Now Reading: It’s Not About Cars or Cash. It’s About People.
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It’s Not About Cars or Cash. It’s About People.
Q: Be honest – isn’t lowering the speed limits just a money grab by police departments? They say it’s for safety, but slower speed limits mean more tickets, right? And more tickets mean more money for police.
A: I’ll break down the numbers in a moment, but first let’s take a look at your assumptions. It’s a common belief that police write tickets to generate department revenue, but that’s not borne out in reality; at least not here in Washington. If writing tickets was profitable, you’d think police would write more of them. It’s actually the opposite.
Over the past several years as police departments across the state have faced budget shortages, the number of traffic infractions has also declined. Looking back over the past 20 years, from 2006 to 2014 officers issued over a million traffic infractions per year. From 2015 to 2019 infractions declined to about 850,000 per year. Since 2020 they’ve remained well below 600,000 per year, with a multi-decade low of 417,000 in 2022. And when budgets are tight, often some of the first cuts (for departments with dedicated traffic officers) come from the traffic unit.
Getting a $150 ticket is, at minimum, financially unpleasant and, for some, a real hardship. But as a local government revenue source it’s almost inconsequential. In Whatcom County, where I live, the 2026 county budget is just under $320 million. Revenue from traffic infractions makes up a bit less than $600,000. That’s less than two-tenths of one percent of the budget.
So, where does the money go? I’ll use the example of a $150 ticket, since the courts have already done the math for us. That total amount comes from a base penalty of $48 and a series of additional assessments and accounts. (The base penalty for speeding tickets varies based on the speed over the posted limit, so we’ll use the standard penalty for simplicity.) Here’s the breakdown of that $150: The Judicial Information System (the network that connects all the courts in the state together) gets $23. The state general fund gets about $48. The local government also receives about $48. The rest gets divided into accounts for trauma care, auto theft prevention, traumatic brain injuries, and driver license technology.
Of the $48 that goes to local government, about $23 is a Public Safety and Education Assessment (PSEA). That money goes into the general fund, with the intent that it be used for, you guessed it, public safety and education. Even if all $23 of the PSEA went to the police department (it doesn’t) writing tickets would still be a money-losing operation for local government. Traffic enforcement isn’t about revenue; the goal is to reduce crashes by changing driver behavior.
What’s really happening with lower speed limits (especially the shift from 25 to 20 mph in neighborhoods and downtown areas) is a reprioritization of our transportation values. Historically we’ve set speed limits to move cars safely. That seems reasonable on the face of it, but it’s not cars we should be concerned about; it’s people. If you’re getting around by car, I have some good news (but I’ll start with bad news): From 2016 to 2023 vehicle occupant traffic fatalities in Washington rose by 40 percent. However, in the last two years they have fallen by nearly 20 percent and they’re on track to being even lower this year.
If you’re a pedestrian though, it’s not so great. In those same timeframes pedestrian fatalities increased by over 80 percent, and then declined by only 7.5 percent. Slower speeds are one tool to help protect all people, not just the ones in cars.
Kary
Apparently Ken Schram is still alive! He always pushed this revenue idea. Personally I don’t buy it. There’s a lot of administrative expense in writing a ticket even if it isn’t contested. If it is the expense goes way up.
Alex Hansen, President, The Washington Traffic Safety Education Association
I wonder if you can look into how the PSEA funding is being used? That PSEA amount originally was created to subsidize traffic safety education (TSE) in high schools. In fact, it was first called the Traffic Safety Education Account and was used exclusively to fund public-school driver education until the mid 1980s when the name was changed to the PSEA and the funds began to be used for other purposes besides subsidizing TSE. The concept was: People who made the roads less safe and received a ticket helped make the roads safer by paying a fine which educated young drivers. Almost every high school in WA state offered TSE until 2002 when that funding stopped being applied to subsidize TSE. Prior to that reallocation, 90% of young drivers took TSE back then because it was affordable and accessible. When that money was reallocated to the general fund and applied elsewhere, most high schools dropped driver education. But, the question of the safety benefit of that decision has never been reviewed. The WTSC did a study in 1999 comparing novice drivers in WA with national stats. Quoting that study: “WASHINGTON DEATH RATE PER DRIVERS IN FATALS IS 45% LOWER THAN THE NATIONAL AVERAGE IN THE AGE GROUP 16-20 PER 100,000 POPULATION.” When the funding supporting TSE in high schools was cut, a domino effect occurred that has now been documented: Most public high schools dropped TSE; Less students have been taking TSE despite it being available in commercial driver training schools; What the state calls “deserts” developed where TSE was not accessible or affordable; Young people began waiting until age 18 to become licensed when they could do so without having to take TSE; The number of crashes and subsequent injuries/fatalities has dramatically increased among novice drivers over the past 25 years in which TSE has not been readily available in the high schools. What has the state done in response to these demonstrated trends? They raised the age at which mandated driver education will be required. By 2030, all novice drivers up through age 22 will be required to take TSE. But, nothing has been done to reduce the deserts by returning TSE to high schools. Presently, less than 20 school districts offer TSE. So, the question I have: How do our stats for 16–20-year-olds compare now with the 1999 WTSC study? A more important question to be asked is, were we getting a better safety benefit from the PSEA funding TSE in public schools then than we are now?