Speeders venturing off I-80 in Northern California shouldn't get the wrong idea. The little city of Roseville, north of Sacramento, hasn't nixed traffic tickets altogether.
But it has cut the number of moving citations issued by a striking 84%, and no one's complaining.
Drivers received 1,317 traffic tickets in the first six months of 2011, compared with 8,236 during the same time last year, after City Manager Ray Kerridge, a former engineer, said he wanted police to focus on long-term solutions and not feel pressured to write tickets. Nor did he want drivers to feel ambushed by speed traps.
Officers are now assigned dangerous areas and asked to be creative, consulting with community leaders and traffic engineers if need be.
"If collisions are high at one intersection, tell me how to solve that," Roseville Police Chief Daniel Hahn says. "It might be red lights or erecting a median," or simply beefing up presence at certain hours.
"Well, the whole time you're doing that -- that you're not writing tickets -- you're solving the problem. You're permanently solving the problem," Hahn says.
The results so far? The number of traffic accidents in Roseville, population 115,000, was down 7% in the first six months of this year.
Fewer tickets. Fewer accidents. Cheaper insurance.
Why not do this everywhere?
Aren't traffic tickets all about safety?
In 1903, when New York City adopted William P. Eno's "Rules of the Road," the foundation of modern traffic protocol, the city immediately created a concurrent battalion of police to enforce those rules. This was decades before the states began issuing driver's licenses, in the 1930s.
Still, it was wise thinking. Modern academic research supports the notion that drivers are far more likely to obey traffic laws when they fear getting caught. (Knowing how much your car insurance rates could rise is also a deterrent.)
The question is whether traffic tickets are the only solution. Or, as the budding example of Roseville indicates, might issuing more tickets even be the poorer option?
Given the toll of traffic accidents -- 33,000 deaths a year and at least $150 billion in associated annual costs -- even those who oppose aggressive enforcement measures don't want to risk road safety.
To an officer with a hammer, everything looks like a nail
Citations are needed, and "tickets are never going to go away," Hahn says. But citations often offer temporary relief only. "I don't think you can say, 'This is my solution to everything.' You have to allow people to use their intelligence and be innovative."
The problem, say critics, is that tickets offer some attractive perks that can lead to overuse: namely, quick revenue for strapped municipalities and a simplistic way to supposedly measure an officer's work.
