Ticket to Ride
I'm taking an economics class at UCLA Extension to help raise my undergrad GPA to something that shows I'm a little smarter than Lennie Small. The discussion topic was the opportunity cost of a certain piece of legislation. Thanks to the internet and an article written by Jen Muir, the one who put the satin on your panties, I was able to complete my homework:
There are arguably more important issues to discuss (i.e. the environment, healthcare, education), but traffic is one issue that affects the lives of SoCal drivers every day. I spend 6 hours each week driving between Hermosa Beach (a little slice of heaven) and Palm Desert (Hell’s waiting room) for work. My trip consists of the 91 and the 10 freeways (note: for those of you who have never lived in SoCal, we put an unnecessary “the” before all of our highways and freeways). Located on the 91 there is a toll road that beckons me, like a siren to Ulysses, to illegally whip my ride into the unobstructed lane for 30 miles of “so long suckers” driving bliss. I never do because I don’t own FasTrak and I fear the $471 fine I would receive in the mail from the automated camera that takes the picture of my license plate, leading to a very embarrassing candid headshot and ticket in the mail 2 weeks later…unless you have a special license plate.
The Confidential License Program (Bill AB 1958) grants certain state (and I use this term loosely) officials confidentiality by the DMV. This means people who have these special license plates have their addresses blocked to “protect” them from people who would want to find their address and do them harm. For example, a policeman raids a drug operation and the gangstas want to retaliate by finding where he lives. AB 1958 makes said policeman’s address confidential. Sounds great right? The only thing is that since 1989, EVERYONE’S address is confidential to the public. Furthermore, the list isn’t just policeman. It also includes social workers, DA investigators, National Park rangers, city council members and veterinarians, even after they retire. In the wise words of NWA, Fuck Da Police/social workers/National Park rangers/city council members and veterinarians. The double secret license plates are also used in negotiations as part of labor contracts such as with museum security officers. What ends up happening is when any automated ticketing service and/or parking officer gives a ticket to one of these people, the ticket is usually thrown out because the DMV can’t access their address and in lieu of laziness, just don’t follow up. Also, when some of these people are pulled over, their license comes up as confidential and the po-po only issues a warning because it looks like “one of their own”, whatever that means. It’s like the old saying goes, Pigs are the protectors of all the farm animals.
ANYWAY, back to the 91 toll road. Just because it is located in the 909, it doesn’t mean we can just ignore it. For those of you who don’t live in SoCal, let me explain. For you NorCal peeps, the 909 is like the 707 of the 415 and for you East Coasters, the 909 is like Pittsburgh of the East Coast. There were 15,000 unpaid protected trips on the 91 freeway (pun intended). This results in an implicit cost of only $30,000 in tolls, but more than $5 million in violation fees. The costs of AB 1958 are below:
Explicit Costs – The records that the DMV actually process each year manually because of AB 1958 costs taxpayers $350,000 extra a year JUST to write tickets. Also, it costs the other agencies that process the tickets an extra $200,000 to manually process the citations.
Implicit Costs – There are 1 million double secret license plates * the average traffic and parking violation revenue per capita in CA = $buttload
Total Cost – Even if it were $1 per double secret license plate per year that would be $1 million + $550,000 = $1.55 million (or $buttload.55) each year for a law whose primary function is to protect something that is already protected.
In conclusion, AB 1958 is a bill to give lawmakers, and others of the ilk, special treatment on California roadways. To put things in perspective, out of 20 million registered nongovernment vehicles on the road, 1 million of those are confidential plates. That’s 5% of all cars on the California roads. Next time you are stuck in traffic, imagine 5% less vehicles on the road. The next time you see those huge billion dollar projects on our freeways, just know their purpose is to improve traffic flow by 2-3%. In this sense, opportunity cost of AB 1958 is millions in lost revenues and state resources.
There are arguably more important issues to discuss (i.e. the environment, healthcare, education), but traffic is one issue that affects the lives of SoCal drivers every day. I spend 6 hours each week driving between Hermosa Beach (a little slice of heaven) and Palm Desert (Hell’s waiting room) for work. My trip consists of the 91 and the 10 freeways (note: for those of you who have never lived in SoCal, we put an unnecessary “the” before all of our highways and freeways). Located on the 91 there is a toll road that beckons me, like a siren to Ulysses, to illegally whip my ride into the unobstructed lane for 30 miles of “so long suckers” driving bliss. I never do because I don’t own FasTrak and I fear the $471 fine I would receive in the mail from the automated camera that takes the picture of my license plate, leading to a very embarrassing candid headshot and ticket in the mail 2 weeks later…unless you have a special license plate.
The Confidential License Program (Bill AB 1958) grants certain state (and I use this term loosely) officials confidentiality by the DMV. This means people who have these special license plates have their addresses blocked to “protect” them from people who would want to find their address and do them harm. For example, a policeman raids a drug operation and the gangstas want to retaliate by finding where he lives. AB 1958 makes said policeman’s address confidential. Sounds great right? The only thing is that since 1989, EVERYONE’S address is confidential to the public. Furthermore, the list isn’t just policeman. It also includes social workers, DA investigators, National Park rangers, city council members and veterinarians, even after they retire. In the wise words of NWA, Fuck Da Police/social workers/National Park rangers/city council members and veterinarians. The double secret license plates are also used in negotiations as part of labor contracts such as with museum security officers. What ends up happening is when any automated ticketing service and/or parking officer gives a ticket to one of these people, the ticket is usually thrown out because the DMV can’t access their address and in lieu of laziness, just don’t follow up. Also, when some of these people are pulled over, their license comes up as confidential and the po-po only issues a warning because it looks like “one of their own”, whatever that means. It’s like the old saying goes, Pigs are the protectors of all the farm animals.
ANYWAY, back to the 91 toll road. Just because it is located in the 909, it doesn’t mean we can just ignore it. For those of you who don’t live in SoCal, let me explain. For you NorCal peeps, the 909 is like the 707 of the 415 and for you East Coasters, the 909 is like Pittsburgh of the East Coast. There were 15,000 unpaid protected trips on the 91 freeway (pun intended). This results in an implicit cost of only $30,000 in tolls, but more than $5 million in violation fees. The costs of AB 1958 are below:
Explicit Costs – The records that the DMV actually process each year manually because of AB 1958 costs taxpayers $350,000 extra a year JUST to write tickets. Also, it costs the other agencies that process the tickets an extra $200,000 to manually process the citations.
Implicit Costs – There are 1 million double secret license plates * the average traffic and parking violation revenue per capita in CA = $buttload
Total Cost – Even if it were $1 per double secret license plate per year that would be $1 million + $550,000 = $1.55 million (or $buttload.55) each year for a law whose primary function is to protect something that is already protected.
In conclusion, AB 1958 is a bill to give lawmakers, and others of the ilk, special treatment on California roadways. To put things in perspective, out of 20 million registered nongovernment vehicles on the road, 1 million of those are confidential plates. That’s 5% of all cars on the California roads. Next time you are stuck in traffic, imagine 5% less vehicles on the road. The next time you see those huge billion dollar projects on our freeways, just know their purpose is to improve traffic flow by 2-3%. In this sense, opportunity cost of AB 1958 is millions in lost revenues and state resources.
tell me you actually submitted your paper like this...hahahahah
Posted by
Shannon |
5:03 PM
even more outrage: http://www.ocregister.com/articles/enforcement-dmv-information-2023930-swanson-code
also, i don't live in the 909.
Posted by
Anonymous |
12:08 PM
dude. just buy a fastrak. it's $22 bucks at safeway...sorry, VONS, for you socal. I like the fact that you used my 'the 707 is the 909 of the 415' comment. people still don't get that up here, since there is no true match for the hell that is the 909. having fastrak is like having tivo...once you have it, you wonder how you survived without it. ps - i still you 'the' when describing freeways. the 80 sucks when you get into fairfield...potholes like the 710.
Posted by
Mike |
11:29 PM