Thursday, March 27, 2008

Legal Police Bribes?


I have a problem - but I'm getting better. I used to drive 30,000 miles per year consistently, and I was averaging a speeding ticket every 6 months, also consistently. Luckily, the points were spread out enough to avoid the 12 points in 12 months license suspension, but my insurance rate takes a beating. I've only been able to reduce my driving down to 25,000 per year, but more importantly in the last three years, I've cut down the tickets to about 15 month intervals - not great, but a definite improvement.

I always notice the Fraternal Order of Police Supporter bumper/window stickers or license plate badges and wonder about them. I would wager that 90% of the people who display them are just hoping for leniency should they get stopped. Of course, they all say that no special considerations will be given to FOP donors, but I wonder.


The scam of the whole thing (by the FOP) is that they put a year on them. That way no one receives any (non-existent) special considerations for more than the year they donated. If you want to continue to be looked upon favorably, you need to keep up your stream of contributions, because if you get stopped with a 3 year old sticker... you're getting a ticket!

Maybe the cost of the contribution would be worth it, but the police believe that "size matters". You can start with a $25 donation, but it will only get you a sticker and a wallet card. Wallet card? "Sure officer, here's my driver's license and insurance card... oh, I'm sorry, did my FOP Supporter card get stuck in with those? Oops!" Or, you can avoid having to be so shameless and spend the $55 and it will add the nice silver shield that should be more obvious to an approaching officer on the side of I-95. Lastly, you can drop the $75 to have your shield in eye-catching gold that screams: I love the police and respect everything they do! (READ: Please don't ticket me.)

I thought this was interesting:
"Although the Florida State Fraternal Order of Police is recognized as a non-profit organization by the IRS, because of its particular status [501(c)8], donations are not tax-deductible as charitable contributions for Federal income tax purposes."


I know the best answer is abstinence (from speeding), but we all know how easy that is to subscribe to with other issues. But if I had the $75 gold badge prominently displayed and the officer began to write me a ticket - I'd probably spend a night in the clink.

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