A number of readers have commented about getting pulled over, saying that with cities facing budget problems, police officers are pulling people over just to generate revenue.

Petaluma Police Sgt. Ken Savano, who oversees traffic enforcement in the city, has a reply: Not true.

“The revenue that comes back to Petaluma after the county gets its fees and the state gets its is so insignificant” that it doesn’t help the city’s budget, he said. As a result, the belief that officers are writing tickets to bail out city budgets is “a complete myth and fallacy.”

He said there’s no quota for tickets, there’s no limit to the number of tickets an officer can write and there’s no push from City Hall to write more tickets.

He suggested I look into just how much a ticket increases in cost after all of the fees are piled on. Great idea. I have a call in to the county courthouse to find that out, so be sure to check back for an update next week.

As for readers who wonder whether police have better things to do than give out tickets, Savano says “we don’t enjoy handing out traffic citations.” It’s not a fun part of the job, he said.

He said while officers are given discretion on whether to ticket someone, research consistently has shown that warnings do not have the same effect as tickets in preventing collisions. A ticket makes people pay attention.

“Our purpose in traffic enforcement,” Savano said, “is to hopefully be able to save your life by giving someone a ticket” so that the driver will pay attention, follow the law and not get involved in a crash.