Comment

Comment by Nikki on October 14, 2011 at 12:48pm

Ooooh, I love it when there's a crack in the Blue Code of Silence.

Comment by Nota Khan on October 14, 2011 at 1:33am

Another example from today:

We fabricated drug charges against innocent people to meet arrest q...

 

Comment by Nikki on October 13, 2011 at 1:47pm

Brutal, savage, and cruel - indeed.  Yes, it's true many states will not allow you to get out of tickets any longer in court and California is one of them.  We still have the option of going to traffic school which will prevent your insurance premium from rising.  But that's only good for one ticket every three years.  I have become extremely paranoid (more than usual, lol) when I leave my house because I see cars pulled over everywhere. 

As for the highway robbery, it's been going on for decades at least in Texas and the South.  But nothing has ever been done about it.

Comment by Nota Khan on October 13, 2011 at 12:21am

This was for ONE traffic stop. "Brutal, Savage, and Cruel". I'm not sure which is worse, the auto insurance companies that bribed (ahem, lobbied) the politicians, or the politicians that took the bribes themselves.

Don't forget the cops and the judges. Most municipalities share the "revenue" thus "generated" with the cops and the judges running the courts (in a lot of plaes, a third of the proceeds goes to the cops, a third to the judges, and the other third to the city). Oh, and did you catch this recent news?

Massachusetts Supreme Court Rules Motorists Must Pay Ticket Fees Guilty Or Not

 

I am sure other states will soon follow. Here is a related story:

Middle Tennessee Police Profiting Off Drug Trade?

At the center of this months-long investigation are laws that let officers pull driver over looking for cash.  Those officers do not even have to file criminal charges against a person to take his/her money. 

It turns out, those kind of stops are now happening almost every day in Middle Tennessee.

Case in point: a 2009 stop where a tractor trailer was stopped for a traffic violation, leading to a search and the discovery of large blocks containing almost $200,000 cash -- cash that officers keep on the suspicion that it's drug money.

"What's wrong with having a large amount of cash?" asked Karen Petrosyan, a California businessman who owned the truck...

...

"It's a way to make money ... for your task force?"NewsChannel 5 Investigates asked Helper.

The DA paused.

"Honestly?" we asked, prompting a smile from Helper.

"Well, you know, when you say 'make money,' I guess it is a way for us to continue to fund our operations so that we can put an end to drug trafficking and the drug trade within this district," she responded.

In fact, Interstate 40 has become a major profit center for Tennessee law enforcement -- with officers stopping and often searching out-of-state vehicles. It's because of a state law that lets them seize money simply based on the suspicion that it's linked to drug trafficking.

If an owner does not take legal action to get the money back, the agency gets to keep it all.

"This is really highway shakedowns coming to the U.S.," said Scott Bullock, senior attorney with the Washington-based Institute for Justice.

 

Of course Tennessee is not alone. Take Texas for example. And I know Georgia and Louisiana are big on this too...Here is a decent report on the subject (it just might make you feel 'lucky' you got away with just higher insurance):

Policing For Profit - The Abuse of Civil Asset Forfeiture

 

(And you know it won't surprise me ONE BIT if evidence comes out that these cops and judges are on the payroll of the insurance companies too; the more tickets they write, the more monies they get -- kinda like the doctors and Big Pharma)

 

 

 

Comment by youhavetoforgiveme on October 12, 2011 at 11:33pm

@Nikki Makes some sense, and yes, of course. As is standard, the penalty for non-compliance is brutal, savage and cruel. I was busted for speeding and at the time I didn't have proof of insurance in the vehicle. No worries, a little more paperwork and going down to the courthouse, that's all. Then I found out the initial fine alone (not counting increased insurance rates for three years) would have paid for almost four FULL months of insurance, for two cars, a truck, two motorcycles, and two drivers of said vehicles. This was for ONE traffic stop. "Brutal, Savage, and Cruel". I'm not sure which is worse, the auto insurance companies that bribed (ahem, lobbied) the politicians, or the politicians that took the bribes themselves.

Comment by Nikki on October 9, 2011 at 2:58pm

Did you register your vehicle in Arizona?  States are supposed to notify one another when you move a vehicle to another state.  But Calif is so behind they probably didn't read the notice yet.

Comment by Nota Khan on October 9, 2011 at 12:51am

Reminds me of the time I had moved to Chicago, IL from Houston, TX and IL came after me for not having paid IL taxes for the previous year I was in Texas (since I had filed my tax papers from a Chicago address, they automatically assumed I must owe them taxes). Took me some time to prove to them I never lived and worked in IL for the year in question. But the next year I got another notice: 'You have not paid IL taxes for the 1996 and we will be coming after you...' and I had to go through the process again (don't know if I ever got the notice the following year as I had moved to California by then...). :)