SoylentNews

martyb [soylentnews.org] writes:

50 Fastest Speeding Tickets in Texas in 2018 [thedrive.com]:

Don't let the slow drawl fool you. The fine people of Texas like to go fast. [thedrive.com] Maybe it's all that wide open space, the arrow-straight roads, or just something in the water. Whatever the case, the state routinely clocks some of the fastest speeders in the country [thedrive.com]—and we got our hands on the 2018 ticket data to show it.

Credit where credit is due: this list of the 50 fastest speeding tickets in Texas in 2018 was inspired by the work of the Houston Chronicle [chron.com], which usually publishes one in January looking back at the preceding 365 days. But the paper opted not to do one this year, for whatever reason, leaving The Drive to carry on the mission.

Scrounging up the raw data involved filing a public information request with the Texas Department of Public Safety for every single speeding ticket [thedrive.com] issued by Texas Highway Patrol troopers in excess of 120 mph from January 1 to December 31 last year. We fully expected to never hear back. A couple weeks later, a lawyer for the department responded with a huge spreadsheet showing the date, location, vehicle, and speed for all 228 tickets fitting that description—plus extras like officer notes and the stop's exact GPS coordinates when available.

Besides the expected assortment of muscle cars and performance motorcycles, there are even pickup trucks and a Ford Focus [wikipedia.org] on the list.

Disclaimer: Exceeding the speed limit can be dangerous not only to yourself, but to other vehicles on the road; please keep your high speed activity to track events or places where it is permitted (e.g. German Autobahn.)

Original Submission