Arrested for busted taillights.

Tased during a stop for missing plates.

Jailed over tinted windows.

Across the U.S., towns rely on traffic ticket revenue for their budgets — and to pay the salaries of the officers responsible for finding violations. nyti.ms/3GwjCoS
Hundreds of communities have essentially made officers into revenue agents. And the drive for funding can shape policing.

As a result, driving's become one of the most common daily activities during which people have been shot, Tased, beaten or arrested after minor offenses.
More than 730 municipalities get at least 10% of their revenue from fines and fees, a New York Times investigation found. Most are in the South and Midwest.

In many cases, officers' salaries — and sometimes, the size of the police force — depend on ticket revenue.
Financial incentives can influence the policing of motorists. The federal government issues over $600 million a year in grants that subsidize ticket writing. At least 20 states have evaluated police performance on the number of traffic stops per hour. nyti.ms/3mxJfxu
In Newburgh Heights, Ohio, a city of 2,000, revenue from traffic citations — $3 million in 2019 — typically makes up half the town’s budget.

Its 21 officers monitor a stretch of Interstate 77 that passes through — and citations help fund the police force. nyti.ms/3mxJfxu
In Newburgh Heights, some of that traffic citation money is processed through the Newburgh Heights Mayor’s Court, one of 286 anachronistic judicial offices that survive, mostly in small towns, across Ohio. nyti.ms/3mxJfxu
Critics say the drive for ticket funding contributes to overpolicing and erosion of public trust, particularly for people of color.

Bratenahl, Ohio, shows how people of color can be disproportionately affected. nyti.ms/3mxJfxu
Bratenahl is 83% white, but on many days, the crowd in Bratenahl mayor’s court has been mostly Black.

Overall, the court typically has more than twice as many traffic cases each year as there are residents in town, state records show. nyti.ms/3mxJfxu
Yet all of the cases in Bratenahl were not enough for the mayor, who emailed his police chief in November 2018 that a "downturn in mayor’s court revenue" was exacerbating a budget crunch and employee raises could be affected.

The chief then sent this blunt email to officers.
The need for municipalities to sustain revenue appears to be an incentive for many traffic stops — and in some cases, there are quotas.

The police chief of Windsor, Virginia, pushed for enough tickets to comply with the town’s federal highway safety grants.
The push for ticket revenue is not new: More than a century ago, departments found that taking on traffic enforcement meant they could hire officers and expand their investigative powers. nyti.ms/3mxJfxu
But for all the emphasis on traffic stops, there's little evidence federal highway grants are achieving their stated purpose of making roads safer: In 2019 there were 33,244 fatal crashes nationwide, up from 30,296 in 2010.

Read our full investigation. nyti.ms/3mxJfxu

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More from @nytimes

1 Nov
The New York Times has published an investigation into police traffic stops and the money machine that uses revenue from these stops to fund the police.

Here are key numbers to know from the series. nyti.ms/3bt7vdY
As the push for traffic ticket revenue persists, driving has become one of the most common daily activities during which people have been shot, Tased, beaten or arrested, often after minor offenses. Many stops have also turned deadly. nyti.ms/3GGY09h Image
Those hundreds of killings of unarmed motorists across the U.S. by the police were seemingly avoidable. And most of them occurred with impunity. nyti.ms/3GGY09h Image
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1 Nov
Traffic stops are by far the most common police encounters with U.S. civilians. Driving has become one of the most common daily activities during which people have been Tased, beaten, arrested or even killed, often after committing minor offenses. Image
To investigate what shapes policing at traffic stops, we reviewed video and audio recordings, prosecutor statements and court documents, finding patterns of questionable police conduct that went beyond recent high-profile deaths of unarmed drivers. nyti.ms/3GGY09h
Many U.S. towns rely on traffic ticket revenue for their budgets — and to pay the salaries of police officers. Hundreds of communities have essentially made officers into revenue agents. And the demand for funding can shape policing. nyti.ms/3BziEVg Image
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1 Nov
A big UN conference on climate change is happening in Glasgow. The summit, known as #COP26, is seen as a crucial moment to address the threat of climate change.

Here's what to know about it.
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COP stands for “Conference of the Parties.” The parties are the 197 nations that agreed to a 1992 UN treaty to combat “dangerous human interference with the climate system.”

This is the 26th time they've gathered — hence, COP26.
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31 Oct
Traffic stops are by far the most common police encounters with civilians. But the risk to officers has been overstated. The police and the courts presume danger. This has contributed to a series of seemingly avoidable killings across the U.S. nyti.ms/3pUreLV
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The FDA’s authorization of a Covid-19 vaccine for children ages 5 to 11 on Friday made 28 million Americans newly eligible for the shot.

But in a nation struggling with vaccine hesitancy, getting shots into little arms may be the toughest challenge yet. nyti.ms/3bpaKTF
According to a survey by Kaiser Family Foundation released Thursday, scarcely one in three parents will permit their children in this newly eligible age group to be vaccinated immediately. Two-thirds were either reluctant or adamantly opposed. nyti.ms/3mrd5nq Image
Even vaccinated parents who approved the shot for their teens are unsure about allowing their younger children to be inoculated. Some question whether risking the unknowns of a brand-new vaccine is worth it when most Covid cases in kids are mild. nyti.ms/3mrd5nq
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28 Oct
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But new data sheds light on how common these cases really were, how severe they became and who was most at risk. nyti.ms/2XUEox7
Recently released federal data shows that even during the Delta wave, compared with the unvaccinated, fully vaccinated people had a much lower chance of getting Covid or dying from it. nyti.ms/2XUEox7
Unvaccinated seniors were most likely to die from Covid. While breakthrough deaths were rare, vaccinated people 80 and older had higher death rates than unvaccinated people under 50. nyti.ms/2XUEox7
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