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Ticket quotas exist...unofficially. It's all how you interpret the meaning of "quota" and how the various agencies choose to skirt around the issue.
What is the purpose of a motorcycle based LEO unit? Ticket writing! What do you think happens when the motorcycle LEO writes 25% less tickets than the precinct/station average? They get counseled by their superior initially, and eventually put on an official "performance improvement plan". Is it a quota...no...but it may as well be the way its done. Motorcycle cops are like red light cameras, their only purpose is revenue generation and has nothing to do with public safety.
There was a case 10+ years ago in LA County where a motorcycle sheriffs deputy farmed out on contract to one of the smaller desert cities...successfully sued in state court with his union backing him over job discrimination, lost wages etc because he refused an "illegal order" to write a specific amount of tickets. He was facing disciplinary action because his #'s were significantly off from a couple of his peers based on the same beat.
I think the expectation was that he write 350 to 400 tickets a month from what I recall...he chose to write non revenue generating warnings, and had a rate of around 200 revenue tickets a month. What got him a multi-million dollar wrongful termination payout was that the commanding officer of the sub-station had a public outburst yelling "you'll write x number of F'n tickets or else" to which the LEO said, I refuse this "illegal order" and called his union rep. Some ugly things came out in the case...records showed the city was pressuring the substation commander to generate ticket revenue for the city by threatening the overall policing contract. The LEO probably truly was lazy and chose to pick a fight when he was a few years away from retirement.
...moral of the story, tickets are about revenue and are just another form of taxation. If it was about public safety the tickets would be "official warnings" and get reported to DMV as infractions against driving record for insurance purposes & overall licensing.
Do we see ticketing surges, absolutely...and they are almost always motivated by revenue pressures.
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