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Gaffer Variety:
Revenue Cops 028:
By Willie Gaffer:
February 20, 2006:
The joke is on me this time. I got caught by a revenue cop in Redford Township, Michigan. It cost me $130.00. It could have been worse, much worse. In addition, it's really my own fault. I'll get to that in a bit. First, what is a revenue cop? Let me explain what I mean.
In America, there are many fortunate communities. These are the communities who, through no real effort of planning, happen to have frontage on a major through highway. These communities are in many places in many states. In Michigan, Telegraph Road qualifies many communities. Telegraph is a major highway that passes, by various names, through several states from Michigan, all the way to Florida. Before Interstate I-75, it was the main north-south route that connected those two states. At that time it was called, by many people, the Dixie or the Old Dixie. It still carries enormous volumes of traffic.
The way some of these communities take advantage of that has been a fairly common practice for decades. It's the old robber baron mentality. If you are passing through, you are fair game. They hire police to patrol these highways looking for revenue type violations. The cops who pimp for these communities are not thinking about traffic safety or even law enforcement. They are thinking about and seeking revenue producing violations. That is their purpose. An effective revenue cop can produce several thousands of dollars a day for their masters at city hall. Think about this the next time you hear a political hack saying they need more money for more cops. What many of them really want is more cops for more money.
These pimps also used to set what were called speed traps. This is where the speed limit changes abruptly without previous warning. You see a sign that says 60 MPH and you are going 55. Then, with no forewarning, you suddenly see a sign that says 25 MPH and then you hear the siren. Then you realize you have been had. They don't do this as much as they once did, but many still do it. However, there are many other violations that require less effort and produce larger revenues. I'm sure the pimps who are looking for these violations have memorized the fines for the large ticket violations. Fines can range from$25.00 up to $250.00 and more. You can judge a community by the number of large fines imposed.
The really annoying thing about these little revenue cop turds is their ingratiating manner as they stick it too you. They are polite to a fault, but they always have that little quirkey smirkey half smile that gives them away. Then, they always claim they are giving you a break. The chubby little rascal who got me claimed he could have towed my car and he was giving me a break. That same little turd kept me and my wife sitting beside the road for ten minutes while he desperately searched the records for an excuse to do just that. He was willing and ready to put a 75 year old man and his wife afoot in January, 60 miles from home. He did not find an excuse because my record is clean as far back as he could go. He did not hit the jackpot so he grudgingly gave me a single violation citation.
The violation I got caught on was "driving a vehicle with an expired license plate." I suspect most normal cops do not look for expired plates at all. In Michigan, vehicle plates are updated with a little sticker about 1.5" square and are difficult to notice because they are usually covered with mud or snow. A cop must be really looking for this and only this to notice it. That means he is not interested in traffic safety or anything else except revenue. In addition, a normal cop would not tow a car if he found an expired plate. He might not even give a citation, but would give a warning instead, if he checked and found a clean record. Most cops are not mean little turds.
As I said, that citation got me a fine of $130.00. I put a check for that fine in the mail the day after I got the ticket. That was sent by certified mail, receipt requested. I trust those people about as far as I could throw their courthouse. If they have revenue cops on the road, they are not trustworthy. Always get a receipt with these kind of people.
As soon as I knew my plates were expired I went to the local office of the secretary of state (SOS) where I was at the time. That was my sister's home in Trenton, MI. My naive brother was also there and he wondered why I was in a hurry to get the plate. He thought once I had a ticket they would not give me another one. I had to explain to him, technically they could give me another ticket every time they saw me driving without a plate and they probably would. It's not about decency of ethical behavior. It's about revenue. Ethics are beyond their understanding. I got a new tag and put it on immediately.
Okay, how come I was driving a vehicle with an expired license plate? I have said it was really my own fault. That's true in a way. I got caught because I trusted Michigan's SOS, Terri Lynn Land to do her job. She did not. In fact, she set me up. I doubt it was deliberate, but I don't care. I have said it many times. The effect of malicious intend and studied indolence is the same for the victim.
Some history is in order here. Years ago Michigan had a really terrible SOS office. A common scene was to see a long line of people stretching out the door of a local office. Disgruntled people stood for hours in slow moving lines only to encounter a surly clerk who would give them a form to fill out and send them back to the end of the line. This went on for years. Everyone in Michigan hated that SOS and everyone who worked for him.
Then an enlightened person was elected to that office. Her name was Candice Miller. She streamlined everything. She sent out notices by mail and accepted credit cards or checks in payment. She even set up a website where people could do their business on line. As a result, she actually cut staff and improved service at the same time. It was too good to last and it did not. Miller went on to the United States Congress in 2003 and she was succeeded by Land.
Here is the thing. I trusted Land to send me the forms for my plates by mail as had always happened. It did continue to happen for awhile, then we had to change our mailing address because the USPS simply refused to deliver our mail to our home mailbox. We had no choice. We had to get a PO Box. As far as I can figure, that is when the SOS stopped sending the forms. At the time of the change, our local township office informed us that the SOS had mandated that voter registration addresses and driver registration address must agree. They also told us the SOS would update their records and send us a sticker for our driver's licenses. Sure enough, we actually got the stickers in the mail. From that, we assumed they had updated their records and everything would continue to work as usual. Wouldn't you?
We only found out when I got the citation from the turd that they had not actually recorded our change of address. That is when we went to the Trenton SOS office to get a new license plate. At that time, we discovered they still had our old address. Not only that, the miserable surely clerk refused to record our change of address. She insisted on issuing a license plate to my street address and entered that as my mailing address even though we told her the USPS would not deliver mail to that address. She simply did not care. She had her mindless mechanical routine and that was that! So, in a convolute way, this problem links back to the studied indolence of the USPS. Am I surprised? Not at all! Indolent people tend to reenforce each other if only by accident. Like crap and corrosion, it tends to pile up.
My best guess is, the SOS sent out the forms to the wrong address and the USPS either sent them back or trashed them. Their behavior has been about 50/50 in situations like that. Sometimes they do a return to sender. Sometimes the missive just disappears. If they sent them back, the SOS probably trashed them instead of trying to find out our real address. It fits the pattern of petty clerk behavior.
Do you think I should have known my plate was expired and taken care of it? Have you ever tried to notice something that did not happen? It is not that easy. It is very easy to notice when someone does something to you or for you. There is an overt act involved. It is a much different matter to notice something that should have happened and did not, especially when you have trusted someone to take care of it. That is what happened to me. The SOS had been doing it and they stopped. From now on I will notice it because I will put notes in my calendar every year from now on.
Now I can give you the could have been worse part. A few weeks ago, my son pointed out that my wife's licence plate was expired. She was driving with an expired plate and had not been caught. She had not passed through a revenue cop's territory. We immediately went to get her a new plate and wondered how we could have screwed up like that. It was not until I got caught by the little turd that we connected the dots. Yes, I should have realized and checked my other plates at that time. I did not. So, it turned out we had, not just one, but three expired plates. We could have got hit for $390.00. It could have been a lot worse.
As it is, we went to the Grand Blanc SOS office near our home. At that point we made an amazing discovery. Not all SOS offices are staffed by miserable surly fools. The people at this office were polite and very helpful. They immediately pulled up all of our records on their computer and changed the addresses to reflect the reality. Then they issued a new tag for my pickup. They treated us like neighbors instead of adversaries.
It remains to be seen if the SOS bureaucrats in Lansing will follow through. I sure will not trust them, ever again. I will keep track and take whatever action is needed to ensure I will not get raped by a revenue cop again. As far as I am concerned, I feel the State of Michigan owes me $130.00. The fine was a result of their error. I know they will never pay that. It is rare for a bureaucrat to even admit an error let alone make restitution. I will send a copy of this essay to Land. I doubt she will ever see it, but I will send it for two reasons. First, to point up the problems in Lansing and in Trenton and second, to point up the excellence in the Grand Blanc SOS office.
As to the revenue cops, If Michigan had a good Attorney General who really wanted to serve the people, he could investigate several of these communities, looking for this revenue cop kind of operation. I could suggest Sylvan lake, Redford Township, Dearborn Heights, and Cheboygan County. Do I know these outfits are doing that? I cannot prove it, but my experience makes me suspicious enough that I would want to investigate. If they were found to be clean, I would apologize. That's more than they would do. The investigation will never happen. Sadly, Frank Kelly is no longer our attorney general. He is the only one in that office who ever believed he worked for the people.
You people reading this are probably figuring Michigan must be one awful place to live. When is the last time you looked at your own government? What do you do when you get had? Do you just try to get it over with? Do you slide around it and forget it after a while? I fight it and I make a lot of noise. That's part of why I have a website. If a lot more people were doing that, we might hope to get some change. As it is, I will just keep on fighting by myself as best I can. As to Michigan, it is a beautiful state, but, like every other state, it has monstrously stupid and indolent government and civil service.
As to civil service, there is not much civil about it. Too many of these people are completely uncivil and uncivilized. These are the very people that confuse civilization with things instead of behavior. Civilization is about behavior and these people are uncivilized. America is a mean place to live because of these people. America should be a nice place, but they make it mean. Some people just enjoy being mean. For them, a great place to be is in civil service, be it a SOS employee, a postal worker, or a revenue cop.
As to revenue cops, they are just another form of predator
sociopath. Sooner or later, like all sociopaths, they will become
self destructive. Some of them will become wife abusers, some
of them will break the law and end up in prison, some of them
will eat their guns. When that happens some sob-brother cop will
tell us how tough he had it and how tough the streets are and
all kinds of sob-crap like that. It is crap. The truth is, the
cop kills himself for the same reason anyone else does it. He
can no longer stand himself. It is easier to die than to live
with what he has become. It has nothing to do with the streets
or any other people. It's about him.
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