Endangering motorists for profit

Posted by Marc Hodak on April 10, 2008 under Unintended consequences | Comments are off for this article

The idea behind traffic tickets is to improve public safety. The theory is that tickets create disincentives for things like speeding or running red lights, thereby reducing the incidence and severity of traffic accidents. The fact that these tickets generate revenue for the city or state is supposed to be incidental. But money is never incidental.

An ironic side effect of municipalities handing out tickets for unsafe driving is the incentive of municipal agents to root for this dangerous behavior.

Of course, rooting for dangerous behavior is not the same as facilitating it, right? I mean, would municipalities actually create dangerous situations just to boost their income? For example, would a township reduce the duration of yellow lights in order to increase the number of tickets that it hands out for running those lights when they (quickly) turn red? Would they do that despite the fact that shortening yellow lights increases the accident rate, thus resulting in more property damage and personal injuries? The unfortunate answer is YES, more often than you’d expect.

(HT: Alex T at MR)