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Police are humans, just like most of the rest of us! They get cold, they get wet, and they don’t like it. Of course, some people naturally enjoy working in the snow or rain, but that’s not always the case. During bad weather, it really takes you going out of your way to break the law for an average police officer to get out and work in the rain.
The same goes for freezing weather! According to open data from the New York State Department of Motor Vehicles (NYS DMV), fewer traffic tickets are issued in the coldest months of the year. Instead, more traffic tickets are issued in spring than in any other season.
Spring
Springtime is when New York State police officers bat their highest. In springtime between 2014 and 2017, they issued just under four million traffic tickets. That’s well above the monthly average. In fact, police officers issue more traffic tickets in May than any other month of the year.
Compare that to the state’s weather patterns. From March to May, the New York tends to have its nicest weather (by New Yorker standards). Temperatures average in the 60s and low seventies and sunshine is the norm. That means outdoor work is at its most pleasant. And, in order to write tickets, police officers usually have to get out of their vehicles and work in outside.
Summer
According to the NYS DMV, summer traffic tickets tend to have the second highest volume. That means traffic tickets are more common in summer than in Fall and Winter. Contrary to popular belief, New York can get pretty hot in the summer, with temperatures reaching up into the 90s. Summer is also often considered the rainy season.
Whether it’s the excessive heat or the increased rainfall, traffic ticket issuance is typically down from June to August in comparison to the spring months. That comes despite there being more people on the road due to tourism, vacationing, children being out of school, etc.
Fall
After summer comes fall, and with it a fall in traffic ticket issuance. Once temperatures start to inch closer toward freezing, it takes more heinous crimes to pull police officers away from the warmth of their vehicle.
But that’s not to say that police will let their duties slack as the weather gets colder or it rains a little outside. After all, that’s what jackets and raincoats are for.
What changes the rate of traffic ticket issuance is the weather, not just the temperature. During heavy snow or otherwise dangerous conditions, police officers (like most people) are less likely to go for a casual stroll outside of their vehicles.
Winter
The winter months in New York routinely see the lowest traffic ticket issuance of the entire year. Specifically, December is almost always the best month for driving, since it has the least amount of tickets.
December in New York also has the lowest temperatures, the worst snow storms, and other adverse environmental conditions. All of those conditions make it more difficult for police officers to do their work, particularly when it comes to walking outside of their vehicle to write you a ticket.
Oftentimes, police officers will consider your safety as well. If pulling you over would prove to be more dangerous than letting you get away, police officers will usually let you go.
Traffic Tickets in the Big Apple
Police in New York are known for their ticket-writing abilities. No state in the country writes as many traffic tickets as New York, though California is a close second. But the weather isn’t always on their side.
When adverse weather conditions develop, police officers are less likely to get out of their vehicles to write you a ticket. Not only is that for their own safety, but it’s for yours as well. While speeding in the snow is dangerous, so too is pulling over onto a snow drift.
At the end of the day, traffic tickets are traffic tickets. Just because police officers write fewer tickets in winter than in spring doesn’t mean that you can get away with whatever you want. During december of 2014, 2015, 2016, and 2017, New York police officers wrote a total of 967,418 traffic tickets.
Sure, that’s 40% less than the numbers for May, but are you willing to bet your wallet on those odds? Drive safely, hire a traffic ticket attorney, and have a happy year!
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