Are drivers from out-of-state more likely to be ticketed for traffic violations than are drivers from in-state? It’s an empirical question — and, as this item in The Atlantic Monthly points out — two George Mason University economists offer an answer based on sound empirical analysis. The answer is yes.
The article is by GMU Economics PhD candidate Mike Makowsky and my colleague Thomas Stratmann. You can read an abstract of the paper here.
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I read the abstract and the primary sources link. It sounds like the police are responding to the incentives to raise more money through non-local revenue generation. That it's the non-local revenue generation that draws higher fines, more tickets, etc.
My question is this: intuitively I would think that would not be the driving incentive. I would think that the police are more likely to give breaks to the locals and charge the full fines to the out-of-towners. The police have to live with the locals, so the incentive isn't to generate revenue, its to live peacefully with the locals. The locals know that they're getting a break because they were really going Y over the limit, but they only get fined for Y-10 over the limit. But when an out-of-towner comes through at X over the limit, you can safely throw the full fine at them because you don't have to live with the consequences of being seen as a jerk.
So what's the real motivating incentive? Is it the intent to generate more revenues from out-of-towners or is it the incentive to live peacefully with the locals? The latter seems to require less malice on the part of the police.
I read the abstract and the primary sources link. It sounds like the police are responding to the incentives to raise more money through non-local revenue generation. That it's the non-local revenue generation that draws higher fines, more tickets, etc.
My question is this: intuitively I would think that would not be the driving incentive. I would think that the police are more likely to give breaks to the locals and charge the full fines to the out-of-towners. The police have to live with the locals, so the incentive isn't to generate revenue, its to live peacefully with the locals. The locals know that they're getting a break because they were really going Y over the limit, but they only get fined for Y-10 over the limit. But when an out-of-towner comes through at X over the limit, you can safely throw the full fine at them because you don't have to live with the consequences of being seen as a jerk.
Both incentives would generate the same results: out-of-towners pay more. But the question is the real motivating incentive? Is it the intent to generate more revenues from out-of-towners or is it the incentive to live peacefully with the locals? The latter seems to require less malice on the part of the police.
Oops. Sorry.
Police ticket out of staters because they are less inclined to return and fight the ticket. Easy money. In Oregon, several years ago, a state patrol car pulled out the three out of state cars, including me, from a bunch of cars that had just come up from behind and surrounded me, in a car with Washington license plates. Reason was to no avail. He had no idea which cars were the offenders, but he winnowed the out of staters out.