It is a sad but true fact that our police departments have many crimes to spend their time on, but it is also true that every police department (that we know of) has a "Traffic Unit" to handle the citations, which generates revenue for the city and in some cases will reduce the possibilities of a traffic collision.  It is not by chance that most of those "Traffic Units" are on motorcycles.  This provides them easy locations to "hide" and tag you.

 

Do us a favor and keep track for yourself.  If you drive into or within a city limit and see a traffic accident, take a moment to look and see who is actually working on the collision?  Is it the "traffic unit" or a "Community Service Officer - CSO?"  If you happen to be stopped, watch them.  Does it look as if they are investigating or simply reporting the collision?

 

I don't want to pick on the Modesto City Police Department, but I since I lived in Modesto and saw them everyday, I know the most about them.  They have color codes they like to use so the public at large hasn't a clue what they mean.  If, for example, they are working on "code yellow" that could mean they will not respond to any accident without it being a fatal (death).  It may take several hours for them to show up, but they will eventually arrive at the accident.

 

On their web site (listed below) the brag about how special their "traffic unit" is and how much training they have received.  We have seen many of the "reports" written by this same "traffic unit" and find their reports to be a shamble and down right embarrassment for the City of Modesto.  They are poorly written, look like they should have been written with crayons and 8 out of 10 times their findings are based on errors or simply not justified.  The ONLY time we have ever seen them get serious about a collision is when one of their officers is involved in the collision.

 

Don't take us wrong.  We think that any "good" officer should be kept by their department and trained to their highest ability.  On the same hand, departments have only so much money and so much manpower.  They cannot do a good job, if they believe the best "traffic agency" in the state should be called AAA with a gun.  This is BOLD statement by other agencies that fear and are ashamed at their own lacking ability to uphold to such standards as the California Highway Patrol.