As it turns out, the state of California holds the highest amount of traffic ticket penalties in the country. Which is not really fair, especially to individuals who earn a lower array of income.
This was an analysis completed by the nonprofit company called SPUR. Based out of San Francisco, SPUR analyzed traffic stop data in over seven locations all across the state. This data was composed of statistics like who was stopped by police, why they were stopped and whther or not they had been given a citation.
With the report published, research found is supposedly made to discourage dangerous behavior on the road, so as to show that there’s no point in accumulating traffic citations. Traffic stops really have nothing to do with real road safety. Looking at traffic stop data, experts notice much moving equipment and nonmoving. Moving stops happen to be the traffic stops that tend to be related to safety. Those can be aspects that you may feel most concerned about. With people speeding, while running red lights and running red when they should not.
That’s the kind of concern that will endanger others. Equipment stops however are usually in relation to care or maintenance that your vehicle requires. Commonly, the most popular equipment stop in cities of California may be related to your license plate being incorrectly hung. Given that it’s not relative to anything regarding road or driver safety, it happens way more common than you think. It doesn’t even matter if they are safe drivers or dangerous drivers. It’ll still happen as frequently in both cases. Other such equipment stops that occur can even be as minor as the dice hanging from your rear-view mirror.
What’s saddest of all is that equipment stops are most common with Latino and Black drivers…
California has the highest amount of citations in the USA. Those citations can be driven home thanks to fees that get added throughout time and increase citations from $25 to $30 for over $230 for small speeding tickets. There also tends to be bigger tickets or even bigger amounts to pay that people are hit with when receiving them. Also, when receiving a ticket, there’s no way they can afford to pay. There has to be choices made. Usually, they will choose between paying tickets off or paying for electric bills. Even a budget shift for more at-home expenses. And traffic citations just make the whole rat-race of it all a laughing matter.
When observing law enforcement, black and latino communities tend to receive more tickets. Which is unfortunate, because like all people, there are times where paying off those tickets can be unaffordable. And yet, they become the targeted suspects in the rigmarole of driving down California Freeways while trusting the police. It’s surely a shame and frankly unfair.
Awareness like that found in this study by SPUR is essential to holding law enforcement accountable for minority targeting over small infractions such as license plate placement. If we just can work together to stand up to the men in blue, we may have a shot of curbing the already staggering height of traffic citations.
