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Correction published Tuesday, May 19, 2009. Allison Bruns is spokeswoman for the Missouri auditor's office. Her title was incorrect in a report published in Sunday's main news section about how the community of Macks Creek inspired a law to limit revenue from speeding tickets.
Macks Creek is gone. It lives on only in speed-trap lore. In the early 1990s, this mid-Missouri town was legendary for ticketing drivers for any infraction along Highway 54 near the Lake of the Ozarks.
Things got so bad that it led to the establishment in 1995 of Missouri's speed trap law, known still as the Macks Creek Law.
But the Post-Dispatch has found that the law - frequently hailed as a success - is ineffective and riddled with loopholes.
The law says no city, town or village may receive more than 45 percent of its annual revenue from ticket fines. Any excess would be sent to county schools. The goal is to prevent police agencies from issuing tickets just to make money. But the Macks Creek Law appears to address only fines from moving violations. So if a driver is ticketed for speeding, but pleads guilty to a reduced, nonmoving charge ("improper equipment" is a popular one), the fine is likely to not be counted against the cap. The law...