Two of the busiest and most traffic-congested metro areas in Ohio made it to the Top 10 list of cities with the nation’s worst drivers. According to a study reported by WBNS-10TV, Columbus was the city earning the fourth-place spot for 2019, with Cleveland close behind at number seven. One of the factors contributing to the Arch City’s ranking included the high number of tickets issued for speeding and driving under the influence.
The study disclosed that the city’s fourth-place ranking was the second year in a row that it landed in the spot. With two major highways connecting Columbus and a high volume of vehicles passing through each day, the odds of a motorist receiving a traffic ticket in the city are rather high.
Computer-issued speeding tickets
Speeding citations appear to be one of the easiest tickets for Franklin County law enforcement officials to issue. Some highway patrol officers have the authority to use an innovative radar gun to capture a motorist’s speed and process a citation. The radar gun has a built-in camera that takes a picture of a car’s license plate and then transmits it to a computer to process the owner’s information. Instead of requiring the officer to pull over the driver to issue the citation, the computer sends the vehicle owner a speeding ticket in the mail.
Contesting a speeding ticket
Sharing a vehicle with a spouse, relatives or friends may present a problem when receiving a speeding ticket in the mail. A vehicle’s registered owner is the typical recipient of the mailed citation. He or she, however, may not have been operating the car when a radar gun captured a picture of its license plate.
Speeding penalties could include a fine, points added to a driving record and community service, but receiving a ticket in the mail does not automatically result in a punishment. In Ohio, an individual has the right to contest a citation to avoid penalties. Doing so successfully may also prevent the ticket’s recipient from having a speeding conviction on his or her driving record.
