Details about this story

• Source: Plain Dealer
• Date: May 20, 2007
• URL: Read the story
• Bylines: Gabriel Baird , Rich Exner , Mark Puente
• Topics: Transportation
• Data Types: State Data
• Description/Excerpt: The busiest ticket-writing periods in 2006 were the days immediately before and after Memorial Day, the Fourth of July and Labor Day, when troopers issued 70,933 citations. Those holiday weekends often straddle the beginning of the month. Troopers will be out in full force again this week as the first three-day weekend of summer approaches. Last year, the patrol issued 22,730 citations over the Memorial Day weekend. As for ticket quotas, the patrol's operations are paid for by gasoline taxes, Bradshaw said. Cities in which the tickets are written keep the fines. In 2006, troopers stopped more than 1.4 million drivers in Ohio and issued 563,565 tickets. Troopers ticketed 1,410 drivers for driving faster than 100 mph. Last year, the patrol's most prolific ticket writer issued 1,530 citations while working the Ohio Turnpike, which is Interstate 80. Fifty-seven of the state's 1,537 troopers wrote more than 1,000 tickets.