CITY SMART: How to thrive in the urban environment of Southern California. : Writing Their Own Ticket

“We don’t have quotas,” insisted the CHP officer.

Sure.

Then why do CHP officers tally up the number of tickets they write each month?

Whether anyone believes it, the California Highway Patrol didn’t receive a dime from the nearly 1 million speeding tickets its officers wrote in 1994.

And unlike salespeople at Nordstrom, the top ticket-writing officer doesn’t receive a bonus; the CHP could not even say who that is.

“People assume we get the income from citations, and we don’t,” said CHP spokeswoman Patricia Ryan. The CHP is funded by vehicle registration fees. Ticket fines are split between the state, cities and counties.

“We don’t mandate to our people that you shall write a ticket,” said CHP Sgt. Sandra Houston. “We leave the decision up to the officer.”

“We can write as many as we want,” CHP Lt. Gordon Graham added with a laugh. He has long believed that tickets have an impact on traffic safety,

CHP officials say they tally up the tickets issued by officers because it helps in evaluating an officer’s job performance.

But they say an officer could issue only a handful of tickets but still receive a good evaluation if he or she spent a lot of time on other duties, such as assisting motorists. State law prohibits police agencies from using ticket counts as their “sole criteria” for evaluating an officer.

“We’re a number society, where we base performance on how many things people did,” Houston said.

“We as a department don’t have a quota. But we do have an expectation of our employees. . . . If one of my people came in and they didn’t have any tickets, I’d really start to wonder what they’re doing.”

“What we are into now is beat accountability, where you take care of everything that is going on on your beat,” Graham added. “If you go about and do your job, you’ll come in with a lot of tickets because there’s a lot of violations out there.”

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Still, disbelievers abound.

The National Motorists Assn.--best known for successfully lobbying to repeal the 55 mph speed limit--contends that a little-known 1991 state law puts pressure on local police, at least, to churn out tickets.

Under the law, counties must raise as much money from traffic tickets as they did in 1992-93 or pay the difference to the state--a requirement that has cost Los Angeles County more than $500,000 over the last two years.

“Tell me that isn’t some kind of quota system,” said Jim Baxter, president of the Wisconsin-based National Motorists Assn.

But a county auditor said in reference to the state law, “The cops don’t even know about this.”

Yet, one local traffic officer acknowledged, “When you become a motor officer, you do so knowing that the city is employing you also in part to generate revenue for the city along with all your other functions. They do not expect to pay you to ride around the city all day spreading good cheer and warnings.”

“Speeding tickets are big business,” James M. Eagan, a retired New York state trooper, wrote in “A Speeder’s Guide to Avoiding Tickets.” Noting that fines help pay for an army of civil servants, he added: “If our elected officials were honest, they would tell you that you owe it to your country to speed.”

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Unlike the CHP, cities receive a cut of the take from traffic fines, but, for many cities, the percentage has declined in recent years as the state has taken more.

Interestingly, LAPD-issued tickets of all kinds also have declined sharply--from 750,829 in 1987 to 405,878 in 1994.

LAPD Lt. Charles Kunz attributes the reduction to a number of factors: In 1987, the LAPD received extra funding for a special traffic enforcement effort and ticketing went up. Five years later, however, 60 motor officer jobs were eliminated. Officers also are now busier responding to radio calls, “and the calls are more complicated than they were years ago.”

And, he said, “the traffic safety message is getting out.”

So where does the money go?

On a $136 speeding ticket issued by the CHP or LAPD, this is how the money is allocated: $74.52 to the state, $22.52 to the city, $9.86, courthouse construction; $12.26, jail construction; $9.86, emergency medical services; $2.40, automated fingerprint fund; $2.72, courthouse automation, and $1.86, court operations, according to the Los Angeles Municipal Court.