Safe Roads for All: Evidence-Based Strategies for Keeping Our Roadways Safe

Each year, millions of people are trapped in an inescapable cycle of debt as ticketing practices prioritize profits over safety. This white paper, a collaboration between the ACLU and Policing Project,  is intended to help policymakers understand how the current approach to roadway safety evolved, the consequences, and evidence-based strategies to make roads safer.  The authors highlight municipalities’ use of traffic fines and fees to generate revenue as a practice that disproportionately harms low-income people, while failing to improve road safety. Recommendations include restricting  ticketing practices and/or potential revenue from ticketing practices, and reforming municipal finance to ensure that local governments can fully fund their critical services without using fines and fees.

You can read the full text of the paper here.