Published on Thursday, January 19, 2006
in the Tallahassee Democrat

Ticket quotas

To the person who wonders whether the Florida Highway Patrol troopers he sees writing tickets on Oak Ridge Road at the end of the month are just trying to meet a monthly quota: No, says Lt. John Bagnardi.

"We don't have quotas," he wrote by e-mail, "as it is actually against the law for us to set them. Troopers can write as many tickets as they want. They don't get any extra incentive if they write a lot. (Neither) the Highway Patrol nor the state receives any money from citations written by state officers. All the money goes to the county they are written in....

"Tell your Oak Ridge person to be thankful that troopers must like to work their neighborhood. We get requests every day throughout the region for special enforcement."