Kansas City changing plea deal system for speeders

According to a KCStar article about KC's new system for dealing with speeding tickets, the new system may be running into some problems:

The drop-off in plea agreements is getting City Hall’s attention because it’s costly. In less than two months, the city has missed out on more than $300,000 in fines it usually collected under the old system, an amount City Councilman Chuck Eddy called “truly serious money.”

City Attorney Galen Beaufort banned such defective equipment pleas in late April, after an investigation by The Star revealed that some speeders had received multiple ticket reductions in a 12-month period. He said the recent drop-off in pleas might be a good thing because speeders are actually being punished.

“If the original premise that amending moving violations to defective equipment was a bad plea bargain, then one shouldn’t be worried that those pleas aren’t occurring,” Beaufort said.

He said the pleas are harder to get because judges must now be involved in the process, and because the criteria for the pleas have been tightened.

But defense lawyers who fought the changes say the numbers are down because defendants have few incentives to take the deal. The less-than-5 mph plea also adds no points, but it remains a moving violation that insurance companies can see on a driver’s record, raising the possibility of higher insurance premiums.

Some oppose the new system.

Most cities across Missouri have a system for plea bargaining traffic violations. As Eric Rogers recently reported on KCBike.info, it's not uncommon for these systems to be kind for repeat traffic offenders. And it's hard to avoid drawing a link from these systems to the high danger of Missouri roadways, especially to pedestrians and bicyclists.

The problems can be addressed--using simple, inexpensive means, Salt Lake City reduced it pedestrian fatalities by almost 50 percent over a 10-year period. The reform in KC's system for traffic violator plea bargains is a step in the right direction.

The main changes in the new system, according to Tony's Kansas City, are:

* Limiting plea bargains to two in a 12-month period.

* Restricting deals to speeding up to 15 mph over the limit.

* Banning plea bargains for any DUI, racing on city streets or fleeing police.

Previously drivers were allowed to plead many violations, including speeding, DUI, and others, down to an equipment violation plus a larger fine.

Equipment violations are not reported to insurance companies or the state.

In many cases people were getting multiple plea deals per year.

It's not easy to get a speeding ticket in Kansas City--so drivers getting multiple tickets per year are clearly NOT good drivers.

And what these plea deals meant was that such drivers were getting off without any increase in insurance premiums or any points on their state driving record.

The system of higher insurance rates, driver license points, and restricted driving privileges is not a bad, evil system. On the contrary, it is designed to encourage bad, dangerous drivers to face consequences for their dangerous actions and give them some incentive to change their anti-social behavior before it leads to injury or death.

If you can speed, drive recklessly, and drive drunk with minimal consequences, why stop? That's what was happening under the old system.

More: A detailed KCStar article about the changes and the reasons for them. If you support the new system--which increases drivers license points and insurance rates for drivers known to be dangerous--you can contact your Kansas City council representative or Mayor Barnes, mayor@kcmo.org.