The town had 250 people and 50 police officers.
The shocking part is where it says that’s only 5X the cops for a town that size. Wtf? One or two should suffice in a town that small. We have a town here with just over a thousand, and they have no city cops at all.
10 cops means 1-2 on shift at a time, once you figure in days off, needing people working 24 hours a day, a leadership position or two, and people out sick/vacation, 10 people isn’t as many as it sounds.
However, even 10 is a huge amount for a town of 250. I think most towns of 1-2k people generally don’t have a department and usually rely on county police.
typical amount of police in countries vary between 0.1-0.7% of the population with most having around 0.2-0.4%
I lived in a town like this (USA). We had no cops and the fire department was volunteer only. I recall a house burning down to the cement foundation over a couple hours, fire dept came by to put out the ruins. No one was hurt.
Can’t imagine having 2 cops in that town, let alone 50. No money.
The post office used to be in the same building as the bank (until the bank burnt down). They moved into the lower floor of a house.
house burning down
the bank burnt downThat place seems to have a fire problem
Read the article. It explains the scam and why it got shut down.
I read the article. How do you think I got that information that was in the article? I understand what was going on. What I don’t understand is the average town of that size even needing 10. How about some reading comprehension, smart guy?
POOP?
Username checks out.
I thought piefed people were required to be nice?
That’s it, dock their social credit score (is that still a thing on piefed?)
Jfc 😅
half of the department’s 50 officers “had been suspended, demoted, terminated or dishonorably discharged from their previous law enforcement jobs,” the station said, citing personnel records obtain under a Freedom of Information request.
They still have to pay or show up in court, though.
$4,000 in tickets per person??
Here in Minnesota we have several “Speed Trap Towns” along country roads and highways with 50+ mph speed limits where suddenly the speed limit drops to 30 and there’s a cop hiding behind the bush.
Yep. Wisconsin too. Learned very quickly that cruise control set to 1 mph under the limit is the way. There’s quite a few towns on the way out to Taylors Falls that pretty much always have a cop sitting in the same spot just waiting for out-of-towners, and it’s remarkable how successful they are.
Wow, that is amazing to hear. While I don’t want to be pulled over, in the southern US I’ve never been pulled over doing 10% over the posted limit. My wife on the other hand, calls me a slow old man as she goes whatever she thinks feels right.
Think of it this way: those tickets are probably a very large percentage of the town’s budget. They don’t care if a few get challenged or thrown out because the vast majority would rather pay than drive hours each way to contest a ticket in city court.
I’ve been in a car that got pulled over — and ticketed for speeding — for doing 17 in a 15. Those aren’t typos. This one happened to be in Colorado, so it’s not just midwestern towns doing it. Screw you Idaho Springs!
https://maps.apple/la/IJ-YiEeo1woELi
In Minnesota and Wisconsin they’ll do stuff like sit at the bottom of a hill. Cruise control set for the speed limit will still allow the car to get 2-3 mph higher before engine braking. Boom, speeding ticket. Another one is waiting by the 55mph sign at the end of town and catching people accelerating before the sign when they’re still in the 25/35/45 zones and getting them for reckless (20+ over). It’s wild.
It’s never very clear in the US if the speed limit is locally a thing, a suggestion, or completely ignored. As a visitor, it’s always problematic. I wish they got that sorted out.
Yeah, I live in small-town US where many residents have complained about speeding in areas with heavy pedestrian use. In response, the local PD was quoted on the front page of the paper saying they don’t have time to enforce speed limits. A few years later and they were again on the front page saying that they don’t have time or equipment to enforce parking regulations. So here they’re somewhere between suggestion and completely ignored, but the next town over is filled with speed cameras and highway patrol sitting in wait to meet their quota…both towns on the same road.
don’t have time
TF are they doing, then?!
Figuring out ways to look understaffed so they can get more officers…around that time their call volume “doubled” over a year because they changed how they tracked calls. (Accounting for that, it was roughly the same.) But they used that to ask for another officer…and I assume they probably even need another one if we want them to do speed enforcement.
Sucking up overtime while asleep at home.
Figuring out ways to look understaffed so they can get more officers…around that time their call volume “doubled” over a year because they changed how they tracked calls. (Accounting for that, it was roughly the same.) But they used that to ask for another officer…and I assume they probably even need another one if we want them to do speed enforcement.
It is a thing. Now, locals might be ignoring it, but that’s because they know where it is unlikely they will get caught. If you’re not a local it is better to keep it or at most drive the same speed as everyone else.
I’ve been in Poland recently and the speed signs seem to be designed to make very hard to maintain them, like they want to have easy way to ticket anyone.
Like you’re driving, there’s 70km/h then 50 then 70, then 90, then 50 (pedestrian crossing, it is always 50) then 90 and all within short distance. I noticed that many drivers either go faster over 50 zones or if they in 90 zone go slower so they don’t have to reduce speed from 90 to 50.
In US (or at least in California) seems to be more stable. So you have 35mph on roads, 25 on residential areas (usually you don’t go through them unless you’re reaching your destination) and 65 on freeway. There might be some signs that modify the speed (make it higher or lower depending on condition of the road) but it feels justified.
I also visited Czechia and their speed limits seem to be more reasonable and easier to follow.
There are small towns in the US whose existence depends on traffic tickets. They would wheel traffic signs out after an out of state car passed.
Actually this reminded me when I was driving toward such a small town via local freeway. There was a car that visibly tried to upset drivers driving slow when they tried to pass it they sped up. After observing it for a while I noticed there was a cop car driving in front. As soon as the freeway ended and transitioned into residential area the cop car drove into first parking lot and went the opposite way back to freeway, the car that tried to upset drivers followed them and did the same maneuver. At that point it was clear they were working together.
The way speeds are decided are rather ridiculous too. If I recall in some places (ahem: suburbia), it’s some kind of consensus of local landowners.
So they’ll set the speed limit to 35 mph along a ridiculously long and straight road with nothing on either side but suburb entrances and sidewalks.
The limits in my city are such that going 10 over is usually no big deal. It’s weird.
Because also if you stuck exactly to that limit, everyone drives dangerously around you because they’d go faster driving a horse and buggy lol.
In the US, there is the “85th percentile rule” that says the speed limit can’t be lower than the speed 85% of the traffic travels on that road. It’s not always followed, but is a factor I’ve heard cited in speed limit discussions several places I’ve lived, mostly as an argument against traffic calming measures for pedestrian safety. But to my understanding, the law implies that if enough people decide not to follow the speed limit, it could theoretically be deemed legally too low and would need to be increased.
When I first went to the US, the unrealistically low speed limits were one of the first things I noticed when driving.
I kinda assumed that this is by design so that police can pull over anyone they feel like since virtually everyone drives over the speed limit in some areas as it is so ridiculously low.
That’s a huge part of why some of these towns stay afloat. Your ticket is revenue for their population 12 town. It’s for sure a racket. I still remember the $500 ticket I got in Beaver, Utah for going 10 over…
It’s legalized banditry.
$500 for beaver sounds expensive.
Depends on the beaver
Brookville Indiana.
Got busted drinking a beer while canoeing. While doing my community service, the locals told us the bend in the river with the guy drinking at a picnic table was actually a cop. He cheers every boat going down the river and if you cheers back, he radios you description down river to his buddies and they pull you out of the river.
There was another group in our “substance abuse class” that said they were camping and lit a joint around the camp fire and the local police came out of the woods in tactical gear and night vision goggles to cite them.
Fuck that place
Cops man. Never invited to the party so they have to ruin everyone else’s fun. Then they wonder why their only friends are other cops…
Sounds more like a problem with how they’ve structured their taxes if they NEED to fine people…
Why do you want to defend cops fucking people over?
Catoosa, OK used to be infamous in the late 1990’s. It’s on Rt 66, and back then thry would stop you for any reason they could make up. It became a large enough problem that businesses started to leave, because neither customers nor employees wamted to risk driving there.
Something happened around the mid 2000’s, and the police became lesa crazy. Since then the town has exploded in size.
Small town cops looking for 1% less white skinned people and even a hint of a foreign accent.
There will be a brief moment of satisfaction when these types all lose their jobs to drones before things get even more dystopian
Once got pulled over for doing 25 in a…25. when I raised my eyebrows he said it was “foggy” out. Could see clear as day all the way down the road. I’m white too so it wasn’t even a race thing. I get it was a retirement area but ppl really got nothing better to do.
Obviously it was pretext for seeing who you are.
- on the lookout for any minorities.
Let’s not pretend obeying the speed limit will save you.
A small town near me got in deep shit for being small town assholes recently. That and embezzlement. This town is on a major highway to Myrtle Beach. They also prided themselves on the “safety” and “smallness” of their town, while also preying on vacationers.
Their municipal police police would aggressively enforce the speed limits. Every time I had to go through there you’d see someone running speed at nearly every speed zone change. As little as one to two mph over would get you an interaction with them. They also would issue tickets for far more than was normal. Up to 10 over was easily a $400 ticket, when most places would only do $150. They were also kind and polite about it. They’d offer to take payment right then and eliminate the speeding points. Which was the issue.
If you paid there they wouldn’t report the ticket. Or the cash. The town kept the money; the town was making about a million a year. You were fined under a safety ordinance and not traffic law. They were also supposed to share portions with the county and state, but didn’t. They argued that it was not a traffic violation. This town of barely 700 people had fifteen police just running speed traps.
They eventually were found out, and the municipal police department was heavily curtailed. The county manages speed through there and is nowhere as aggressive about it.
you should have probably put american small town cops as title. Cops have actual training in europe and other places and speed limits or road safety can’t be compared either. In the small town I live in cops are very down to earth and are generally fair unless you are being an asshole. Our laws are made so the fine is comparable to the % of speed over the limit and cops don’t care much unless you are 5-10% above the limit. This means they go after you if you drive with your head under the arm in cities, but you can go a little above on the highway. We also have car regulation so you don’t drive deathtraps that are a safety hazards to OTHER people. Which is why the shit cybertruck is not legal in EU and never will be.
Anyone familiar with cops in europe knows experiences vary widely. British police have gone on a campaign to arrest people for preaching on sidewalks. German and other european police physically beat people with clubs without much provocation. They were arresting people for talking walks by themselves in the woods in 2020-2022. In Switzerland, they use water cannons to spray protesters when it’s below freezing. Small towns in America are pretty laid back for the most part, because there’s not much happening to begin with. All of the murder is in the larger cities or a few regions where they have a history of high crime like northern alaska and native american reservations and the areas marijuana is farmed illegally by organized criminals. These are easily avoided.
They were arresting people for talking walks by themselves in the woods in 2020-2022
Citation ?
That seems like it’d be right in the region of lockdown and curfews.
The Switzerland part is verifiable, somewhat.
The British part is dubious in its subject, you can see many arrests for protesting and other things the government doesn’t like. But preaching? Like, religion? Thats a stretch.
You can probably find a couple over the years but not much more.
The beatings in Europe part seems anecdotal and vague.
The small town America part has strong “trust me bro” vibes and a long history of anecdotes and news stories to the contrary.
The native reservation part is verifiable in numbers but lacking in context.
North Alaska I’ve no idea.
Areas with high levels of organised crime (not the governmental or ruling class kind) being potentially dangerous isn’t exactly high detective work, but sure.
Experiences do very wildly though, so points for that.
Overall a solid 4/10.
Meanwhile where I am, if I see a cop on the highway, I just check to make sure I’m going less than 20km/h over the limit. Occasionally I wasn’t but still got ignored.
Sounds like Belgium?
Nope, Canada.
So Flock cams.
always been the opposite for me. Cops in my small towns legit let teens drive without their licences and shit lol
Those are prolly local kids they know. You only ding out of towners.
My small town had two cops. had the “chief” was transferred to a bigger town with more minorities. So now my town only has one cop. I bet things are going to actually calm down a lot
This or if you drive anything other than a big lifted truck the small town cops will swarm you.