Red Ink in the Rear View Mirror
After getting a traffic ticket, a St. Louis Federal Reserve Board economist decided to do some research: do cops issue more tickets during recessions? Turns out, youbetcha.
Controlling for other factors, a 1 percentage point drop in local government revenue leads to a roughly .32 percentage point increase in the number of traffic tickets in the following year, a statistically significant connection.
If my math is correct, with the more than 24% budget shortfall in New York State due to the crash and the credit crisis, there should be about an 8% increase in tickets next year. David Letterman better watch out.
Source: STLtoday.com
This is very true, especially in Scotia, NY where the cops were told by local government to write more tickets in order to generate revenue.