The Business of Speeding Tickets

As discussed by Andria Simmons and posted on Governing, "Doraville police write an average of 40 tickets a day, most of them on the city's 2.7-mile stretch of I-285. The city collects more traffic fines per capita than any other in metro Atlanta, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has found. It also devotes nearly half the city budget to police department operations."

It is not just Doraville that is raking in revenues from speeding tickets: "Several metro Atlanta cities are collecting hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of dollars per year—and many times more than the state average for per capita revenue." As Frank Rotondo, the executive director of the Georgia Association of Chiefs of Police, shared with Simmons, if a municipality's traffic fine revenue exceeds 10 percent of its total income, there is warrant to question the police force's traffic enforcement tactics.

The AJC analyzed data on local government annual revenue as reported to the Georgia Department of Community Affairs, and found "53 cities and counties where ticket revenue accounted for more a tenth of overall income. Doraville was among them at 17 percent in 2012, as well as Lithonia (18 percent), Jonesboro (15 percent), Riverdale (14 percent) and Pine Lake and Avondale Estates (12 percent)."

Past controversies over rampant speed traps in Georgia led to the creation of "several laws designed to protect drivers from being fleeced by opportunistic police departments. But they're all primarily aimed at overzealous speed enforcement....For example, speeding fines may not account for more than 40 percent of a police department's budget," which these municipalities have not reached, yet.