Let’s face it – there’s nothing fun about getting hit with a speeding ticket. But there are a few fascinating and arguably fun facts about these ubiquitous citations. Unless, of course, you live in and drive in Germany. Check out these scintillating stats …
- Each day in America police officers hand out 34 million speeding tickets. That’s 93,000 a day, 3,875 per hour, 65 per minute.
- Speeding tickets can be a serious revenue driver for cities, states and countries. Here in the US, they generate upward of $5.1 billion. And don’t think the government bean counters don’t notice. When a city’s economic growth tanks 10 percent, the number of speeding tickets doled out jumps an average 6.4 percent. Ergo…
- Speed traps! You’ve heard that everything is bigger in Texas, right? Yep. Research shows that 40 speed traps in the Lone Star state racked up more than $178.4 million between 2000 and 2008 – never mind that the combined population of those 40 locations was only 56,000 – That’s $3,185 in speeding fines per citizen.
- The good news is that there is a bit of a home field advantage. Out of state drivers are 20 percent more likely than locals to get hit with speeding tickets. Even in-state, drivers are ticketed 10 percent more when driving outside their city’s limits.
- But that home field advantage doesn’t count for much in some European countries, where speeding tickets are based less on the speedometer and more on the driver’s stated income. One deep-pocketed driver in Finland landed a record $190,000 ticket. Tough, but not as bad as the driver in Switzerland who was walloped with a $290,000 fine. The maximum possible fine there is $1 million – a drop in the bucket compared to Germany where fines theoretically could reach $16 million.
- Did you get zapped by a radar speed detector? You might want to chat with your attorney. One study proved that 10 to 20 percent of all radar-backed speeding tickets were issued in error. In fact, one telling experiment showed that a radar gun clocked a house at 28 miles per hour and a palm tree at 86 mph.
Have you ever successfully disputed a bogus ticket? Tell us your story on the E3 Spark Plugs Facebook Fan Page.
