Watch Out, Speed Demons: Website Ranks Cities with Most Speed Traps

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With advancing technology and widespread use of enforcement cameras, speeding tickets are inevitable. But while police officers develop new equipment, so does the fast-driving public. Trapster.com, an online warning system for drivers, has put together a list of the nation’s top 10 cities loaded with the most speed traps, CNBC reports.

The site created high-tech maps, using data from reports of nearly 15 million drivers and monitoring traffic light cameras, as well as collecting half of its data from “live police” speed traps, according to the company’s product manager Sean Farrell. The cities are ranked based on 3,000 to 4,000 reports from a recent 30-day period.

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Not surprisingly, New York City takes the top spot as the nation’s city most active in speed traps, with 451 traffic-enforcement cameras in the metro area alone, according to POI Factory, a website that keeps an updated list of red light and speed cameras. Close behind is Los Angeles, where getting around the city requires a car majority of the time. “If you are on the freeway any time other than morning commute or after-work commute, you know that the speed limit on the freeway does not match the flow of traffic,” Farrell told CNBC. “It almost seems like all of Southern California’s highways have an average of 80-mph drivers.”

Texas has a penchant for speed traps, which is why Houston is slated at number three and Austin at number 10 on the list. “Texas can be tricky with a reputation of changing the speed limits on major highways to dramatically low speeds, then back up to high speeds,” Farrell said.At number four and five are Las Vegas, tricky for out-of-towners, and Washington, where enforcement cameras have grown to a count of 349. To see your city ranks, check out CNBC’s slideshow.

MORE: Is It the Car or the Way You Drive That Draws Speeding Tickets?