Rhode Island ban on mobile phone use while driving causes budget shortfall
By Will Park on Monday, February 4th, 2008 at 3:22 PM PST In Announcements
Wait, aren’t state-regulations supposed to look out for citizens’ well-being? It looks like Rhode Island was banking on something like $6.2 million in fine-revenue from the ban. Turns out, that banning mobile phone use while driving will only be generating about $437,000.
One of the problems, it seems, it that Rhode Island residents actually complied with the new regulation. Officials were expecting about 100,000 fines per year, but that figure doesn’t look very reasonable anymore.
“With a budget that has so much pain, we need to make sure it’s as correct as possible,” House Majority Leader Gordon D. Fox said through a spokesman. “We need to rely on numbers that are reliable and accurate and not just a guess.”
We (the People) would also like our state-government officials to enact regulations for the sake of public-safety/interest, rather than government coffers. We agree that mobile phone use while behind the wheel is dangerous (teenagers, especially) and the ban is a good idea. But it just doesn’t seem right that officials would bank on making significant revenue from such regulations.
[Via: cellular-news]
