If you've seen blue lights in the rear view mirror in Atlanta, you're not alone.
Atlanta cops are writing twice as many tickets as they did before Mayor Kasim Reed came to office in January, 2010. A projected 215,000 will be issued this year, compared to about 108,000 in 2009.
The current rate is equivalent to one ticket every two years for every man, woman and child in Atlanta (there are 447,000 residents.) And since kids shouldn’t be driving, you can expect to enjoy the privilege of being ticketed even more often.
(Sure, you’re saying, not all those tickets go to Atlanta citizens. And that’s right: The city will happily separate non-residents from their money. But it’s a ying and yang thing — lots of Atlanta citizens are getting yinged by suburban departments while suburbanites are getting yanged by APD.)
I bumped into those statistics recently while looking up some other crime figures. It looks like the city’s long streak of getting decreases in crime has finally flattened out this year. Shootings are up by a third, murders are up 50 percent, but police are still getting out the ticket books and writing you up.
Atlanta traffic court has become a very busy place, as evidenced Tuesday morning in Judge Gary Jackson’s courtroom, where he oversaw a conveyor belt of justice — $145 here, $427 there, “please see the cashier to the right. Next!”
Those who leave traffic court with lightened wallets are convinced it’s all about The Benjamins.
“They run it like a business to get money; it’s not about crime,” said Sted D, a barber and limo driver who didn’t want his full name in the newspaper at the risk of angering a judge. Actually, Sted got a bit of a break this time, having just finished some community service in lieu of a fine after being cited for running through a flashing caution light near the Georgia Dome. But recently he paid $150 for sitting in a no-standing zone when picking someone up at a MARTA station.
Shawn Thomas, a parking attendant, got popped for following another vehicle too closely. And a couple years ago, he got written up for an illegal left turn.
“If you’re wrong, you put yourself in the situation,” he admitted, adding that just about every driver does several things each day that are technically illegal. “If they enforce things to the T, they know they can make tickets. It’s all predicated on money. We all know that.”
Before you go accusing Atlanta of having traffic ticket quotas, please stop. In 33 years of working in newspapers I have asked police 477 times if there are traffic ticket quotas, and 477 times they have told me that it’s all about the safety, not the money.
Mayor Reed said so again last year, “Police will be issuing more tickets to keep more people safe,” he said, although he did acknowledge the obvious, that rising revenue is an “offshoot” of writing more tickets.
The city started off-shooting soon after the mayor came in to lead the cash-strapped city and George Turner became his police chief. In their first two years in office, the number of tickets went up by half.
City coffers that were once empty have been replenished, as the mayor often boasts. The new budget, unveiled last month, calls for $590 million in spending, the largest outflow since Reed took office. Part of that increase will be paid for by nearly $7.6 million in new revenue from recommended increases in fines for traffic violations.
A couple years ago, the president of the police union wrote an email to officers saying, “The mayor has designated traffic court/ticket revenue for future pay increases … (This is) the first time ever that a revenue stream has been designated to salaries,” he wrote. “Future pay increases are in our hands. We need only enforce traffic violations as we are now, but increase our attendance in court to prevent cases being dismissed.”
But both the mayor’s office and the union quickly disavowed any quid pro quo when it came to writing tickets for higher pay, long regarded as a no-no.
Lt. Steve Zygaj, the union’s vice president and not the email’s author, said he’s never been pushed, nor has he pushed anyone, to write more tickets. He said the increases are coming because of a change in policing strategy.
“You can’t walk up to people and ask, ‘What’s in your pocket?’ ” he said. But cops can stop drivers for traffic violations and then ask all sorts of questions and make all kinds of cases.
Then, with his tongue somewhat firmly in his cheek, Zygaj added, “Traffic ticket revenue is supposed to pay for our raises (dramatic pause) that we haven’t gotten.”
Zygaj is the evening watch commander in Zone Two, which is north Atlanta. His zone has more than twice the number of tickets as the next closest zone.
One reason: That’s where drivers heading to north on I-75 to Cobb County and to Sandy Springs on GA 400 pick up speed after being stuck on the Downtown Connector. And, I’d guess, north Atlanta has lots of squeaky-wheel residents when it comes to demanding traffic enforcement.
Deputy Chief Joe Spillane said the increased ticket writing is simply a matter of workforce numbers. There are now a few hundred more cops on the force, and the department has detailed more special tactical units to head out and write tickets.
“People see us at traffic enforcement and it gives them a sense that we’re out there,” he said.
He added that tickets are likely to rise with the new gung-ho traffic units and a new toy, the e-citation device, which scans drivers’ licenses and frees up cops from sitting in their squad cars for 10 minutes scribbling out infractions.
It’s called progress.
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