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Show 899 Warning Tickets Issued CINCE establishment' of the warning ticket I system In Utah July 1, a total of 899 tickets have been Issued by state highway patrolmen, city and county traffic officers, according to official reports. That doesn't sound so bad until you start to analyze It There are In Utah some 300 peace officers I doing traffic work all or part of their time. There are 42 members of the state highway patrol, 33 members of the Salt Lake City traffic squad, four traffic officers at Ogden . and two at Provo, and an estimated 20 county sheriffs deputies concentrating their efforts on devoting practically all of their time to traffic In addition, there are at least another hundred officers who devote a part of their time to that work. To be entirely fair, well Ignore all except the hundred who are really traffic officers. Certainly, Cer-tainly, It these men are on the Job, each would see at least one minor law violation a day which would call for a warning slip. Heaven knows any motorist In an hour's drive would see at least that many, and these traffic officers are supposed to be on the Job patrolling streets and - highways six or eight hours a day. They might easily see a dozen violations and Issue that many warning tickets, so one ticket a day Is not much to expect But even one a day for each of the hundred officers would be 3000 a month or 9000 In the three months since July 1 ten times as many as have actually been Issued. So far, of course, issuance of the warning tickets has not been generally practiced by traffic traf-fic officers In Utah outside of the state patrol. Salt Lake City officers, for Instance, aren't Issuing them at all because Chief of Police Webb hasn't been able to make up his mind about them. But even the state patrol hasn't been doing a very good job. They've Issued 856 tickets, which Is at the rate of only about seven month for each member of the patrol. If Utah had a record of careful driving and traffic safety, we might presume that our hundred traffic officers were doing a good Job simply by burning up gasoline on streets and highways and giving steely glares to passing motorists. But Utah's record of accidents and deaths, and our reputation for sloppy driving, coupled with the poor showing on warning tickets, indicates that our traffic officers are not doing the Job the people have right to expect from them. |