Scott Doyle Verified

Is there really any public safety benefit from incarcerating either class of defendant at all?

Yes.

With gas over $3 a gallon, methinks the simple fact you're operating a vehicle means you can afford a traffic citation - if you can't, obey the effing laws. People who 'forget' to pay are then only motivated b/c of an arrest warrant. Spending a night in jail would certainly remind you to pay future fines and tell your friends not to let it slide like you did.

Not to mention, these are typically peeps who get at least 3 citations at once? Seems to Doyle that million will quickly be lost since nobody has any reason AT ALL to pay their fines...and I'm interested in hearing whether that was contemplated in this 'saved' estimate.

Public safety goals are harmed when government comes to rely on fines for routine income because law enforcement's goal should be to reduce crime, but if crime goes down it generates a revenue crisis for the state.

Public safety itself will be compromised if people aren't held accountable for moving violations.

3 months ago ( Link to this comment | Suggest removal )

Rick Yost Verified

Just because someone can afford a quarter tank of gas to get back and forth to work, doesn't mean they can afford anything else. Car tags, inspections, insurance, then gas at $3+ (as Scott noted) it's sometimes hard to get everything taken care of at once.

According to 'Doyle', everyone should be held accountable for their actions. I agree to a point- I've been broke, I've been out of work, and I've had to be across town for an interview or something quickly; quickly enough to make a traffic mistake or two. And all the while driving a car with no inspection sticker, or no insurance- hey, 'it happens. It doesn't make me a hardened criminal. Putting me in jail won't help me get to work, to earn the money to pay your wonderful traffic citation.

I guess Mr. Doyle is one of those special people who's never made a mistake. Or maybe he just makes enough money to take care of any transgressions. Not everyone is so lucky, or prosperous- not in the U.S. today.
We don't expect government officials or offices to operate perfectly- yet the poor slob out there, just trying to get along doesn't get a break from Doyle.
(Yeah, this from the downtown homeless grinch)

3 months ago ( Link to this comment | Suggest removal )

Scott Doyle Verified

Doyle's gotten himself plenty of citations over the years. I'm sure I've funded a Collin County banquet by now. People's large margin of error is bad enough; why allow them to actively make conditions worse by disregarding laws enacted to keep us safe?

Once you've used up your defensive driving option and deferred adjudication to keep the tickets off your record (keep in mind multiple offenders are the ones who stand to gain most here), you've got no incentive at all to pay a ticket...much less worry about anymore you rack up. And what are they gonna do, write you another meaningless ticket for driving without a license if you tally up enough points to have it revoked?

Traffic laws are legislated for our safety. Scaling back enforcement of them isn't in our best interest - it'll simply be less costly for the city. Lost revenue from indifferent violators will more than offset these potential savings and create a negative cash-flow, eventually hitting taxpayers. So, not only will the city lose money on the deal and come back on us, we'll have more reckless driving to deal with. Can't wait for them days!

If you want to work on ways to help out poor peeps who couldn't afford the tickets, doing away with enforcement that keeps everyone else in check is not the answer (imo).

3 months ago ( Link to this comment | Suggest removal )

Matt Anderson Verified

Car tags, inspections, insurance, then gas at $3+ (as Scott noted) it's sometimes hard to get everything taken care of at once.

OK -- then stay off the road until everything's taken care of.

I'm sure folks occasionally forget to renew the inspection or the insurance, and so they get cited (if caught). But if they don't pay those fines, and get caught again, then locking them up for a few hours will teach them a good lesson. Or impounding and selling off their cars to satisfy the fines -- which has the added benefit of keeping those who won't follow the rules off the road. I know we already have a problem with overfull impound lots -- we just need to reduce the amount of time that cars are stored before they're sold or scrapped.

3 months ago ( Link to this comment | Suggest removal )

Rick Yost Verified

Matt Anderson -OK -- then stay off the road until everything's taken care of.

This could be a catch 22 in some individual's situations, but I see what you and Scott are saying. And I agree for the most part. I see my share of stupid drivers on the road, drivers who put everyone on the road in danger. Maybe I'd just rather see a distinction between the moving violation, and documentation.

I guess I'm concerned (for some bizarre reason) for the low-end, low-pay, low-rent, and low-optioned folks in America; a demographic that appears to be growing.

Look, maybe I'm just paranoid from too much bad or worrisome economic news lately. Most folks my age might agree, it's harder for even the 'upwardly-mobile, middle-class, super-consumers' to feel the power over their lives they enjoyed ten to fifteen years ago. Keeping up with the Jones is getting more difficult and expensive.

We should be directing our frustrations and newly-found uncertainty about our paychecks, mortgages, children's education, ability to save any money, plan for vacations, or even retirements to the people at the top of the economic food chain- the execs and ceo's of this country.
Although it might make us feel empowered to dump on the little guy who's trying to survive the game, it won't help our own situations at all.

3 months ago ( Link to this comment | Suggest removal )

Rick Yost Verified

I know I tend to get off article topic, I'm sure I should be shot.

Yes I'm generalizing here, but it seems America will go out of its way to crack down on the little guy, while the suit in the board room gets away with murder.

3 months ago ( Link to this comment | Suggest removal )

Scott Doyle Verified

Gwen, methinks that 70% unpaid rate was solely for this: Driver Responsibility Program. It's our points system that fines you after x-amount of tickets within a 1 or 2 year span, then revokes your license for excessive points.

But if nobody's going to be tossed in jail for not paying multiples of citations, then driving without a license when it gets revoked - why the hell would anybody worry about traffic laws? Absolutely ridiculous idea and I sincerely hope it's quashed immediately after proposal.

For those worried about the 'little guy' - these fines are not designed as a slap on the wrist, they're imposed to make you think twice about doing whatever you did again. There are financing options usually offered, etc. If you're truly concerned that a traffic citation will be the end of someone's financial well-being, surely there are other ways of dealing with that.

I kinda want this to pass just so people will see how foolish of a notion it is when accident rates increase and the city has less revenue than before.

3 months ago ( Link to this comment | Suggest removal )

Scott Miller Verified

I'm with Rick on this one.

It seems to me that tickets have become a primary source of income for cities. That's why you now see constables, DART cops and even game wardens with speed guns. It's only in the last decade or so that I've seen constables doing traffic tickets.

Case in point: there's a school zone on Sylvan as you approach the Trinity river. For the five or so years that I've been driving that route to work I've seen a constable out there with a speed gun about three times a week on average. It's a rare thing that someone actually speeds through there but people get waved over for going a mile or two over the limit all the time.

One thing I've never seen in that particular school zone- not once in five years- is a school kid. Hell, I don't even know where the school itself is.

3 months ago ( Link to this comment | Suggest removal )

Scott Doyle Verified

Eh?

Million is their 'savings' estimate for not locking people up. I'm saying if nobody will be reprimanded for not paying tickets, there won't as much money to play with b/c nobody who'd normally pay will cough it up anymore. Tough to save what you don't have.

It's not an issue of whether fines are too high - let's stay on topic here. Re: your MO address ordeal, if you knew a warrant wouldn't be issued had you not paid that citation I doubt you'd have paid. Keeping it off your record would be your only motivation, and once that's out the window you'd have forgotten all about it.

But that's not nearly as much of a concern as blatant disregard for traffic laws b/c nobody's worried about being cited. Public safety > monies. Especially since I don't feel it's likely they'll save much of anything.

3 months ago ( Link to this comment | Suggest removal )

David Charbonneau Verified

Another very important way to save taxpayers money on the overcrowding problem is to make Judge Don Adams adhere to the peoples civil rights and make him have to answer as to why he is allowed to continue to illegally incarcerate the people by denying them their right not only to fill the papers out to prove that they are indigent but he completly denies them the right to ask for a court appointed attorney and even goes to the extent to tell the people that (It is not your priority to worry about feeding your children ...that your number one priority is to get an attorney) This is what he tells the people who have not even been JUDGED YET TO WHETHER THEY ARE GUILTY OR INNOCENT !!!! I will refer you to an article in pegasus news about Judge Don Adams and a young man whose name is Joey Charbonneau (which if you go to http://Google.com and type in Joey Charbonneau it will bring you to the article in http://pegasusnews.com entered there by one Harry Williams of {The Texas Fair Defense Project} out of Austin Texas)who he falsely imprisoned and denied him his constitutional rights along with his civil rights and Due Process Of Law as did the District attorney handling this case when they both (The D.A and Judge Don Adams conspired in that courtroom to fabricate a set of lies to falsly keep him in Jail even after a writ of Habeus Corpus was served to Judge Don Adams demanding the immediate release of Joey Charbonneau's illegal incarceration knowing that they were doing so and were caught in the Process!!!!! This Judge needs to be unseated along with his entire staff who are also instructed by Don Adams to tell the people that there are no such papers to fill out to prove that you are indigent which they continue to do!!!! I will tell you that he writes his on laws in his own handwriting and puts people in jail under his illegal laws!!! I have his hand written proof of what I have just wrote for I am Joey Charbonneaus Father!

3 months ago ( Link to this comment | Suggest removal )