8/19/2004 06:11:29 PM|||Nathan Moore|||

Seems that the Metro Nashville Police had a scheduling glitch in their ticket giving. The Tennessean reports 1000 individuals scheduled for the first docket yesterday, but after talking to one of the court officers it seems the actual number was 1700+, in a courtroom designed for 250, in a building not designed to hold anywhere near 1700 people.

The building had to actually be closed off because of too many people, which interfered with other general sessions civil dockets and the general sessions court clerk.

Now, I understand a glitch can cause a problem. Other dockets that day were reasonably sized, and when I stopped by today on other business, the 10:30 docket was rather small. The bigger point is why the heck is Metro doing so much traffic enforcement.

I am of the opinion, perhaps wrongly, that police presence in neighborhoods and high crime areas are a more desirable and effective use of resources than police campouts on the interstate waiting for otherwise law abiding speeders. I live ten miles from downtown Nashville. In the middle of the day today, I drove home to have lunch with Sarah. I counted five marked cars on the side of the road between court and home.

That's ridiculous. Further, they were camped in "work zones", which as anyone familiar with Tennessee road construction knows, just means a long series of orange barrels, which are allegedly endangered by motorists exceeding the unnecessarily low speed limits. The new police chief has made traffic enforcement a new priority. I am eager to see whether traffic accidents and fatalities are reduced by such a focus. Just anecdotally, from watching the news, I would unfortunately say that's not the case.

|||109295762956458212|||Ticket Snafu in Nashville