Interesting and timely

[Prometheus]

www.yahoo.com/news/it-is-time-to-take-the-police-out-of-traffic-stops-155835442.html

The article covers the pros and cons quite well I think.

China uses a separate "Traffic Police" and cameras as suggested in the article... mostly just the cameras though. I'm not sure there are enough police on planet Earth to tackle the whacky world of Chinese drivers.

I swear, you can get road rage just watching them from your window.

That said, watching them try to park their cars can be the source of hours and hours of belly-laughs.

[Prometheus]

Another good article:

www.yahoo.com/news/happen-cops-didnt-certain-traffic-090105995.html

I especially liked this part:

What can officers do if they are not doing traffic enforcement?

Early in his term as police chief, Medlock was on his way to a City Council meeting when a call came in through the dispatch: Cops were fighting with rowdy teens, the caller said. The chief turned around and headed to the scene.

When he arrived, he saw two of his officers playing basketball with the neighborhood kids. There was no fight. Someone who didn’t want the kids playing basketball in the street called it in as a fight.

Medlock engaged some other neighborhood kids. They talked about school and yearbooks, he said. Other officers from the department joined in. This was impromptu community policing at work, he said. It was one of his most memorable moments.

“We shouldn't be in our cars waiting for that next 911 call,” he said. “We should be engaged with the community. We should be addressing problems with the community that are important to that particular neighborhood.”

He said in community policing, “you gain a tremendous amount first of relationship building and trust. And when you have trusted people, they’re going to share information with you.”

Medlock knows no approach is perfect or foolproof. “But at the end of the day, you're not harassing people, you're not making them mad, and you're not fishing,” he said.

[Prometheus]

abbey1227

^^^THAT is what "defunding the police" is about^^^

[abbey1227]

Apr 16, 2021 2:19:39 GMT Prometheus said:

abbey1227

^^^THAT is what "defunding the police" is about^^^

Are you suggesting smaller govt? less intrusiveness into peoples' daily lives? 

Look, for years I have believed that most traffic policing is simply another Revenue stream for the govt.

But I actually do buy into the argument that stopping people for small infractions often stops much larger and worse crimes. It's been shown time and again. When the little stuff is completely ignored, the big stuff starts rising. How else did we have so much murder and violence while the country was 'locked down'?

And as always, I'm fine with less govt/police.........but don't try to blow smoke up my petootie and then shift the funding to social workers and even suggest it'll fix a thing.

[Prometheus]

Apr 16, 2021 2:26:04 GMT abbey1227 said:

Apr 16, 2021 2:19:39 GMT Prometheus said:

abbey1227

^^^THAT is what "defunding the police" is about^^^

Are you suggesting smaller govt? less intrusiveness into peoples' daily lives? 

Look, for years I have believed that most traffic policing is simply another Revenue stream for the govt.

But I actually do buy into the argument that stopping people for small infractions often stops much larger and worse crimes. It's been shown time and again. When the little stuff is completely ignored, the big stuff starts rising. How else did we have so much murder and violence while the country was 'locked down'?

And as always, I'm fine with less govt/police.........but don't try to blow smoke up my petootie and then shift the funding to social workers and even suggest it'll fix a thing.

Read the whole article. IIRC, only about 2% of traffic stops led to anything bigger than the infraction the driver was actually stopped for.

Shifting traffic duty to social workers is not being discussed, so it's kind of silly for you to bring it up.

Let's look at the numbers:

20 million traffic stops, nationwide per year. Let's say they take 15 minutes each. That's a low figure. That's 300,000,000 minutes or 5,000,000 hours of work time spent looking for 2% of the "real" crime.

Of that 5 million hours, only about a third was spent on moving violations. I think it would be good if the police had 3.35 million hours to get out there and deal with "real crime" rather than writing tickets for busted taillights or dangling air-fresheners and hoping they can "smell something funny" as an excuse to waste more time searching a vehicle that 98% of the time leads nowhere.

You say you want less government. You say it wastes too much money. The average cop makes about $25/hour. 3.35 million hours x $25 = $87.75 million. THAT is the figure that YOU are willing to waste in search of... what? A bag of weed?

No. You think that everyone of those 2% conversions is leading to the capture of a serial murderer or the downfall of a major drug cartel, don't you?

I'm betting that the 3.35 million hours spent in the community leads to better info about drug trafficking, white slavery, gang activity, etc. than stopping some guy for a busted taillight.

As for "murder and violence during lockdown," you have to factor in the riots and looting from the Floyd "protests" as well as the simple, "I'm tired of sitting in this apartment all day listening to you bitch!" murders. Talk to Mrs. Unpronounceable Italian Name. Was there an uptick in DD calls during lockdown? I'll bet it was huge. I'll also bet that burglary was up, especially in all those closed shops. I hope the police were able to get to the scene of the crime in time. I hope they weren't wasting time, standing outside their vehicles, hands on holstered weapons, trying to suss out some "funny smell."

In the end, a "traffic police" can probably hand out enough tickets for busted taillights and dangling air-fresheners to pay for their existence. They might even have enough money left over to buy radios so that they can call the "real police" if things go sideways during a stop.

[abbey1227]

Apr 16, 2021 3:06:55 GMT Prometheus said:

Read the whole article. IIRC, only about 2% of traffic stops led to anything bigger than the infraction the driver was actually stopped for.

Shifting traffic duty to social workers is not being discussed, so it's kind of silly for you to bring it up.

Let's look at the numbers:

20 million traffic stops, nationwide per year. Let's say they take 15 minutes each. That's a low figure. That's 300,000,000 minutes or 5,000,000 hours of work time spent looking for 2% of the "real" crime.

Of that 5 million hours, only about a third was spent on moving violations. I think it would be good if the police had 3.35 million hours to get out there and deal with "real crime" rather than writing tickets for busted taillights or dangling air-fresheners and hoping they can "smell something funny" as an excuse to waste more time searching a vehicle that 98% of the time leads nowhere.

You say you want less government. You say it wastes too much money. The average cop makes about $25/hour. 3.35 million hours x $25 = $87.75 million. THAT is the figure that YOU are willing to waste in search of... what? A bag of weed?
No. You think that everyone of those 2% conversions is leading to the capture of a serial murderer or the downfall of a major drug cartel, don't you?
I'm betting that the 3.35 million hours spent in the community leads to better info about drug trafficking, white slavery, gang activity, etc. than stopping some guy for a busted taillight.

As for "murder and violence during lockdown," you have to factor in the riots and looting from the Floyd "protests" as well as the simple, "I'm tired of sitting in this apartment all day listening to you bitch!" murders. Talk to Mrs. Unpronounceable Italian Name. Was there an uptick in DD calls during lockdown? I'll bet it was huge. I'll also bet that burglary was up, especially in all those closed shops. I hope the police were able to get to the scene of the crime in time. I hope they weren't wasting time, standing outside their vehicles, hands on holstered weapons, trying to suss out some "funny smell."

In the end, a "traffic police" can probably hand out enough tickets for busted taillights and dangling air-fresheners to pay for their existence. They might even have enough money left over to buy radios so that they can call the "real police" if things go sideways during a stop.

Here's where I think someone with jpat's experience would argue completely with that mere 2% assertion.

What sort of 'real crimes' are ya thinking? Since people are calling 911 for just about everything now. And no matter how often the police attend to many of their regulars, the situation rarely gets solved until someone is either incarcerated or dead.

I'm against the 'war on drugs'. Legalize it all right now, imo. You figure that drops the number of 911 calls? And you figure the Govt is willing to give up a revenue stream? I don't. They won't get rid of parking meters.

Serial murder? Nope, just one more idiot that committed another crime and likely has a warrant out for their arrest already. THAT's the larger crime I'm talking about. The media loves to say "Killed for a traffic stop!".......when they were actually wanted on other, more serious crimes........that they often times don't ever show up for their day in court. So what do you wanna do? Just ignore them?

Property crimes? Why should the police even bother? THat's what insurance is for, right? Just let them steal.....that's the corporate attitude now anyway.

So you're actually buying the air freshener story? Have you seen Trayvon's baby photos yet? the guy shot and killed in Minneapolis had called his mom and said he was pulled over for having one....when in reality it was his invalid plates. But keeping the air freshener in the news will keep people believing the police killed an innocent kid for having one hanging from his mirror. This is just more agenda driven propaganda from our beloved media.

We're probably a lot closer to agreeing on most of this.........it just doesn't seem so in the language.

Once again, let's do away with a lot of the police......and the military. Fine by me. Let people defend themselves, though.

[Prometheus]

Apr 16, 2021 11:51:39 GMT abbey1227 said:

Apr 16, 2021 3:06:55 GMT Prometheus said:

Read the whole article. IIRC, only about 2% of traffic stops led to anything bigger than the infraction the driver was actually stopped for.

Shifting traffic duty to social workers is not being discussed, so it's kind of silly for you to bring it up.

Let's look at the numbers:

20 million traffic stops, nationwide per year. Let's say they take 15 minutes each. That's a low figure. That's 300,000,000 minutes or 5,000,000 hours of work time spent looking for 2% of the "real" crime.

Of that 5 million hours, only about a third was spent on moving violations. I think it would be good if the police had 3.35 million hours to get out there and deal with "real crime" rather than writing tickets for busted taillights or dangling air-fresheners and hoping they can "smell something funny" as an excuse to waste more time searching a vehicle that 98% of the time leads nowhere.

You say you want less government. You say it wastes too much money. The average cop makes about $25/hour. 3.35 million hours x $25 = $87.75 million. THAT is the figure that YOU are willing to waste in search of... what? A bag of weed?
No. You think that everyone of those 2% conversions is leading to the capture of a serial murderer or the downfall of a major drug cartel, don't you?
I'm betting that the 3.35 million hours spent in the community leads to better info about drug trafficking, white slavery, gang activity, etc. than stopping some guy for a busted taillight.

As for "murder and violence during lockdown," you have to factor in the riots and looting from the Floyd "protests" as well as the simple, "I'm tired of sitting in this apartment all day listening to you bitch!" murders. Talk to Mrs. Unpronounceable Italian Name. Was there an uptick in DD calls during lockdown? I'll bet it was huge. I'll also bet that burglary was up, especially in all those closed shops. I hope the police were able to get to the scene of the crime in time. I hope they weren't wasting time, standing outside their vehicles, hands on holstered weapons, trying to suss out some "funny smell."

In the end, a "traffic police" can probably hand out enough tickets for busted taillights and dangling air-fresheners to pay for their existence. They might even have enough money left over to buy radios so that they can call the "real police" if things go sideways during a stop.

Here's where I think someone with jpat's experience would argue completely with that mere 2% assertion.

What sort of 'real crimes' are ya thinking? Since people are calling 911 for just about everything now. And no matter how often the police attend to many of their regulars, the situation rarely gets solved until someone is either incarcerated or dead.

I'm against the 'war on drugs'. Legalize it all right now, imo. You figure that drops the number of 911 calls? And you figure the Govt is willing to give up a revenue stream? I don't. They won't get rid of parking meters.

Serial murder? Nope, just one more idiot that committed another crime and likely has a warrant out for their arrest already. THAT's the larger crime I'm talking about. The media loves to say "Killed for a traffic stop!".......when they were actually wanted on other, more serious crimes........that they often times don't ever show up for their day in court. So what do you wanna do? Just ignore them?

Property crimes? Why should the police even bother? THat's what insurance is for, right? Just let them steal.....that's the corporate attitude now anyway.

So you're actually buying the air freshener story? Have you seen Trayvon's baby photos yet? the guy shot and killed in Minneapolis had called his mom and said he was pulled over for having one....when in reality it was his invalid plates. But keeping the air freshener in the news will keep people believing the police killed an innocent kid for having one hanging from his mirror. This is just more agenda driven propaganda from our beloved media.

We're probably a lot closer to agreeing on most of this.........it just doesn't seem so in the language.

Once again, let's do away with a lot of the police......and the military. Fine by me. Let people defend themselves, though.

You went from "traffic stops" to "calling 911." If you can't comment without conflating issues then you should realize you're on the wrong side.

Sorry

And instead of talking about what jpat would say, invite him. Let him have his own say.

And I'm not "buying the air-freshener story." I'm pointing out that if the guy didn't have a bench warrant (failure to appear) that the cops who stopped him probably would have simply wasted 15 to 20 minutes of their time... $6.25 of taxpayer time. Time they could have spent looking for the guy weaving all over the road.

Please stop trying to join concepts that were clearly separated in my response. It really makes you look foolish and I don't think you're a fool. I think you're just stubborn and simply don't want to admit that you're wrong. You try to cover it up with, "We're probably a lot closer to agreeing..." but you won't take the final step and just admit that Daunte whatever was the exception rather than the rule.

I'd prefer that the cops are out there looking for drunk drivers, and speeders who actually pose a threat to the safety of others on the road rather than wasting time on people who didn't know their taillight was out of that a dangling air-freshener was a violation.

Hell. Either one of those could be handled by a traffic camera... or... how about this: the cops spot the violation, put the info into the computer, the computer then generates a "warning" that gets sent to the registered owner with a time-frame on fixing the issue.

Amazingly enough, typing the license plate number into the computer might also let you know if the vehicle is stolen or if the registered owner has a bench warrant. It takes a couple minutes or less and if it comes back clean you never had to pull the guy over and waste taxpayer money.

WOW!

It's amazing that you think cops have a responsibility to pull over everyone for anything but don't think that paramedics have a responsibility to stock their ambulance with required equipment and medication.

[abbey1227]

Apr 16, 2021 16:12:46 GMT Prometheus said:

You went from "traffic stops" to "calling 911." If you can't comment without conflating issues then you should realize you're on the wrong side.

Sorry

And instead of talking about what jpat would say, invite him. Let him have his own say.

And I'm not "buying the air-freshener story." I'm pointing out that if the guy didn't have a bench warrant (failure to appear) that the cops who stopped him probably would have simply wasted 15 to 20 minutes of their time... $6.25 of taxpayer time. Time they could have spent looking for the guy weaving all over the road.

Please stop trying to join concepts that were clearly separated in my response. It really makes you look foolish and I don't think you're a fool. I think you're just stubborn and simply don't want to admit that you're wrong. You try to cover it up with, "We're probably a lot closer to agreeing..." but you won't take the final step and just admit that Daunte whatever was the exception rather than the rule.

I'd prefer that the cops are out there looking for drunk drivers, and speeders who actually pose a threat to the safety of others on the road rather than wasting time on people who didn't know their taillight was out of that a dangling air-freshener was a violation.

Hell. Either one of those could be handled by a traffic camera... or... how about this: the cops spot the violation, put the info into the computer, the computer then generates a "warning" that gets sent to the registered owner with a time-frame on fixing the issue.

Amazingly enough, typing the license plate number into the computer might also let you know if the vehicle is stolen or if the registered owner has a bench warrant. It takes a couple minutes or less and if it comes back clean you never had to pull the guy over and waste taxpayer money.

WOW!

It's amazing that you think cops have a responsibility to pull over everyone for anything but don't think that paramedics have a responsibility to stock their ambulance with required equipment and medication.

At this point in time........... I think I'm fine with allowing every drunk and drugged driver to just go about their way unimpeded. Especially if they're here illegally.

Sending out camera shots and court summons should be enough. Let the mail just pile up.

Less govt, less regulation, less reasons for police and pulling people over. But nobody wants that.

[Prometheus]

Apr 17, 2021 0:17:02 GMT abbey1227 said:

Apr 16, 2021 16:12:46 GMT Prometheus said:

You went from "traffic stops" to "calling 911." If you can't comment without conflating issues then you should realize you're on the wrong side.

Sorry

And instead of talking about what jpat would say, invite him. Let him have his own say.

And I'm not "buying the air-freshener story." I'm pointing out that if the guy didn't have a bench warrant (failure to appear) that the cops who stopped him probably would have simply wasted 15 to 20 minutes of their time... $6.25 of taxpayer time. Time they could have spent looking for the guy weaving all over the road.

Please stop trying to join concepts that were clearly separated in my response. It really makes you look foolish and I don't think you're a fool. I think you're just stubborn and simply don't want to admit that you're wrong. You try to cover it up with, "We're probably a lot closer to agreeing..." but you won't take the final step and just admit that Daunte whatever was the exception rather than the rule.

I'd prefer that the cops are out there looking for drunk drivers, and speeders who actually pose a threat to the safety of others on the road rather than wasting time on people who didn't know their taillight was out of that a dangling air-freshener was a violation.

Hell. Either one of those could be handled by a traffic camera... or... how about this: the cops spot the violation, put the info into the computer, the computer then generates a "warning" that gets sent to the registered owner with a time-frame on fixing the issue.

Amazingly enough, typing the license plate number into the computer might also let you know if the vehicle is stolen or if the registered owner has a bench warrant. It takes a couple minutes or less and if it comes back clean you never had to pull the guy over and waste taxpayer money.

WOW!

It's amazing that you think cops have a responsibility to pull over everyone for anything but don't think that paramedics have a responsibility to stock their ambulance with required equipment and medication.

At this point in time........... I think I'm fine with allowing every drunk and drugged driver to just go about their way unimpeded. Especially if they're here illegally.

Sending out camera shots and court summons should be enough. Let the mail just pile up.

Less govt, less regulation, less reasons for police and pulling people over. But nobody wants that.