They never do. This first hearing is to filter the people out that are there to simply pay the extortion fee, versus those that want to fight the ticket. Those that want to fight are given a new court date. The feelings enforcer never shows on that first court date. They know it costs us money to take off of work to fight the nonsense, and hope/expect people to cave and just pay the damned fine. And it works.
Pennsylvania is better than many in this respect - They position patrol cars as a deterrent as a matter of policy, unless a specific location has been creating a ongoing problem. Then they start writing tickets to get attention. My last DOT inspection, however, shows how the revenue collection comes into play. Pennsylvania state trooper pulled me into a random roadside check, first truck of the day, not a big deal. A year earlier, same guy had pulled me in when they were checking for expired registrations when the license year ran out. I was up to date, and he gave my truck a level two walk around, gave me a report with zero violations, commented about the great mechanical condition of my older unit.money has to come from somewhere....... police are a tax collection agency
proof: cop hides over the hill to trap speeders AFTER they create an unsafe situation; when he could easily park in plain site as a reminder to watch your speed........ "to protect and serve", my ***
Pennsylvania is the opposite. The officer always showed up when I did this stuff as an in house trucking company attorney, and two tickets I did on my own behalf. Pennsylvania magistrate courts were a crap shoot, about 50/50 between those willing to cut a deal, and those who were going to get the money no matter what. First one I ever did, the trooper told me afterwards he thought I had a good argument, and would have thrown it out. But that judge would never let the money get away.
In Pennsylvania it is.
I think that’s the issue he has, normally there’s a grace period when your tags are out because life happens, but Barney fife decided to make an example out of, he was probably the most dangerous person on the road!
The station I go to for inspection got shut down from doing inspections for a full year because he was lenient and letting some things slide by. But think about all the ones that would ride around on 'maypops' or even tires that are 20 years old and hit the freeways with them. My diesel has tires on it that will be 19 this Oct but I'm not driving it much and when I do, it doesn't go over 40. Yes, I'm shopping for tires. Also without inspections how many would be driving with broken or burned out lights? I know there are places that pull ya over for a safety check but how many never get stopped for that? I used to see cars running around with expired registration/inspection but don't see that much anymore. However, there's a fairly large population that get a bogus sticker anyways and so far I haven't heard of any stations checking date codes on tires......
Cops are funny this way.
There are hundreds of those
Must have been laid that morning
