Ticket Master

With radar gun purring and a well-worn motorcycle idling beneath him, Officer Ed Kline squinted at the green sports car barreling down Santa Ana Canyon Road at 56 mph.

Before its driver could even let off the gas, Kline was behind her in a streak of swirling lights, unconcerned that she was on her way to a church potluck or unfamiliar with the area’s speed limits or even, quite suddenly, suspicious of the accuracy of her speedometer.

While the woman talked, Kline wrote quietly on a duct-taped, dogeared pad: one ticket for going 16 mph over the speed limit, and a second for not having a front license plate on the jazzy T-topped car.

“Goodbye and have a nice day,” Kline said, as though he had just finished giving her a free oil change.

She thanked him and slowly rolled away, still glancing in her rear-view mirror and likely totaling her fines: $200 to a city she had only been visiting.

Kline, 57, returned to his roadside perch. In three more hours, he would write four more tickets. By shift’s end at 4 p.m., he would have about 10 to turn in, for speeders in denial, reckless bicyclists and illegal parkers. As the most productive ticket-giver in Anaheim’s history, Kline has become the city’s own personal revenue generator. In 33 years, he has written more than 100,000 traffic tickets, which translates--by conservative estimates--into at least $1 million for city coffers.

He is known for having an oddly polite manner while punishing about 250 traffic lawbreakers every month, but can count on one hand the number of people he has let off with mere warnings. Zipping around on a not-so-shiny Kawasaki, Kline targets drivers in Anaheim’s residential areas and school zones.

“He’s a legend,” Officer Brian Stack said of his partner. “Nobody in the state has more time on the bike than him.”

His longtime supervisor, Sgt. Ed Dougherty, said Kline “has never, ever wanted to leave the traffic unit. This part of the job, unlike most officers, is what he loves to do.”

Kline said his passion for pulling people over is easily explained. Car accidents are the country’s biggest killer, yet few people respect the laws of the road, he said. For that reason, Kline prides himself on being tough but fair. How tough? Not even a pleading, crying woman behind the wheel can sway him.

“At least if she’s crying,” he said, “it means she’s not dead.”

Kline will, however, forgo a ticket for good reasons--a woman in labor, an injured passenger, a confused senior citizen--although he says such cases are rare. Usually, he boldly tickets anyone, even baseball star Reggie Jackson or hamburger king Carl N. Karcher.

“He’d write his own mother if he had to,” Capt. Frank Fleming said. “He gets everyone.”

Not long ago, Kline slapped a ticket on Anaheim Mayor Tom Daly’s parked car for having expired plates. Daly paid the fine without a fuss, saying, “He got me fair and square.”

“The law looks at everyone the same way,” said Kline, who has worked for the department longer than any other current officer, including Chief Randall Gaston. “I do things by the book, and if that makes someone think twice about how they’re driving or what they’re doing, well then I’m satisfied.”

Gaston, who worked with Kline on motorcycle patrol in the ‘60s, said the veteran’s work is “unparalleled” because he takes a personal interest in traffic safety and rarely misses a day on the job.

“He’s sincere and even-tempered,” Gaston said. “He’s proud when accident rates go down and people slow down in the areas he’s watching.”

Most don’t challenge the beefy, 6-foot-3 officer. Kline takes copious notes and always shows up to face ticket disputes in court, refusing to let his absence “automatically get the guy off.”

“The judge at least needs to hear both sides,” Kline said. “Then if they decide I was wrong, so be it.”

About half of the people who challenge Kline’s tickets in court win, he said. Some are first-time offenders for whom judges think a warning is sufficient, he said. Other offenses judges sometimes find too minor.

By nightfall, he will have given half a dozen more tickets anyway.