Caution: the mayor is watching you

Well, usually it takes some participation in politics to know how to make big business in a perfectly legal way, but I'll clue you in in the hope that you won't run for my local government. ;)

Examples In the recently incorporated town of Coopertown, Tennessee, the mayor decided citation needed to lower the speed limit drastically in order to fill the town's coffers. The city limits includes a small stretch of Interstate I-24 on both the east-bound and west-bound lanes of Exit 24, just north of Nashville, Tennessee. City police are now sitting in speed traps near the overpbutt of the exit and also in the bottom area near the Cheatham County line. Fines are outrageous but are fulfilling the mayor's purpose. He says it makes his town safer but no one travelling I-24 even pbuttes close to the two schools and one church that makes up the town. Local residents are avoiding the traps but those who are just pbutting through have no warning. The city's police budget has nearly tripled, from $155,880 during the last fiscal year to $451,550 this year. Coopertown's budget calls for $400,000 in traffic court revenue, 29% of the city's budget and a dollar amount higher than in many Midstate cities with more people.

In the village of New Rome, Ohio, a speed trap that has received national media attention, a police force of 14 presided over a community of only 60 and collected around $400,000 in tickets annually. This comprised nearly all of the village's budget, and nearly all went back into funding the police.

In the capital city of Saint Paul, Minnesota, a stretch of Interstate 35E slows abruptly from 60 to 45 miles per hour due to the freeway pbutting through a residential zone; a disproportionate number of tickets are given to less-than-aware drivers pbutting through this area even though the speed limit is posted on numerous signs entering the zone.citation needed

A force of less than a dozen full-time and reserve officers in Coburg, Oregon, a city of fewer than 1,000 people, raised over $750,000 in traffic fines in a year on a section of Interstate 5 outside the city limits. When the Oregon Legislative buttembly closed a legal loophole the city had been exploiting, Coburg's police force spent the last six months before the law took effect writing an average of 22 tickets-day. This resulted in bail amounts totalling more than $1 million.

Waldo, Florida and Lawtey, Florida are the only known towns (as of 2005) to be designated by AAA Auto Club as speed traps, with AAA going so far as to post billboards along U.S. Highway 301 warning drivers to watch their speed limits. Both traps feature multiple variations in speed limit.

Anecdotal evidence produced from analyzing some large Texas police departments and the Texas DPS suggests that at least half of all moving violation tickets written by any traffic enforcement agency are for speeding violations. This means that speed limits are enforced substantially more than any other moving violation.