Most people have received at least one speeding ticket at some point or another.

It seems like it’s all but a given. When driving, it’s all too easy to edge over that speed limit every so slightly. That’s little concern to the authorities, who will punish you for even minor offences. But it’s still a pain!



Link: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:NZ_speeding_SI.jpg

So to celebrate this most annoying of tickets, here are 7 surprising facts I don’t think you’ll have heard before. Enjoy!

1. The most expensive speeding ticket ever recorded was for over $1,000,000

Now that’s a bad day on the roads. It was recorded in 2010 in Bern, Switzerland. The driver of the car, a 37 year old Swedish man, was going at 180 miles per hour on a motorway. The mammoth speed was recorded on a newer camera which could detect higher speeds. Older cameras were limited to 125 miles per hour.

The slow and the steady really do win the race!

2. The average cost of a ticket is more than you’d think

Or is it? See for yourself. The average cost of a ticket with fees is around $152.00, which seems rather hefty. I guess the moral of the story is to not speed at all!

3. It’s possible to mask speeding tickets from your record

If only you could mask the memory of the incident. Sites like the $5 dollar online traffic school offer you the chance to mask the ticket and achieve lower insurance rates as a result. Of course, you’ll still be able to learn from that mistake and not commit any other faults at a later date!

4. The first recorded speeding ticket was in 1899 in New York

May 20, 1899, to be precise. Rather than speeding in a car, the victim was doing around 12 miles per hour down a public road. The speed limit at the time was a whopping 8 miles per hour. For his fast and furious crime, the victim was locked up in a station house.

5. Around 41,000,000 people receive speeding tickets annually

That means that if everyone who got a speeding ticket formed a country, they’d be the 33rd largest country in the world. They’d just edge out Algeria with 39.5 million, and would be below Argentina with 43 million. If nothing else, this proves that everyone gets speeding tickets - even celebrities. Not too shabby at all!

6. Only 5 percent of speeding tickets are contested in court

That means that most people simply swallow the fine and move on! Court can prove costly after all, and perhaps just paying the related ticket fines would be the best option. Nobody wants to be stuck in a lengthy legal battle! I hope so, anyway.

7. Roughly $6,232,000,000 is paid in speeding tickets each year

That’s six billion, two hundred and thirty two million. Wow. For comparison, there are roughly $1.2 trillion’s worth of US coins and notes in circulation worldwide. Imagine if you had that much money to spend? Something tells me it wouldn’t last too long...