The City of Keller has gotten a reputation as one where the police are rather strict about enforcing traffic laws.  Perhaps to the point of being overbearing.  However, on the good side, criminals also know about this reputation and will often avoid the area.

The police are a bit sensitive about this, likely due to the number of complaints they get from people who feel they were unfairly stopped.  What I’ve learned, though, is that the reality isn’t quite what people are perceiving.

• The city uses tickets as a source of revenue.  It turns out that most of the money from traffic fines goes to the state.  For example, of a $200 ticket, only $50 is retained by the city.  So it’s a good racket for the state, but not so much for the city.  If the ticket is contested in court, the city will likely lose money because of having to pay overtime for the officer to appear (in Keller the officers are subpoenaed to appear, so it’s not like in Dallas or Ft. Worth where some people take a chance on court in the hope that the officer won’t show up).
• The police are engaging in racial profiling.  First, by law, they keep statistics of race/gender for every stop.  But aside from that, they showed us some videos of traffic stops and I also went on a ride-along last Friday.  In many cases, it’s difficult to tell how many people are in the vehicle from behind, much less their race, especially at night(*).  From what I saw on the videos and first-hand on the ride-along, the officers are stopping people because they’ve committed a traffic offense, not because of race or any other factor.
• The police are being too hard on people (usually related to the idea that tickets are a source of revenue).  The average ticket in Keller is written for 17mph over the limit.  In fact, they usually don’t bother to stop anyone for less than 15mph over the limit.  KPD gives a lot of verbal warnings and only writes up serious speeding or traffic infractions.

I was previously one of the critics.  It seemed to me that everywhere you looked the police had someone pulled over.  But now that I’ve seen what they’re really doing, it doesn’t bother me so much.  While I think most of the speed limits around town are set too low, I don’t think they’re 15mph too low.  And from my experience, there are a lot of impatient and pissed-off drivers out there that need a few reminders to slow down.

(*)  This is true even from “The Beast” (the nickname given to KPD’s black-and-white Ford Expedition by the sergeant I was riding with).