Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Dallas County looks to traffic ticket revenue for budget shortfall

By Scott Henson of Grits For Breakfast

The February issue of Car and Driver includes a story describing how many jurisdictions are giving more traffic tickets as a revenue booster during tough financial times:

In Texas, to my mind, we've already taken this strategy about as far as it can go, to the point that, right now, more than 10% of Texas adults have outstanding arrest warrants - mostly for traffic tickets.

Dallas County represents perhaps the most extreme example of this trend in Texas. According to the Dallas Morning News ("Dallas county to vote on withholding vehicle registrations for those who owe fines," Feb. 9), "Unlike most counties, Dallas County gets slightly more than half of its annual revenue from fines and fees. Other counties rely more heavily on property-tax revenue."

Now Dallas plans to step up the pressure on even more on folks who can't or don't pay traffic fines, denying vehicle registration to drivers with outstanding traffic tickets. Again, we're talking about more than 10% of the adult population!

It seems almost unfathomable to me that a majority of county revenue would come from fines and fees. That's an untenable economic arrangement, but I suppose when more than 10% of adults owe fines, there's a deep well to draw from, though it's still crappy public policy.

This plan places revenue generation over public safety, boosting the number of unregistered vehicles on the road just to squeeze more cash out of drivers. Since many people don't pay mainly because traffic fines are so high and they can't afford it, there's little reason to believe everyone will automatically be able to come up with the money just because Dallas County won't register their vehicle.

More likely, more drivers will simply drive unregistered vehicles, which will cause them to accumulate more tickets they can't pay and creating a vicious cycle that makes the situation more chronic and intractable. And since Texas already holds up vehicle registration for drivers without auto insurance, the plan will almost certainly increase the number of uninsured drivers on the road. Just what we need, huh?

Texas cities have virtually no public transportation in most areas (Dallas' DART is well-used where it exists but extremely limited in scope), so essentially if you want to work you must own a car and drive. So people are going to continue to drive whether their vehicle is registered or not, because they have no other choice but unemployment and poverty.

According to my own quick, back of the envelope calculations, if 10% of Dallas drivers have outstanding traffic warrants, that's around 167,500 people. It's absurd to think a problem that large can be resolved by throwing scofflaws into the county jail or denying driving privileges to all of them. This plan seems like a terrible idea.

Pegasus News content partner - Grits For Breakfast

Related stories

• Sen. John Carona proposes best sobriety checkpoint bill I’ve ever opposed (March 25, 2009)

See more stories in:

• Politics and Government > County Government > Dallas County
• Questionable Judgement

Comments

Collin Gouldin Verified

So really we're doing the world a favor when we speed.

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

alexander troup Verified

Basically, until you are caught, now how much speed do you want in your modern life time.....Space shuttle speed or car speed, then again........how petty can this place called Dallas County continue to get...let have a speeders Boston Tea Party...A/T. Love they county and it people...then tax thos you need...

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