This Louisiana Town Runs Largely on Traffic Fines. The Mayor Is Your Judge. | Hacker News Reader

This Louisiana Town Runs Largely on Traffic Fines. The Mayor Is Your Judge.

propublica.org

83 pointsStratoscope94 comments

I read this article a few days ago and was shocked that something like this could occur. At the same time, all the tickets referenced by ProPublica were very clear cases of speeding:

- "A ticket for 81 in a 50"

- "61 mph in a 50 mph zone"

- "driving 71 mph in a 50"

- "65 in a 50 mph zone"

It does not seem as though ProPublica was able to pull any cases where drivers were just a few mph over the limit. The mayor definitely should not be the judge. The town should not be threatening people with license revocations, either. But you could say that Fenton just really cares about public safety. The solution here is pretty simple-- watch the road and follow the speed limit.

I also don't know why the state is still processing license suspensions from Fenton. Louisiana should simply stop processing these requests.

Relevant context:

> That enforcement is particularly active on the north side of town, where U.S. Route 165 shifts from a divided highway to a five-lane road. Just before drivers reach a welcome sign, the speed limit drops from 65 mph to 50. Police cruisers often wait nearby, in a stand of trees across from a small roadside cemetery.

I considered this as well before writing my comment and it's a very good point. Keep in mind that half the tickets cited in the article were over 65 mph, so they also would have been above the speed limit even without the change. The disappearance of the divider and merging of the traffic lanes, which drivers should be able to see well ahead of time, are also very clear indicators that they are entering a town and should slow down.

Louisiana has many small highways like Route 165 where the speed limit changes in towns. Having grown up in the state, I know of many speed traps like Fenton. Most people would know to reduce their speed. However, Louisiana has little traffic enforcement in general and speeding on rural roads is very common.

The state should definitely put up more signs outside the town warning them to slow down. More warnings should be issued rather than tickets as well. But Louisiana also needs to improve its driving.

From your description, it sounds much like 90% of Poland except your roads are way too wide (and thus welcome drivers to go at a higher speed).

Gosh, how we even survive here, every town is a speed trap town!

They are scary too with their HUGE man size binoculars waiting for you. By the way. Poland. The only place on earth I ever got ticketed for jaywalking.

The best fix would probably be to change the roads to prevent the speed limit drop in the first place.

RS 32:61 [1] mandates a speed limit drop there (though only to 55) because it goes from multilane divided highway to multilane highway.

A frontage road, and merge/exit lanes as needed, and keep it divided highway the whole way and then it's no longer an issue.

We use highways and interstates as main streets way too much in Louisiana.

[1] https://legis.la.gov/Legis/Law.aspx?p=y&d=88480

65mph traffic through a village is noisy, and makes it more difficult to cross the road as a pedestrian. There's also a railroad, cemetery and several buildings in the way of expanding the road.

and makes it more difficult to cross the road as a pedestrian

A five-lane road is already hard to cross, regardless of the traffic speed. I understand that this design is common in the US, but it boggles my mind that people would even consider crossing a road of that size as a pedestrian unless the traffic speed was 15 mph or less. Something like that would be solved by a bridge or tunnel in developed countries.

Not in a town of 200 people it wouldn't.

If there's money to build a 5-lane road, there would have been money to build the footbridge or tunnel.

But more realistically, in other countries the 4-lane road would go around the village, and a 2-lane road with a low speed limit through it.

As someone who took 165 through Fenton[1] from I-10 to I-49 weekly for 5 years, there's money to build a five-lane federal highway to serve logging, agriculture, and military use, or more cynically for a legislator to say "I brought $XX million in federal funds home this term". (165 is also a hurricane evacuation route, and Fenton is only 12 miles up the road from I-10, this is the typical evacuation demarcation for a major storm. That's why swaths of it are more than two lanes. Further north and between towns, it narrows to two lanes.)

In either case the liability of towns or the well-being of the people who live there do not factor into design decisions of villages whatsoever.

A footbridge doesn't serve anyone in power, and nobody locally would use it. A tunnel in south Louisiana, even that far inland, is logistically stupid even with good intentions.

1: I was born and raised in the Louisiana terminus of 165, which is only a little larger than Fenton, and Fenton is only one of about a dozen such small towns on that route.

That's more than 100 km/h. Without traffic lights that's not safe to cross as a pedestrian.

It's also rather unsafe to have traffic lights at all at such speeds. It's really hard to stop at 100 km/h.

Adding a frontage road would destroy 10% of the homes, their only grocery store, gas station, and commercial business, all at once

The other part with Louisiana cops, especially small-towners, is that they have little to no desire to be accurate. They'll radar-clock an 18-wheeler going 70 in a 55 and pull over the car with Texas plates and a LSU Alexandria student parking sticker that the truck was passing, because it's easier to catch and the kid or their parents won't dream of contesting the ticket.

Likewise, locals who do speed through on the regular have a Fraternal Order sticker or a relative of the DA on speed-dial knowing the cop who issues that ticket will conveniently fail to show up to court and the fine will get dismissed.

Is this here https://www.google.com/maps/@30.375952,-92.9118031,3a,48.6y,...

Yes, good find!

There's also a "Speed limit 50 ahead" warning sign further back up the road.

https://www.google.com/maps/@30.3778051,-92.9108282,3a,75y,2...

Then it is very clear. I am a major fan of ProPublica, but I feel like they were too biased here and were trying too hard to write a good story.

straight road, no reason to go suddenly slower, the sign is completely irrelevant. drivers are not robots, if they get a good reason to slow down, they will. (eg. Waze telling them a speedtrap or patrol car is there ... or some actual traffic reason.)

There is a village ahead, that's plenty of reason to slow down.

The two pairs of signs are another reason.

The end of the divided highway is further reason.

sparse traffic, flat terrain, good visibility, right of way ... all things that incentivize drivers to not take the signs seriously.

and as the article clearly shows, they don't.

But the cemetery is here: https://www.google.com/maps/@30.3712351,-92.9141514,3a,75y,2...

I don't even need to look this up to know where it is*. All of the "highway" style roads throughout louisiana (and TX as far as i've seen) do this, ~65MPH with constant braking to get down to 30-50MPH through little towns.

I'm sure i there are such things in CA, as well, on US-101 or 1; i just don't remember them being a major part of any commute between cities.

*i was wrong! It wasn't Woodworth (on US-165 near Alexandria), it is Fenton, on US-165 near Lake Charles. 165 is fairly well known for being a ticket magnet highway around these parts, so an easy mistake to make. Also, US-165 through alexandria has a speed limit of 50-60 MPH and is multiple lanes. This feels different than having to go ~30MPH on a 3 lane with a huge median, like in Woodworth, Glenmora, etc.

I think this actually occurs a fair amount. Google something like "$stateName speed trap town".

Sometimes there is reform[1] for the egregious offenders[2] with enough media coverage (and it probably helps when they ticket the wrong person's relative).

[1] https://www.al.com/news/2022/04/inside-the-remarkable-rise-a...

[2] https://www.al.com/news/2022/01/police-in-this-tiny-alabama-...

> But you could say that Fenton just really cares about public safety.

If they really care about public safety, they would design their traffic situations so that people are less likely to speed. You can do a lot with clever traffic design, and it's more effective than simply fining everybody.

But of course that costs money rather than bringing it in. Considering traffic fines are their primary source of income, I think they strongly prefer unsafe driving over safe driving.

"If they really care about public safety, they would design their traffic situations so that people are less likely to speed. You can do a lot with clever traffic design, and it's more effective than simply fining everybody."

It is effective, but it might also be unpopular enough with the locals that you lose the next election. Especially if the measures inconvenience them.

I think the incentive for cities such as Fenton is a bit more specific: they want to fine unsuspecting strangers, who don't vote in local elections, while not bothering the locals too much.

You can interpret this as a modern, legal version of ye olde highwaymen. But there is a catch: transiting traffic is a genuine local problem (exhalations, noise, not contributing to local economy), so the incentive to make some money on it isn't as completely evil as it would be otherwise.

Maybe less highwaymen and more a local baron suddenly levying a toll on a major road. That sort of thing happened a lot, and never failed to upset merchants who would protest with a higher authority.

Except in this case there's a random aspect to the toll, and you can avoid the toll by knowing the situation and lowering your speed in time. I'm pretty sure the locals are all familiar with the situation and know how to avoid these fines.

I looked it up ... The town is basically a 2x6 street grid with 40-50 homes on either side of a large pass through route & railway.

The typical adult living here makes in the ballpark of $20,000 a year and has a kid.

I don't think the town will pool together money anytime soon for a public works project.

I don’t know if speed cameras in LA are legal or not but something like a typical European speed cam setup would be probably less than the salary of one police officer for a year and they could easily get rid of one police officer for a year if they installed one of those.

The problem is that the desire isn’t really to curb traffic issues here. The existence of this ticketing setup serves several purposes, but ensuring the health and safety of the populace by reducing speed is only a secondary goal here, if even a goal.

Except that speed cameras (and any other automatic enforcement) remove the ability of you to face your accuser in court.

Essentially they become judge, jury & executioner.

In the UK we have speed cameras. They have been successful in reducing serious accidents at accident blackspots. We just get a notice of prosecution if the speeding was over a certain limit; in this case we go to court, or a £100 fine and 3 to 6 points on our driving licence. Works well for us. Less than 3,000 deaths a year in road accidents with a population of 60 million.

I find LA and OH's small town justice to be rather quaint, to be honest.

I was totally fine with the way I saw speed cameras set up in Sweden, Latvia, Lithuania etc. in those places you generally see them only when you are genuinely passing through a place that it is unsafe to be speeding, most often this is the main crossing point in a small village where one of the only the bus stops is. A totally reasonable place you don’t want people rocketing by at 100 kmh. The key is that in Europe you are almost always warned exactly where, in meters, the speed trap is, often multiple times. So you have ample time to slow down and it’s not a “gotcha” like speed traps you might see in the States or the infamous red light cameras that you would only know they are photo enforced as you are driving through them because the barely visible sign is right before the light.

In short, the key thing about European speed cameras in my experience that makes them reasonable and effective is that they are actually designed and implemented as a way to slow people down, not as a moneymaking agenda

Side note I think Norway has gone just a bit too far with them. Especially in Oslo area

Executioner? I'm no fan of excessive speeding, but the death penalty is a bit harsh.

But you can still challenge it in court if you disagree. But you must be pretty sure it wasn't you, because there will be photographic evidence.

They can't afford diverting a highway or making the necessary infrastructure changes for it, they are a small town of 300 people with low income. Furthermore, highways are usually the responsibility of county or state governments.

> It does not seem as though ProPublica was able to pull any cases where drivers were just a few mph over the limit.

As the article mentions that's the policy:

> tickets are rarely issued unless drivers are going more than 11 mph over the limit, he said.

> The mayor definitely should not be the judge.

This is the big part. Ever heard of trias politica?

> The mayor definitely should not be the judge.

How is such a thing even possible/legal? Checks and balances and so on.

I drive around Europe, frequently and great distances. The ONLY country where I got a speeding ticket three times in three years is Latvia. My tickets are all by "a little faster" (15km/h or so, not doing 150 on a 50 zone)

They got (imho) the lowest speed limits in any of the countries I've travelled, cameras everywhere (that's good though), and even on their "motorways" (imagine crappy roads in the US in the 60s, but worse) the limit is something silly like 60km/h. So for anyone that is simple crossing through the country (N-S Estonia-->Latvia-->Lithuania or S-N) it is a nerve breaking experience to be forced to drive 30-60km/h while CROSSING A WHOLE (small) country.

When I read the article I thought exactly that. Shitty country, shitty roads, shitty speed limits, it's as if they do it on purpose to fine every foreigner and they don't upgrade their infrastructure.. How will that country ever prosper when any/all transportation has to go with 30km/h?

Well played Latvia.. you are the Fenton of the Europe!

15 km/h is not "a little bit faster", WTF.

Agreed 15ks is a lot. Time to slow down before you kill someone GP.

Depends on the speed limit really. In a 90 zone it's a poor habit but common throughout Europe. In a 30, it's in the goodbye driving license territory over here.

I live in western Europe. Doing 105 in a 90 zone is not a common habit. When I'm going 90 in a 90, very few people go faster than me, and when they pass me, usually everyone in the car goes "holy shit look at these maniacs".

And energy is quadratic with respect to velocity. Going 90->105 is worse than 30->45. The only difference is that a 30 zone is usually a densely populated area, so the risks are different.

Which country? That does not match my view of any Western European country I've lived or driven in.

I live in Norway. The most common highway speed is 80, but when you see someone driving sharp 80 it's most often a novice or the car is on automatic cruise. Most people lay on 5-8 km/h but on a multi lane road people doing 90+ are not uncommon. Traffic cameras for 80 zones are typically tuned in +12.

I'm not sure where you are, but from my driving elsewhere, it appears similar in Sweden (only the posted speeds are higher), and worse in Spain & Italy.

And energy is quadratic with respect to velocity. Going 90->105 is worse than 30->45.

Since the speed delta is the same it's far worse with 30 to 45, and regulations reflect that.

We clearly have different experience on the road.

> Since the speed delta is the same it's far worse with 30 to 45, and regulations reflect that.

If E(v) = mv²/2, then E(v+dv) = m(v+dv)²/2 = mv² + m v dv/2 + m dv²/2. As you can see, the middle term is proportional to v, the initial speed. Kinetic energy does increase more going 90->105 than 30->45.

Maybe this is too abstract, so he're a concrete example. Let's assume a vehicle weighing 1 ton (1000 kg).

* Going 30 km/h => kinetic energy is 34 kJ

* Going 45 km/h => kinetic energy is 78 kJ, so about 43 kJ more

* Going 90 km/h => kinetic energy is 312 kJ

* Going 105 km/h => kinetic energy is 425 kJ, so about 113 kJ more

It's really basic physics.

Then I think you understood that 15 over 30 represents more than a doubling of the energy versus the increase by 1/3 in the (already assuringly lethal for pedestrian) 90 case.

The A10 ring around Amsterdam has a max speed of 100 (except the west side where it's 80), but when there's no traffic jam, it's not unusual for a lot of people to go at least 110.

15kph is definitely not “a little faster”.

But maybe the more interesting discussion would be, why, apart from the obviously not true 30kph national speed limit, Latvia seems to be doing okay without this excess of speed?

> Shitty country

How rude. They were economically shattered by being occupied by the USSR for decades. Lay off.

Nothing to do with USSR legacy, especially considering that EU funds became available for new roadworks in the early millennium. Lithuania was occupied by the USSR, too, and is about the same size, but it has emphasized motorways more. If you drive north through the Baltics, the change from Lithuanian roads to Latvian ones is drastic.

Basically, you're speeding on shitty roads, where the speed limit were set because they know they're shitty and dangerous?

And it's somehow on purpose and they should let you drive above the speed limit because 'you know'?

Prepare to avoid Belgium because they're lowering the tolerance on the speed radar and you might get a ticket for driving 5kmh above the speed limit.

Even on the brand new highways.

People driving through your country without doing any business in your country can be a serious strain, though. This is particularly an issue in Belgium, which has exactly the right shape to host a lot of through traffic between Netherland and France, which puts a lot of wear on the roads without paying for it.

Belgium has normal speed limits, fortunately, but poorly maintained roads. It wouldn't be unreasonable if through traffic from Netherland and France somehow paid a bit for that.

> They got (imho) the lowest speed limits in any of the countries I've travelled, cameras everywhere (that's good though), and even on their "motorways" (imagine crappy roads in the US in the 60s, but worse) the limit is something silly like 60km/h. So for anyone that is simple crossing through the country (N-S Estonia-->Latvia-->Lithuania or S-N) it is a nerve breaking experience to be forced to drive 30-60km/h while CROSSING A WHOLE (small) country.

I don't understand why you saw the need to make up something this ridiculous. The standard speed on all surfaced roads is 90 kph, and up to 120 kph on major roads like the E67 that connects Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.

Oh that’s disappointing, I would have enjoyed being reminded of this episode of Boy Meets World:

https://youtu.be/864PunevIxY?si=Xl7Tgi_CUIpWDmtw

Spoiler: the mayor was the judge

So, they found no evidence of corruption, and everybody was speeding through the town. Maybe the system should be fixed to avoid obvious conflicts of interest, but this rather looks like another case of failed US infrastructure. There shouldn't be a highway cutting straight through a village with no protection.

I see this as a failure of responsibility on the part of the drivers:

The rules were clear, and well-justified, but the drivers chose to ignore them.

(I recognize that this position is tied to my personal views on civics and ethics, so I don't expect people to agree with me.)

Drivers still have personal responsibility, I absolutely agree with that.

Regardless, any infrastructure where drivers can transgress rules easily is bad infrastructure. This is the case here. The highway runs straight through, the protection is non-existent (not a single fence), signaling is just small panels (no road markings, no overhead signs, no blinking bright lights), access to the highway is done via stop signs.

This is a blatant cheap job that shouldn't be fixed with police patrols and speed trap town rumors.

The rules may be clear and well-justified, but due process exists for a reason. The state should still have to prove, beyond reasonable doubt, that you actually broke those rules, and the decision as to whether the burden of proof has been met should not be made by someone who stands to gain something by deciding in the affirmative.

"Not only must Justice be done; it must also be seen to be done." [1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R_v_Sussex_Justices,_ex_parte_...

Is there doubt about due process in this situation?

Or are you arguing more generally about the low bar for administrative law-based sanctions in the US?

It's both. It's a poorly designed road, but also given that it is a poorly designed road, drivers should obey the rules.

Having the mayor act as judge seems absurd; I'm really, really surprised that the state allows that. All very feudal.

it's a nice stretch of straight road. the town is a mere nuisance from the perspective of the motorist passing through. after all in 99.9% of cases nothing would happen if folks would just maintain their speed.

In Arkansas, they passed a law that limits these municipalities from collecting more than 50% of their revenue from traffic citations. It had been a problem for years, but only passed after a police officer, who was both out of his jurisdiction and violating a court order enjoining his department from issuing traffic citations, beat a man to death after the man saw his friend getting a ticket and stopped to let his friend know the ticket was invalid and that he could get it dismissed.

Even that seems excessive. How about 5%? Or not allowing the funds from citations to be used for municipal benefit at all? Have them go to a victim compensation program, or a halfway house, or medical welfare, or children's food, or something. Just saying the incentives are wrong here.

> How about 5%? Or not allowing the funds from citations to be used for municipal benefit at all?

Sounds good, but I doubt any government would go for that.

> Have them go to a victim compensation program,

That assumes there are any “victims” associated with the citations in question.

This doesn't seem nearly as bad to me as the abuse of civil forfeiture laws.

American police are something else.

I just learned my state is the the only other one that has mayor’s courts, or that mayor’s courts were special thing. I guess I just thought misdemeanors were handled this way everywhere. It also explains why the experience I had of a speeding ticket I got out of state was so jarring compared to local.

Interesting reading: https://www.acluohio.org/en/news/what-mayors-court

In particular:

> Magistrates and mayors hear cases at a fast pace and they often rush people into pleading “no contest” or “guilty” and do not give due consideration to people’s explanation of their case when they plead “not guilty.” There is no one to advise or speak on behalf of the defendant unless the defendant hires their own lawyer. This helps mayor’s courts pressure defendants into pleading guilty or no contest, even if they are not guilty of the charges against them.

Absolutely my (limited) experience. The verdict was basically handed out with the ticket so if you choose (or have to) go to court, the only thing you get is court fees for the privilege of being rushed through a proceeding that’s scheduled in bulk.

Whereas a ticket I got in NY, there was much more ado and it was a slow, irritating process (even to just plead guilty and pay my fine).

I’ve been looking into tiny municipalities

They're basically like startups and with semi public bylaws

You can form or takeover any one you want, and just pass laws that favor you for your term. You can vote out salary caps, you can vote in to delegate that decision to yourself. You literally just property tax some warehouses and railroad tracks and pay yourself!

This is what people meant by Land of Opportunity because it was about the land, not jobs

Its still true

This sounds dodgy, but not really illegal.

I know there’s a town in Florida, where the cops sit in the median, with a black hair dryer, and pull people over, and another town in Texas, that is infamous for using civil forfeiture on people of color. I think that town was featured in a news show.

These towns don’t have “police.” They have “POE-leece.”

> Municipal judges must hold a law degree and pass the bar; a mayor can preside over court without meeting any qualifications. Yet, like a municipal judge, a mayor can impose fines or sentence people to jail.

> Mayor’s courts must ensure defendants have fair trials. But unlike other courts in the state, they aren’t subject to rules like the Code of Criminal Procedure that are supposed to ensure courts are run fairly and properly.

This doesn’t seem ill intent or fraudulent to me. Just al lot of incompetence.

That town is apparently Nothing But Trouble.

I heard a joke once: "they don't stand for corruption in Louisiana, they demand it."

Is there, like, anything GOOD about Louisiana?

The food, including Cajun & Creole, crawfish, The French Quarter, Mardi Gras, voodoo, bayous, the music (birthplace of jazz), Louis Armstrong, Fats Domino, Jerry Lee Lewis, salt domes/caverns (which is why much of the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve is located there), the template for haunted mansions and graveyards.

Happy Turducken Day :)

Almost entirely aspects of black culture, which is still extremely persecuted there. The south is still extremely backwards.

Can you elaborate?

I count 3-4 out of 12 items in that list as being specific to black culture.

And AFAIK they're celebrated there, not persecuted (perhaps with the exception of voodoo.)

> Aspects of black culture

Are you implying pathological cultural appropriation or is there another aspect I'm missing between the lines here?

Like, black culture is part of the larger homogenous culture, no?

Did you maybe intend to reply to the GP?

Yess

You forgot "Your Honor"

NOLA! Love that city. It has everything- food, music, and drinks.

Drive through daquiri bars

This CAN't be a thing...?!

It is. There are also drive through beer stores.

That, to me, while ostensibly outrageous on the face, still kinda makes sense to me even tho its weird there's no technically drive through grocery shopping. Maybe a place like in Las Vegas where Michael Jackson was buying all the crazy-expensive art would have a wing dedicated to that but wow.

We all like the sauce a little too much, but most of us wouldn't be seriously perusing this "resource" and I hope its customers are "ok"...

I've worked with some absolutely lovely people at Stennis Space Center / NOAA, who I believe live(d?) in Louisiana.

It's sometimes unfair (and inaccurate) to paint with such a broad brush.

Ya, but I don't see any harm in getting people talking resulting in all these NICE things surfacing

Edit: nice Spaces, I agree as well

There are three Louisianas:

- New Orleans

- Cajun Country

- Eastern East Texas/southern Arkansas

The first two are the source of many unique, wonderful aspects of American culture.

The third is the source of this mayor/judge, a petrochemical regulatory regime that makes Texas producers envious, and the current Speaker of the House.

I vacillate between liking it here and hating it here. I'm currently middling between; but we certainly hope you enjoy our peppers and hot sauce (buffalo wing sauce originated here, and tobasco peppers are grown here, with the sauce named such manufactured here), whisky, soybeans, cotton, feed corn, sugarcane, music (not just zydeco and jazz, but Dirty Southern Rap, etc,) wood, and oil refineries. We don't enjoy that last one so much as they don't pay taxes and leave the citizens to rot and choke.

And the biggest thing about louisiana that is "good": It isn't Texas. As i've always said, you feel like wasting exactly 24 hours sometime, drive I-10 through texas.

This article is bizarre. ProPublica really took four trips to a town of 220 people with

> four journalists toting notebooks and a video camera, driving around town, flying a drone overhead, watching police officers wait for speeders.

and all they could dig up is "the mayor shouldn't be the judge of this traffic court"?

Sure. It's a town of 200 people. On the scale of abuses of power going on in hick towns, this doesn't even register.

Is this really what "holding power to account" looks like?

So because there are only 220 of them, they don't matter? Sure, propublica has bigger fish to fry but I appreciate this look into a community and power structure that we might never ever get to see otherwise.

Reminds me of Morelaw town in Interstate 60

Similarly, Town of Hanging Rock, Ohio

Though there's probably better examples, this article reminds me of this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Athens_%281946%29

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