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Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Which are the worst states for tickets?

As the traditional summer driving season gets under way this weekend, a drivers'-rights group ranks the states on driver friendliness. New Jersey? Fuhgeddaboudit.


By Catherine Holahan
MSN Money

Diane Daniel knows her drive to the North Carolina coast this Memorial Day weekend will take longer. But it won't be the traffic slowing her down -- it will be the cops.

"I got the only speeding ticket of my life there a few years ago," explained Daniel, a freelance travel writer. Stretches of road leading to the beach are perfect spots for police to snare speeders and add tourist dollars to their towns' coffers, she added.

Luckily for Daniel, she's driving in North Carolina this weekend. That state rates low on the National Motorists Association's recent ranking of the worst places to drive due to what they characterize as unfair traffic laws and public monitoring. (See the full list here.)

Drivers in New Jersey are the ones who really need to watch out, according to the motorists group. The state ranked the worst based on 17 factors, including:

  • Speed limits.
  • The use of red-light or speed cameras.
  • Laws banning cell phone use while driving.
  • Whether speeders are allowed jury trials.
  • The number of speed traps (weighted by population).

New Jersey ranked seventh-worst in the speed-trap category. But it was the state's traffic laws that put New Jersey atop the list.

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DUI costs © Brand X/ SuperStock
New Jersey lost points for using roadblocks, denying speeders jury trials and capping the highway speed limit at 65 mph, according to the motorists group. More than half of U.S. states have maximum highway speed limits of 70 mph or higher. In fairness to New Jersey, though, states that are more densely populated tend to have lower speed limits. Rhode Island and Massachusetts, the two most densely populated states after New Jersey, also have statewide 65 mph limits on their freeways.

"We think that cities are basically using some speeding laws to make money and they are not improving safety at all," says Aaron Quinn, a spokesman for the motorists group.

The organization, which takes a libertarian view of traffic laws, was founded in 1982 as part of an effort to fight against a nationwide 55 mph speed limit.

It conducted its worst-places study for the first time this year in part to examine the belief that fiscally challenged municipalities would be particularly motivated to enforce traffic laws during holidays to raise revenues, rather than simply to keep roads safe.

"It is not exactly a well-kept secret that many traffic laws, enforcement practices, and traffic courts are more about generating revenue and political posturing, than they are about traffic safety," Jim Baxter, the organization's president, said in a prepared statement. "During holidays, like the upcoming Memorial Day weekend, we're bombarded with messages about intensified enforcement, 'click it or ticket,' and horrendous fines."

There is some evidence to back up the group's claims. Earlier this year, Michael Makowsky, an assistant professor at Towson University, and George Mason University professor Thomas Stratmann released a study of Massachusetts traffic stops showing that strapped towns and cities were more likely to issue speeding tickets, particularly to out-of-towners who don't pay the areas' municipal taxes. Drivers from other towns had a 10% higher chance of getting a ticket, while drivers with out-of-state plates were 20% more likely to be ticketed.

Those findings echoed an earlier study by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, which found that municipalities issued significantly more tickets in years after their revenue declined.

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Traffic ticket  © Corbis
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If you are issued a speeding ticket, think twice before paying it off immediately.
"Our results suggest that tickets are used as a revenue-generation tool rather than solely a means to increase public safety," report co-authors Gary Wagner, an economist at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, and Thomas Garrett, a researcher at the St. Louis Fed, said of their July 2007 study.

Increased ticketing isn't just about padding town coffers, however. In a follow-up study that Makowsky and Strattman conducted, the economists found that increased ticketing does reduce the number of traffic accidents. So perhaps ticketing does make drivers safer, as well as making towns richer.

"It definitely changed my driving habits," Daniel said of her ticket. "I will not be speeding."

National Motorists Association rankings, from worst to best:


RankStateRankStateRankState

1

New Jersey

18

Florida

35

Hawaii

2

Ohio

19

Pennsylvania

36

Arkansas

3

Maryland

20

North Carolina

37

Alaska

4

Louisiana

21

Alabama

38

Kansas

5

New York

22

Rhode Island

39

Mississippi

6

Illinois

23

West Virginia

40

Wisconsin

7

Delaware

24

New Hampshire

41

Utah

8

Virginia

25

Arizona

42

South Dakota

9

Washington

26

New Mexico

43

Indiana

10

Massachusetts

27

Missouri

44

Minnesota

11

Colorado

28

Texas

45

North Dakota

12

Oregon

29

Oklahoma

46

Kentucky

13

Tennessee

30

Nevada

47

Nebraska

14

California

31

Georgia

48

Montana

15

Michigan

32

Connecticut

49

Idaho

16

Vermont

33

South Carolina

50

Wyoming

17

Maine

34

Iowa



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