Roads Emptied By Coronavirus Are Bringing Out The Speed Demons
Most of the nation is still shut down and will be for the foreseeable future. With much of the population hunkering at home, major metropolitan areas across the country, including New York, Los Angeles and Denver, are reporting an uptick in speeding tickets issued in the past few weeks. Some cities are even directing police to be more lax with speeding enforcement.
A few days ago, NYC-focused Streetsblog noted the uptick in speeding in the Big Apple this week:
Over the 14 weekdays between March 5 and March 24, city speed cameras issued 180,718 summonses, or 12.3 percent more than the comparable 14-day period in January (Jan. 13-31), when just 158,510 speeding tickets are issued by cameras, city data show. (Cameras only issue tickets on weekdays.)
The 12-plus-percent increase in tickets come as the total number of vehicle miles traveled in the five boroughs is down by 71 percent from that same January baseline, according to data from StreetLight.