Police are Stealing Money from their Neighbors

Speed traps. Hiding around dark corners in the road. Stopping you on the road and making you pull over and give up your money or your life (will suck). Just like stagecoach robbers, police writing speeding tickets steals money from the pockets of every day citizens, and benefits only the blue banditos.

Why?

Because the police need money to pay the bills. They don’t write 99.99% of speeding tickets for “public safety.” But because they aren’t properly funded and in order to continue to run “as a business”, they need to randomly tax their neighbors.

So, what do they do. They hideout on the side of the road and fill their coffers at will, legal bandits, with what amounts to government sanctioned stagecoach robbery. It’s a despicable and random application of the law. But the most despicable part of the equation here is they aren’t properly funded to do their real job, public safety. So, they either steal money (lawfully or not, it’s still shameful) in order to buy guns, gear and training.

There was a recent issue against Waze because it alerted citizens to the police speed traps. Officials fought to stop Waze from making the playing field between robber and rider even by hiding behind the public safety veil. But, as it turned out, the funding generated by tickets was down and it was simply a bluster about reduced profits. Pathetic. And, as noted, shameful.

I work hard for my money, and I usually drive home on the same roads, at the same speeds (with traffic), every day. Essentially, the police look at every day citizens in cars as moving ATM machines they can tap whenever they feel the need. Most days they don’t care that traffic moves just fine at a speed regulated by the traffic. Then just when drivers are comfortable with their commute, boom, they drop the net like a spider laying in wait for when they’re hungry.

It’s a sad statement that the government won’t properly fund the police, but even more sad that the police resort to what is the same as stagecoach robbery, stealing money from their neighbors, recklessly, when they should instead insist they get properly funded to do their real jobs.