- New York just had an eight-day crackdown on dangerous driving, handing out a ton of tickets.
- The crackdown focused on impaired driving but issued more tickets for distracted driving.
- The majority of violations were for “other” offenses, with speeding as the second-most common.
St. Patrick’s Day may be over, but New York’s traffic enforcement is still going strong—except this time, it’s in the form of a full-on crackdown. The state rolled out a special enforcement period from March 10 to 17, during which it handed out tickets at a rate so high, you’d think they were trying to break some kind of record.
In fact, they issued nearly 56,000 tickets, which comes to about 290 tickets every single hour for eight straight days. Surprisingly, only two percent of those tickets were for driving under the influence.
During the eight-day period, law enforcement used sobriety checkpoints and increased police patrols to keep the roads safe. It’s similar to other impaired driving campaigns the state runs during Independence Day, Halloween, and other holidays. But St. Patrick’s Day had a bit of a twist. See, drinking is practically a cultural institution for the holiday, so you can imagine the level of scrutiny it invites…