"Political Economy at Any Speed"

It'll be summer soon, I hope, and soon the individual states will unleash the state troopers on us. Ofcourse they'll tell us that it's for safeties sake, but now the truth be told, as they say. Another insight into the workings of government.

I ran across an interesting article in the Chicago Tribune today. The article is written by Jon Hilkovitch and is about a study done by Michael Makowsky, a PhD candidate in economics at George Mason U., who did it with econ. prof. Thomas Stratmann. The data is based on traffic stop data from about 350 municipalities in Massachusetts. They said the findings are universal and prove what many people already believe.

Makowsky got the idea for the study after his vehicle with out-of-state plates was pulled over for speeding. He was going 75 in a 65 mph zone, but was in the right hand lane because he was being passed by other drivers. He got a ticket.

Makowsky said "the police are almost exclusively writing higher numbers of tickets to out-of-town drivers in the year that a referendum proposal fails. It's an interesting way to export the tax to non-voters. It's hardly likely that drivers are becoming more reckless when they go through towns that are running out of money. The data showed us that while it's the police officers job to to write tickets to violators, police also respond to incentives put out there by their supervisors, and also to elected officials responding to economic issues."

Stratmann said that he was looking for evidence that "justice was blind." But,"what we found was in fact, people weren't treated remotely equally under the law."

People have suspected that ethnicity and race have something to do with a driver being stopped, but this study documents additional reasons showing that ALL drivers are not treated equally under the law.

According to the study-
Drivers with out-of-state plates are 50% more likely to be ticketed, compared to 30% for locals.
The farther a driver lives to a courthouse where a ticket could be challenged, the more likely you'll get a ticket and the fines would probably be higher.
In municipalities where a property tax increase has been voted down, you have a 28% chance of a ticket and higher fines.
In other municipalities, there's only a 10% chance.
In towns with tourist attractions, the police issue fewer tickets.
On average female drivers are 35% less likely to receive a ticket.

So remember, for your own good, that there are a lot of towns that have rejected tax increases this year, so be careful! As Makowsky added " the police aren't told to catch more burglars as a way to raise more revenue."