Abubaker Bahrun had just finished loading his hotel shuttle van with luggage when he drove to a different hotel just a few dozen yards away on Hollywood Boulevard and Highland Avenue in Hollywood. Since he was just about to jump out of the shuttle again to help customers with theirluggage, he didn't see the need to put on his seat belt for such a short trip.

A Los Angeles police officer disagreed, promptly pulling him over and writing a ticket. When Bahrun didn't show for his court appearance several months later because, he said, his mother had a heart attack, he was hit with another fine and a collections fee.

Total bill: $825.

"How can I think this is fair at all?" said Bahrun, who posted bail Wednesday. "Whether you think it is fair or not, you have to pay or they'll take you away in cuffs."

Tax collections may be down sharply for the state and municipalities, but traffic ticket revenues are soaring. Not only has the Legislature sharply raised fines in recent years, police are writing more tickets than ever before - a development that some claim is more than just a coincidence.

In the 2008-09 fiscal year, the most recent year for which data are available, the number of traffic infractions statewide surged by 600,000 to 6.3 million. Those tickets raised at least $110 million for counties alone, according to the state controller's office. But the figures understate revenues, because counties do not uniformly report fees from vehicle-code violations, with several counties intermingling those funds with fees from criminal convictions.

Since 2002, traffic citations have increased by 46 percent, according to data from the Judicial Council of California. But Californians aren't driving much more today than in 2002, transportation data shows.

For some, the sharp increase raises questions about whether cities are cracking down on traffic violations to raise revenue rather than to ensure public safety.

"It doesn't take a lot for the average person to believe that we're being gouged," said Kris Vosburgh, executive director of the anti-tax Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association in Los Angeles. "They're interested in more revenue. The idea they are making the roads safer with these usurious charges is just a smokescreen to find justification for squeezing more money from drivers."

It is not clear exactly how much revenue traffic tickets bring in for the state, court system and localities; the state department of finance, state controller and Judicial Council all lump those figures in with fines from criminal convictions.

The Legislature hiked traffic fees in 2008 to generate $280 million for courthouse construction. Some base fines more than doubled, such as tickets for broken headlights that rose to $25 from $10. In addition to base fees that can range from $20 to $100, the state and localities tack on surcharges, a conviction fee, a DNA collection fee, an emergency medical services fee, a security fee, a night-court fee, penalty assessments and other fines based on the nature of the conviction.

That can elevate the cost of a $20 ticket for using a cell phone while driving to $142.

The surge in tickets has been good business for lawyers.

Los Angeles-area traffic lawyer Sherman Ellison formerly defended accused murders and people charged with serious felonies, but switched to traffic tickets full time in 2003. His practice has grown from a oneman operation to three attorneys and five staff, all handling nothing but traffic tickets.

Ellison said he defends tickets as aggressively as felonies, taking 90 percent of cases to trial. He likes that he no longer has to worry about his clients spending the rest of their lives in prison.

"After 33 years of intense criminal litigation, the stress of that litigation was immense," Ellison said. "As I was growing older, at the age of 61, I just decided I didn't want to take on that kind of stress anymore."

Scores of cities, including Los Angeles and San Francisco, have installed red-light cameras to catch drivers who run red lights. City officials have maintained that the main reason for the cameras is public safety, despite studies showing that cameras do not make intersections safer.

A 2008 report by the University of Southern Florida showed that the cameras actually make intersections less safe because they encourage drivers to make sudden stops. Studies in North Carolina, Virginia and Ontario had the same findings.

An audit by the Los Angeles city controller last month found that the city's 32 cameras are not placed at the most dangerous intersections - cameras were installed in each of the city's 15 council districts.

At intersections with cameras, conditions did not get safer, the controller's audit found.

Electronic enforcement cites even the most minor technical violations, regardless of whether anyone was at risk, Ellison said. He recently represented a woman who received a ticket in the mail for running a red light by one-tenth of a second.

"Rarely do they exercise discretion," he said.

San Francisco traffic lawyer John Stanko estimates that he's able to convince police officers about two-thirds of the time to reduce red-light tickets, which can run as high as $445, to a municipal violation.

"I see a lot of red-light camera tickets that shouldn't be charged at all," he said. "These officers are signing off on tickets when you can't even tell who the driver is" because the photo is blurry.

Stanko said police can't rely on the plate number alone. The photo also must identify the driver.

But given that many people pay the ticket rather than fight it, "it is easy money for the city," Stanko said.

Rep. Jerry Hill, D-San Mateo, this year sponsored a bill to cut the fine for rolling right turns - or incomplete "California stops" - in half, to $219. It was vetoed this month by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who said the bill "sends the wrong message to the public that California is tolerant of these types of offenses."

But Hill thinks the veto was motivated by revenue needs.

"The first comment that I heard from law enforcement over my bill is that it will reduce revenue," Hill said.

The governor did sign into law a bill this month that bans police officers from issuing tickets under local ordinances rather than state law; such fines are more lucrative for cities because they do not have to be split with the state.

Cities and their police departments have long denied that revenue collection plays any role in traffic enforcement. And, contrary to popular myth, most police union contracts prohibit departments from imposing ticket quotas.

Paul M. Weber, president of the Los Angeles Police Protective League, said the typical rank-and-file police officer doesn't know how much of a traffic fine goes to the city.

"I don't think police officers - and I can tell you I haven't met one in 26 years - we don't sit there and go 'OK, if I write this ticket, this is how much money it generates for the city of Los Angeles,'" he said.

Still, he acknowledges, "there is always constant pressure put on officers to be productive."

To support his view, Weber said that police impounds of vehicles in Los Angeles have decreased in recent years, even though they are a cash cow for the city because impound fees do not have to be shared with the state.

"If you look at something that brings money directly into the city, that's the big thing," Weber said. "[But] you see tows going down year after year."

Weber recently criticized the police department after it cracked down on officers who ask judges to dismiss tickets because they can't independently remember what happened at a traffic stop as required by the code of evidence. Nonetheless he doesn't think the decision was driven by revenue needs.

At the aging, warehouse-like Metropolitan Courthouse in Los Angeles, dozens of people waited Wednesday afternoon in long, snaking lines to pay tickets or ask for a court date.

The earliest trial date that Bahrun, the shuttle driver ticketed in January for not wearing a seat belt, could get was Feb. 22.

He's not sure what his defense will be.

"I'm hoping," he said, "the police officer doesn't show up."