Which Bay Area Town Hands Out The Most Speeding Tickets?
MORAGA (KPIX 5) - In a recent KPIX survey, it turns out that the small quiet town of Moraga hands out more speeding tickets than any other town in the Bay Area.
KPIX 5 went on a ride along with Moraga's Officer Russell Douthit to look for speeders.
"A traffic stop is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you are going to get," said Douthit.
Moraga's violent crime rate is one of the lowest in the state, but Douthit claimed that speeders are a big problem.
Douthit said that he gives out 3 to 10 speeding tickets a day.
During the first few minutes of the ride along, Douthit pulled over a pick-up truck for speeding at 51mph.
As for speed traps, Douthit said that there are none that he is aware of, but he did take KPIX to his favorite hot spot on Saint Mary's Road near Moraga Road and, within seconds of being there, he tried to pull over a driver. Luckily the speeder made a left hand turn.
"You go 5 miles over the limit and you get a ticket," said Carl Deoo. "They've got nothing better else to do here."
From our survey we gathered data from 32 cities of all sizes.
Novato gave out the second most speeding tickets, followed by San Ramon, and the city with the fewest is San Rafael, which only handed out 55 speeding tickets for a town of more than 58,000.
But that doesn't mean that there are no speeders in San Rafael. Police Captain David Starnes said he blames the budget cuts.
"Back in 2008 we had 7 motor officers and in 2011 we had zero," said Starnes.
In 2011, San Rafael police issued 137 speeding tickets, then in the following year, it was cut in half.
Although there are fewer police looking for speeders, Starnes said that officers do monitor traffic when they have free time.
San Rafael residents like Kristen Brockman are very surprised and concerned about the traffic cuts.
"There's definitely a speeding problem and they are not issuing them. I think that needs to be address," said Brockman.
Click here to see where your town ranked on the survey.
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