Police in tiny Alabama town suck drivers into legal ‘black hole’
This jalopnik link is a light-on-details blog post that links to the actual reporting here: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.al.com&#x2F;news&#x2F;2022&#x2F;01&#x2F;police-in-this-tiny-alabama-town-suck-drivers-into-legal-black-hole.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.al.com&#x2F;news&#x2F;2022&#x2F;01&#x2F;police-in-this-tiny-alabama-...</a><p>When you drive down into what&#x27;s happening here, it looks pretty clearly like the town is operating a &quot;speed trap&quot; on a section of Interstate that goes through the city limits. It&#x27;s overwhelmingly likely that a majority of these stops are technically legitimate, even if the article is able to come up with a handful of sensational-sounding cases. Traffic violations are routine. You could sit a cop on just about any stretch of road in the town where I live and pull people over all day every day for totally legitimate violations, if that&#x27;s what you wanted to do.<p>Hell, there&#x27;s a school speed-zone camera right outside my window. I could sit here and watch its flash light-up violators&#x27; license plates all day -- on a stretch of road that&#x27;s <i>clearly</i> marked as a school zone with a speed camera!<p>The status quo is that a significant percentage of drivers violate the law every time they get behind the wheel and a lot of Americans more or less think it&#x27;s no big deal, despite overwhelming evidence for the problems it causes.<p>Alas, as this article demonstrates, if you hold these drivers accountable, then most Americans will perceive them to be innocent victims of out-of-control police.