Nanny State

Whose Traffic Stops Are the Worst?

Try not to get pulled over in these states.

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News you can use: Craig Fitzgerald picks the most egregious states for speeding tickets, sorting jurisdictions by several categories—the most tickets written, the highest cost of fighting a ticket, the most unmarked state police cars, and so on. In the most subjective category, here's why he thinks Vermont has the country's sneakiest speed traps:

Mt. Tabor is a one-horse dot on Route 7a in western Vermont that doesn't even have a traffic light. What it does have is a speed limit sign that drops to 40 mph, and you will get rung up by its zealous constable, a guy who drives a Camaro and gets paid by the number of tickets he writes. And he's not alone. One constable in the village of Island Pond made national news by writing 1,100 tickets, with fines totaling $100,000—a tenth of the entire revenue of the town that year.

Those may or may not be the absolutely sneakiest speed traps in America, but either way the takeaway should be clear: If you're driving, stay the hell away from Island Pond.

Elsewhere in Reason: "Cop Fired for Speaking Out Against Ticket and Arrest Quotas."