The economy is in the toilet. So do yourself a favor and ease up on the accelerator.
That’sthe indirect message of a recent study by two economists, who foundthat when government revenues dry up, police write more speedingtickets. After analyzing 14 years of data in North Carolina, the pairfound that for every 1 percent drop in government revenue, the numberof traffic tickets issued per capita increases by 30 percent thefollowing year.
“It’s significant,” said University ofArkansas-Little Rock economics professor Gary A. Wagner, who co-wroteRed Ink in the Rearview Mirror: Local Fiscal Conditions and theIssuance of Traffic Tickets. “If there was no revenue for issuingtickets, I wouldn’t expect the unemployment rate and revenue to berelated.”
The study, which analyzed data from 1989 to 2003, foundthe fewest number of tickets issued in North Carolina was in 2000,after nearly a decade of economic growth.Roughly 645,000 tickets were written that year. The highest numberof tickets came two years later, when governments were trying torecover from the post-9/11 recession, and issued roughly 768,000.
Wagner said the study reinforced an accepted theory among economists: Incentives matter.
“Iflocal governments are somehow involved in the revenue that getsgenerated, there’s an incentive to get more revenue,” Wagner said.
Forsome, the idea of government relying on lead-footed drivers to balancethe budget isn’t new. Drivers warn one another about small-town speedtraps, and it’s widely assumed that tickets are being written with morethan public safety in mind.
Wagner said there are numerousanecdotes nationwide of such practices, such as the mayor of Nashville,Tenn., proposing two years ago a 33 percent increase in ticket revenuein his budget.
Wagner’s co-author, Thomas Garrett, is anassistant vice president at the St. Louis Federal Reserve. NorthCarolina was chosen as a case study simply because the state had gooddata.
During the study period, the state issued 11 tickets forevery 100 residents. Dare County had the highest rate, at 29 per 100.Caldwell County was the lowest, at 6 per 100.