Published: 6/1/19 | By: Adam H. Rosenblum Esq.
On April 21, 2018, Rochester officially dissolved its branch of the Traffic Violations Bureau (TVB). The TVB, a judicial branch of the New York State Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV), is notoriously tough on drivers who are hit with traffic tickets. Preliminary data from the DMV for 2018 shows that the Traffic Violations Agency (TVA), which replaced the TVB, has been a welcomed break for drivers, who are tagged for speeding and other traffic violations.
Fewer Tickets, More Plea Bargains
According to preliminary data from the DMV, the number of traffic tickets written in Monroe County declined 11% between 2017 and 2018. Although traffic tickets have been trending downward in Monroe since 2009 (the earliest data available), 2018 represented the largest percentage decline recorded. The bulk of this decline occurred in Rochester. Police within the city issued just 36,038 traffic tickets, a 21% drop from 2017 (45,335 tickets).
Speeding tickets specifically followed a similar trend. County-wide, drivers received 11% fewer speeding tickets last year. Within the city of Rochester, speeding ticket issuance fell 19%.
Part of the reason for such a huge decline in tickets could be due to laxer enforcement by State Troopers. Between 2017 and 2018, the number of speeding tickets written by state police fell 43%. The overall number of tickets handed out by troopers declined by 33%.
Drivers who didn’t benefit from the reduced enforcement may have benefited from the new ability to negotiate their traffic tickets (a.k.a. plea bargain) in court. The DMV’s TVB does not allow drivers to negotiate deals to reduce speeding and other traffic violations to lesser charges, such as parking tickets, that wouldn’t affect auto insurance rates. When Rochester closed the TVB and opened the TVA, it introduced the ability to plea bargain.
As a result, the number of drivers in Monroe County, who had their tickets dismissed or were acquitted, fell from 11.8% to 8.4% between 2017 to 2018. However, the number of speeding tickets that were reduced to non-speeding violations leaped from 48.2% to 67.8%.
Unique Trends in Monroe County Speeding Tickets