The city of Waldo, Florida issues a lot of traffic tickets. In fact, Waldo has been designated a speed trap. Waldo traffic ticket cases have attracted national attention recently due to the suspension of the police chief and his replacement. Just days after I blogged about how officers regularly deny the existence of traffic ticket quotas, news broke that the Waldo police chief and a corporal did in fact have and enforce a citation quota.
Just as anticipated the city manager argued that the quota was only meant to assure that city police officers were staying productive. Frankly, the requirement that the officers issue one citation per hour is hardly motivational. An objective observer of traffic flow would tell you that there are many more than one traffic violation per hour. I actually have had a client pay to monitor a road for speeding violations and the numbers were astronomical. Almost every vehicle was speeding. I once deposed a trooper who monitored I-75. He said that if he was trying to be fast and provided there are no searches or arrests, then he thought he could issue a citation every fifteen minutes all day long. Now that Chief Szabo is suspended and Corporal Ken Smith has resigned, that does not mean Waldo will issue less tickets. It just means the officers will not be subject to quotas.
The number of the quota is not the issue. Traffic quotas are illegal under Florida law. There were other issues reported that led to the resignation. Officer Smith had been appearing in court, whether he appears now is a different matter. Whether your traffic infraction case was from Waldo or any other town in North Florida, call, click or fill out the form at the top right of the page for a consultation into your matter today.
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