Quotas and More

From a reader:

Dear Recce Rifleman,
I got the privilege to spend 4 hours in a driving class recently. The purpose of the class was so that I could get a ticket dismissed off of my record. My employment requires a clean driving record, and although one ticket certainly wouldn't have posed a problem, I wanted to take advantage of the fact that Tennessee allows you to have the ticket removed if you take the driving class.

I made some observations in the class which I think you would like to add to your blog. First and foremost, the class was taught buy an officer in the municipality where I was awarded the ticket. Since you also have libertarian Roots, let me reassure you that for hours spent with an officer certainly makes you think about the phrase that shiny badges do not grant extra rights.
[Editor's note - see meme above.]

Since I know that you like statistics, I kept some good statistics that I jotted down from the class for you. There were 38 people scheduled to take the class. 37 were there. 29 people were there for speeding tickets. The rest were there for a ticket called "failure to exercise due care." Of the people who were there for speeding, all of them had exceeded the posted speed limit by at least 14 mph. For many of these speeders, this class would not remove the ticket from their record - it would only get the speeding charge reduced.

[Rifleman's note - The Rifleman drives 50,000 miles per year, on average, in the course of business. The Rifleman keeps his speed close to the posted speed limit. The Rifleman has never been pulled over for speeding on the job.]

The tickets for failure to exercise due care had been issued for a variety of reasons - but the most common one was cell phone usage. Evidently, the texting while driving penalty in Tennessee is pretty stout, but the officer cannot prove it without a warrant. Instead, This municipality, as well as many others, will issue tickets for failure to exercise due care if they see someone playing with their phone. Yours truly was not playing with the phone, but simply caught the GPS unit when it fell down from the dash. The officer in my case felt that was enough to warrant a distracted driving ticket.

[Rifleman's note - sounds like filling a quota to me.]

The officer mentioned several times in the class how he was against the fact that the state of Tennessee is about to legalize cannabis. He cited some statistics from Colorado that I have since been unable to locate. For your libertarian readers, I know what they would feel about this. I thought it was just the officer being disappointed because he would be able to write fewer tickets, and get fewer arrests.

As for quotas, one participant asked him if the police have quotas. Naturally, he cited the fact that there is a law specifically forbidding quotas. He then goes on to explain that each group of police officers where he works is greater than 5 categories. Among these five categories are arrests and interactions with the public (which includes traffic stops). He had stated not 2 minutes prior that the chief kept very accurate stats, and that roughly one in four of their traffic stops resulted in a citation.

[Rifleman's note - sounds like a quota to me.]

Of course, all of these interactions and arrests were played off as keeping drugs off the street. The officer mentioned several times that his chief one of their officers to interact with the public more often, so that they could preach this message of safety. Me being the libertarian, I tended to see right through that into the heart of the matter.

Regardless of my personal interpretations of things, the fact of the matter is that the two things the officer spoke most about in a negative sense were speeding and cell phone usage while driving. And, frankly speaking, that was why virtually everybody was in that class that day.

Those were the facts. This part is about things that were somewhat disturbing. First of all, the officer pointed out, correctly, the fear of punishment is a major deterrent to crime. He flat-out stated that he felt that if a 12-story jail needed to be built in town, then so be it. The fact that local codes would forbid such a tall structure notwithstanding, he went from a point of logic to a point of complete irrationality. I, along with most Libertarians, feel we are already over policed. His statement did nothing but fuel my feelings on this position.

The second disturbing comment that I noted had to do with his feelings on cannabis, which I've already alluded to. He stated that he didn't care what the studies ship show, he feels it should be illegal. He went on to say that even if cannabis was legalized in Tennessee, he would find other ways to arrest the potheads.

The third disturbing comment was actually a series of comments. On multiple occasions, this officer pointed out that if he wanted to make an arrest, he could find a way to do it. This goes in hand with what I said earlier about being over policed. 

The Rifleman's thoughts on this: