffic slows down for the camera and then jumps up 10-15mph till the next camera over and over.
besides the state/city give a big piece of change to the camera guys for rental and proccessing.
real policemen cant be replaced

[JohnnyD]

Originally Posted by BW from AZ

real policemen cant be replaced

True. However, the ones that pull people over for 43 in a 40, not properly yielding to on-coming traffic or sitting at a place where the speed limit randomly drops and the driver wouldn't know better unless they expected it - those cops are wasting my tax money, while losing credibility with the public.

When the job description goes from, "enforcing the law and protecting our citizens" to "harassing anyone and everyone so we can make a buck" while crime continues to climb, the actual value of a police officer decreases.

I'm not making a blanket statement about LEO. There are many in my family, along with many of my friends. I also understand that in many of these cases, the pressure to enact "enforcement" as they have comes from higher up the ladder. But almost daily, I hear a story about some frivolous pull-over, or ridiculous thing that's going on in XXX town to make some money. These stories severely harm the public's perception of LEO.

[Swimmer]

First of all I wouldn't give Sandman a ticket because his wife is a doctor and probably works at the hospital where I might be brought in after being injured on duty, ya think.
Seatbelt violation on an adult is a secondary violation. Officer can stop for something else and just write for the seatbelt violation. He just has to have the PC for the stop other than the secondary stop violation.

Seatbelt violation on a child is a primary stop, all day every day. A very common cause of death of any child in the front seat of a car was the crushing injuries that occurred during a crash when the adult is thrown forward into the dash while holding a child.

I never knowingly wrote a nurse a citation either, ever, nurses are truely saints.

I remember the stories about Skip Manter after he graduated frrom the State Police Academy in May of 1976 with me. Hiding in the bushes, waiting for people to shed thier clothes and run in the water to go swimming. He'd run down to thier clothes and take them back to the station, making the owners of the clothes come into the station to get them back. Thats a direct quote from his story about doing that. I am not repeating someone elses story. The island a quirky place. Forty people will write letters to the editors of the Gazette about the local heroin dealer, and how the family is such a nice family, but the same people will chastise someone for clear cutting property they own in violation of MVC rules.

A buddy of mine was in Georgia visiting his son a few years ago. He got stopped for doing 41 m.p.h. in a 40 m.p.h. zone. Cop gave him a break because he was the retired chief of our auxilliary police department. Next day same guy stops him for the same violation 41 in a 40. He wrote him up.