I’ve received a number of questions focused on various traffic violations that end with a similar refrain: Why don’t the police do more enforcement of (fill in the blank)? Collectively all these questions hint at the larger question: Are we doing enough traffic enforcement in our community? Instead of answering that question with a yes or a no, I’ve done some research on how much enforcement is happening in our county. I’ll give you the numbers and let you reach your own conclusion.
Last year law enforcement agencies in Whatcom County issued over 21,000 infractions, arrested over 1000 drivers for impaired driving and cited almost 2800 drivers for various criminal traffic violations, for a total of nearly 25,000 enforcement actions over the year. With a county population of around 220,000 that works out to over ten percent of people in Whatcom County getting an infraction, citation or arrest. That doesn’t mean, however, that you have a one-in-ten chance of getting a ticket if you live here. If you generally obey traffic laws your odds move closer to zero. And if you generally don’t obey traffic laws, well, you’re probably part of that 25,000.
As a point of reference, the 25,000 tickets and arrests in 2017 is a significant decrease compared to ten years earlier. In 2007 that number exceeded 41,000. Certainly the economic crisis of 2008 impacted nearly every police department in the state, but there are multiple reasons for the decrease in traffic enforcement that exceed the space in this column. I’ve talked with a lot of agencies in Washington about levels of traffic enforcement, and across the board they see it as an important part of their role as an agency, but also one that has to be balanced against competing needs in the community.
Often people who want to see more enforcement suggest what appears to be an easy solution; hire officers just to write tickets, and the revenue from the tickets will more than pay for their positions. There’s just one flaw in that solution; in Washington law enforcement agencies don’t receive any revenue from writing tickets. The money goes a lot of places, but none of it goes to the ticket writers. Overall, I think that’s actually a good thing. Without the pressure of having to raise their own revenue, enforcement isn’t colored by a financial incentive to write tickets.
I agree that more traffic enforcement is good for the community, but effective enforcement is more than just the number of tickets. It has to be the right kind of enforcement. We want laws enforced that will improve the safety of road users. Agencies in Washington from the local police and sheriff to statewide operations including the Department of Transportation, the Washington State Patrol and the Washington Traffic Safety Commission all collect data on the type of, severity of and factors involved in traffic crashes and use that data to prioritize enforcement.
Locally and statewide, the biggest risk factors in fatal traffic crashes are impairment, speeding, distraction and not wearing a seatbelt. Throughout the year our law enforcement agencies not only include traffic enforcement efforts to address those factors, but also participate in multi-agency emphasis patrols focusing on one or more of the specific high-risk driving behaviors.
Whenever we explore traffic data it’s important to realize that it’s not just numbers. Last year 565 people were killed in traffic crashes in Washington. Twenty-five of those people were in Whatcom County. As a way of remembering this loss, on November 15th many of us will participate in World Day of Remembrance. This international event is commemorated to remember the many people killed and injured on the world’s roads, together with their families, friends and many others. It is also a day on which we thank the emergency services and reflect on the tremendous burden and cost of this continuing disaster to families and communities, and on ways to halt it. I invite you to join with others in our community at Bellingham City Hall at 5:00 pm on November 15th to remember and honor those who died in traffic crashes in our community.
Do we have enough traffic law enforcement? The answer is, to much, and to think otherwise just goes to show that either your a part of the enforcement community, a legislator. Or some government agency that benefits in some way, or just a person that doesn’t drive much, so consequently isn’t exposed to traffic law enforcement. Many people can get away with traffic infractions, you know who you are. All you need is the right sticker, the right license plate , a military uniform, the police badge in you wallet. That leaves you and I to get all the attention from law enforcement. We would get rid of many traffic laws if these people that want more enforcement would obey and model driving the way we do and have to do. Many times our traffic law enforcement drivers don’t even know the speed limit as well as the experience drivers, because their primary focus is in forcing it not obeying it like we have to so we can defend ourselves from them. We no longer can drive reasonable and prudent, but most obey even the most rediculas speed limits even more precise than law enforcement does. This is corruption. Our traffic laws are made primarily by these people I mentioned before, with not near enough input from the experienced drivers viewpoint.