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How
Seattle And Other Cities Live Off Speeding Tickets

Posted on October 27, 2011 by Jon
Zimmerman

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Freelance correspondent Karen Aho had a very
interesting article last week about a small town in Missouri that collected more
than 75 percent of its annual budget from traffic fines.  Unlike in the State of Washington, in
Missouri, traffic ticket collections are capped at 35 percent of a town’s
revenue.  In Washington, however,
police officers from Seattle and Everett and deputy sheriffs and state troopers
from King County and other places such as Lewis County and Thurston County
patrol state roadways looking to bring in money for their respective municipal,
county, and state governments, without any limitation.

In her article on insurance.com, Aho discovered a 2006 study
by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis that found that the number of tickets
issued in municipalities increased on average by 0.4 percent for every 1 percent
decline in other revenue.  Aho
writes:  “Individual officers may
concentrate on public safety, but the data show that departments tend to
increase the number of tickets issued during hard times.”

But in Washington it’s not just municipalities, it’s county
and state governments that are also seeing a decline in revenue.  That’s not good news if you’re commuting
on I-5 to places like Seattle and Tacoma or you are driving over I-90 to
Bellevue and Issaquah.  As
declining revenue is continuing to
be a problem for local and state governments, expect to see more local police
officers, deputy sheriffs, and state troopers pulling drivers over for
speeding.  The hope is that people
will just pay the fines.

In Washington, drivers who get and don’t fight their tickets
will see these tickets stay on insurance records for three years.  As Aho mentions in her article, the
government never even see most of the money auto insurance companies are making
off the driver with even one traffic ticket.  Speeding tickets account for millions of
dollars of increased premiums for drivers in the State of Washington.

It’s not uncommon for a driver with even one speeding ticket
to see an increase in premiums of more than 20 percent.  Why?  Because insurers think that drivers with
even one traffic violation are a greater risk to insure than drivers with no
speeding tickets.  Insurance also
increases for drivers who get tickets for negligent driving, failing to signal,
running a stop sign, improperly being in the HOV, and having a brake light that
is out, among other traffic offenses.

Luckily, a driver in the State of Washington has a choice:
pay the fine and allow insurance companies to hike premiums, or contest (fight)
the ticket and try to keep the ticket from affecting one’s driving record and
insurance.  If you have received a
speeding ticket or other type of traffic violation and want to keep it off your
record, please contact me.

Tags: Bellevue, Everett, Insurance, Issaquah, King County, Lewis County, Seattle, Tacoma, Thurston County, Traffic Ticket, Washington State

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Jon M. Zimmerman is an attorney in Seattle whose primary
focus is the representation of people who have been cited for traffic
violations. Prior to opening his practice, Mr. Zimmerman worked as an attorney
in both large and small law...More...

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