How Texas Became America’s No. 1 Speed-Trap State
Jon Cassidy /
Texas is infested with more speed traps than any other state, according to a new study by the National Motorists Association.
The NMA compiled five years’ worth of data from a website it maintains, The National Speed Trap Exchange, and found Texas had far and away the highest speed trap count, with 1,383 locations.
The list falls off quickly, with California in second at 1,076; Florida in third at 792; and Ohio in fourth with 680.
“Speed traps typically combine arbitrarily low speed limits with heavy traffic enforcement designed to generate ticket revenue,” the NMA wrote. “Speed traps often spring up in the same locations where the issuance of tickets continues unabated, indicating that the enforcement action has no meaningful effect.”
The data comes from a site that allows users to post information about speed traps near them and allows other users to vote on whether the reported trap is real.
Various investigations in recent years have confirmed that Texas has a problem with small towns that try to fill their coffers by fining people passing along state highways.
State law restricts cities with fewer than 5,000 residents from collecting more than 30 percent of their revenue from traffic tickets.
Nonetheless, towns such as Huntington, with a population of 2,118, exceed that amount. A Watchdog.org investigation found that officials there had been lining their pockets with unearned pay.
The NMA, founded in 1982, advocates for speed limits that reflect actual driving patterns.
“According to an Institute of Transportation Engineers Study, those driving 10 mph slower than the prevailing speed are six times as likely to be involved in an accident,” the group writes, “than someone going 70 or even 80 mph.”
The town of Estelline in West Texas, which the group named the “Worst Speed Trap City” in the country in 2012, has run into other problems associated with policing for profit. In 2014, the city paid a $77,500 settlement to a woman after arresting her on made up drug charges and seizing $29,000 in proceeds she had from a property sale.
Originally published at Watchdog.org.