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Each year, states issue tens of millions of traffic tickets. In 2021, despite COVID-19 drastically reducing the number of drivers on the road, law enforcement officers in New York state issued nearly 2.5 million traffic tickets—and that’s just one out of fifty states in the country. 

Although it can be quite the challenge to accurately count each ticket issued in every state, experts tend to place the total number of American traffic tickets at around 42 million each year. Some estimate that number to be much, much higher.

What Is a Moving Violation?

Before we get into a discussion of the most common moving violations, let’s talk about what a moving violation actually means. A moving violation is a traffic violation that typically occurs while the vehicle is in motion. Although this sounds simple, there are plenty of exceptions that may make it more difficult to understand, such as how equipment violations (like driving without taillights) are not considered moving violations.

Nonetheless, moving violations are treated as much more severe violations than non-moving violations. Non-moving violations are things like parking violations, which typically occur when the vehicle is not in motion or being operated.

Most Common Moving Violations

After analyzing traffic data from each state in the country, we’ve compiled a list of the most common moving violations. With millions of drivers getting these tickets each year, cities are making billions of dollars in fine revenue. Some cities in Georgia, in fact, are making enough to finance a third of their entire city budget just from fine revenue alone—and most of that comes from speeding.

Speeding Ticket

Speeding tickets are far and beyond the most common traffic violation in the country, with states like New York issuing more than 554,000 speeding tickets of various kinds just in 2021. That’s half a million speeding tickets in a state with only just over 12 million licensed drivers. In other words, roughly 1 out of every 20 licensed drivers in the state received a speeding ticket that year.

Of course, that’s just an average, and many of those speeding tickets likely went to the same repeat offenders, but the fact remains that more than half a million speeding tickets were issued to a population of just over 12 million people in one calendar year. And that’s not even counting all the other violations issued in that same time period.

Running a Red Light

If you’ve ever seen a green light turn yellow and thought, “I better punch it before I get stuck at a red light,” odds are you’ve run a red light at least once in your life. The majority of people who run red lights do so accidentally, usually because they’re trying to “beat the light” by accelerating through a yellow light before it turns red.

As a general rule of thumb, if the light turns yellow before you reach the solid lines leading up to it, just slow down and wait for the red light to turn green again. That way, you ensure that you’re not going to break the law. After all, what’s more important to you: beating the light or beating the ticket?

Tailgating

Tailgating, also known as “following too closely,” is the third most common moving violation around the country. Part of the reason why is the fact that most people don’t know that you can actually get a ticket for it, especially if it resulted in a car accident. 

For that reason, tailgating tickets are particularly common on wet roads when it’s impossible to brake in time to avoid a collision with the vehicle in front of you. Aggressive drivers often find themselves rear-ending the vehicles in front of them when they choose to follow too closely thinking that their aggressive driving practices will convince the driver in front of them to move aside.

All it really does is put you both at risk.

DUI

Driving while Under the Influence (DUI) is, unfortunately, extremely common. However, it’s not quite as common as it used to be back in the ‘70s and ‘80s during America’s drunk driving epidemic. Even so, states like New York and Florida issue tens of thousands of tickets for DUI violations each year.

According to data provided by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), around  111 million people report driving while intoxicated at least once each year. Of those millions of people, only around one million end up getting arrested each year. But still, that’s over one million criminal violations going on record each year.

Unsafe Lane Changes

Given how many ways there are to get a ticket for making an unsafe lane change, it shouldn’t come as much of a surprise to see this on our list. Whether you fail to use your turn signal, you use your turn signal wrong, you merge over solid white lines, or any one of countless other options, you could wind up receiving a ticket for making an unsafe lane change.

In fact, many people don’t even know the full legal way to make a safe lane change. To do so, you have to use your turn signal about a hundred feet in advance and merge over a dotted white line, all without disrupting the flow of traffic.

Failure to Wear a Seat belt

Seat belt laws vary widely from state to state. Even so, they’re some of the most commonly broken traffic laws on the books. People often choose to drive without a seat belt, ride in the passenger seat without a seat belt, or ride in the bed of a pickup truck without a seat belt; all of which, depending on where you are, can be ticketable offenses.

Whatever the reason, if you’ve received a non-criminal traffic ticket, then you can stand to benefit from the expert legal assistance provided by lawyers on the WinIt app. Instead of paying your ticket, take your case to court and win it with WinIt.