Speedy travelers on cops' radar

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Out-of-town drivers more likely to get speeding tickets, economists find

Date published: 4/15/2007

By KELLY HANNON

Vacationers returning from spring break may have learned it the hard way, but a forthcoming study shows out-of-town motorists are more likely to get speeding tickets.

That's what two George Mason University economists found when they studied two months of Massachusetts traffic stops from April and May 2001.

They also found that women of most ages were issued fewer tickets than men.

"The age effect flattens out for women in their 70s," said Michael Makowsky, a doctoral candidate at George Mason and a Dumfries native.

He co-wrote the piece with economics professor Thomas Stratmann. It's called "Political Economy at Any Speed: What Determines Traffic Citations?"

Makowsky got the idea when he was stopped in Massachusetts for speeding. His car had Virginia plates.

"It was a 60-mph area, and I got a 75-mph ticket," Ma- kowsky said. "As I was sitting there, people were flying by at 90 mph, just hurtling by, and the cop that pulled me over had kind of this wry smile," he said.

Makowsky wondered what factors influenced who was stopped and who got to speed down the highway with impunity.

He was lucky, data-wise. A Massachusetts legislator had asked the state to record every traffic stop for a year to examine racial profiling.

The data collection period lasted only two months, but that was enough to analyze, Makowsky said.

The authors said data proved that the greater a driver's "opportunity cost" for contesting a ticket--essentially, the hassle and expense of traveling to court--the greater the likelihood that driver would be stopped and fined for speeding.

Furthermore, fines were higher for people who lived farthest away.

"The people from Alaska were getting really big tickets," Makowsky said.

A community's finances also factored in.

The likelihood of being ticketed increased if motorists were stopped in a community that didn't rely on tourism dollars.

The data showed drivers were more likely to be ticketed in communities with lower property-tax bases, or communities with constraints placed on increasing property taxes.

The paper makes no policy recommendations, Makowsky said.

He thinks it should be a tool for discussion.

"The reason we have traffic laws in place and fines in place is to disincentivize people from being unsafe and placing other people in danger," Makowsky said.

When there's a revenue-generating component, "There's now an incentive beyond local safety," he said. "So it's just something that needs to be considered by policymakers."

Date published: 4/15/2007