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It's possible, but in my experience the stats NHTSA looked at were compiled by the police department, not the court. (They cared about how many tickets we wrote
by gingerbread-man 10y ago
It's possible, but in my experience the stats NHTSA looked at were compiled by the police department, not the court. (They cared about how many tickets we wrote, not how many convictions were obtained.)
A more likely explanation is the severe underfunding and understaffing of prosecutor's offices and state court systems. Most prosecuting attorneys are responsible for carrying hundreds of cases at a time-- they have no choice but to prioritize, aggressively.
- scrumper 10y agoOk thanks, and interesting. Understood re tickets written. (I don't think it alters your point at all because you're still talking about constrained resources and a need to prioritize, but in traffic court in my village the PD is the prosecutor; my negotiation was with a police officer and he in turn represented the results of that negotiation to the judge. Same with everyone else's tickets. Only more serious stuff involved the town prosecutor - he was handling code violations, underage drinking, and a DUI.)
- gingerbread-man 10y agoI'm actually really curious about the officer handling the DUI on his own. Those cases are often simple, but are also often very complex and involve defense counsel and evidentiary disputes. Which state do you live in?
- scrumper 10y agoI live in NY but just to be clear this wasn't a DUI - I don't drink and drive! My ticket was for crossing a double yellow line, the offense in NY is called "Disobeying a Traffic Control Device". The town prosecutor was handling the only DUI that day. (A town PD officer handled the lesser offenses, including mine.)