Unlike many states, Ohio stays aggressive catching highway speeders from the air
Associated Press
NEW YORK
Highway signs throughout the U.S. warn that when it comes to catching speeders, the long arm of the law extends even into the sky.
They say, “Speed limit enforced by aircraft.”
But tighter budgets have led several states to scale back or eliminate the use of aircraft to enforce traffic laws.
The New York State Police say they haven’t written a single ticket based on an aircraft observation since at least 2005.
The Virginia State Police have only flown six such missions since 2008.
There have also been cutbacks in places like California and Washington state.
Officials say there are cheaper ways to collar speeders.
Aerial traffic enforcement still has defenders in states like Ohio, where the highway patrol issued 16,000 tickets with the help of aircraft last year, down only a little from a five-year high of 18,000 written in 2009. Over the Memorial Day weekend, the start of the busy summer travel season, the agency had 10 aircraft in the air doing traffic enforcement, according to Lt. Randy Boggs, the unit’s commander
Comments
Isn't there anything better to do than break the balls of people going to and from work? This system of using aircraft is bad, but lately it has been unusually bad with State Highway all over the place. I'm more concerned about them out there trying to jackpot people rather than a plane flying over gauging speeds.