North Texas' Biggest Speed Trap Cities of 2015

Now that 2015 is drawing to a close, the time is right to continue what has become an Observer tradition: looking back at the year that was and marveling at the incredible number of traffic tickets North Texas municipalities handed out to drivers.

The methodology is simple. Texas' Office of Court Administration keeps all kinds of data on the state's judicial system, including month-by-month breakdowns of the number of non-parking traffic misdemeanors — i.e., traffic tickets — filed in every municipal court in the state. Taking a year's worth of traffic cases from municipal courts in North Texas' four most populous counties — Dallas, Denton, Collin and Tarrant — and dividing by total population of each city, we get the number of traffic tickets per capita.

The resulting list provides a pretty good feel for how aggressively various police departments go after speeders, though it's not perfect. After last year's list ran, a spokesman for the town of Addison wrote the Observer to quibble with our methodology; doing a simple head-count of residents without considering daytime population could skew figures for an employment hub like Addison. This also doesn't account for traffic volumes or the relative awfulness of each town's drivers. To avoid comparing a big urban department like Dallas, where cops have many responsibilities more pressing than traffic enforcement, with a small, not-so-urban place like Westlake (which actually pays to use Keller's police force), which does not. So we've split the incredibly long list of North Texas municipalities into two lists, with a population of 20,000 as the somewhat arbitrary dividing line.

The big takeaway: If you are driving and you come to a place whose name ends in "-lake," turn around. Southlake is once again the big-city ticket capital of North Texas. Its even ritzier neighbor, Westlake, is the biggest ticket generator among the smaller cities, churning out a whopping 5.3 tickets for each of its 1,171 residents. Northlake police slacked off in 2015, seeing their ticket volume drop from a torrid 4.05 tickets per person to a paltry 1.3. One assumes that they will pick up their pace in the new year.

The other takeaway is that, all in all, North Texas police departments wrote significantly fewer traffic tickets last year (barely 1 million) than they did the year before (more than 1.2 million). That's still a lot of tickets, but just think of it as 200,000 fewer people who had to endure the misery of traffic court.

Big Cities (20,000+ Population)

City	Tickets		Pop. (2014)		Tickets/Person		% change from 2013
Southlake	15476		27755		0.56		-2%
Euless	23467		52649		0.45		-6%
Farmers Branch	12977		30261		0.43		-20%
Hurst	15492		38140		0.41		-14%
Colleyville	9360		23928		0.39		-10%
Grapevine	16925		48671		0.35		-25%
Corinth	7095		20432		0.35		4%
Carrollton	42484		124501		0.34		-23%
Benbrook	7111		21234		0.33		-6%
Richardson	31264		103752		0.30		-11%
Saginaw	6100		20840		0.29		-28%
North Richland Hills	19254		65835		0.29		16%
Haltom City	11208		43259		0.26		-27%
Coppell	9977		40021		0.25		49%
Bedford	11080		46979		0.24		-27%
Arlington	82627		365438		0.23		-21%
Balch Springs	5227		23728		0.22		-61%
Denton	21755		122742		0.18		-12%
Garland	39836		232305		0.17		-12%
Irving	37270		224859		0.17		-21%
Grand Prairie	28821		181135		0.16		-44%
Fort Worth	117719		778513		0.15		-20%
Duncanville	6050		39315		0.15		-15%
University Park	3424		23761		0.14		-10%
Burleson	5195		36690		0.14		-27%
Rowlett	7952		57532		0.14		9%
Lancaster	5199		37731		0.14		17%
Allen	11413		84246		0.14		-30%
Flower Mound	8954		67630		0.13		-6%
Desoto	6602		50837		0.13		-14%
Cedar Hill	6012		46414		0.13		-10%
Mesquite	18079		142552		0.13		-35%
Frisco	15267		130499		0.12		-12%
Dallas	143149		1240985		0.12		-6%
Plano	27621		271166		0.10		-18%
McKinney	12063		144066		0.08		-25%
Sachse	1813		21790		0.08		13%
Mansfield	4823		59757		0.08		-52%
The Colony	5282		38690		0.14		-55%
Wylie	1453		43531		0.03		-5%

Small cities (fewer than 20,000)

City	Tickets		Pop. (2014)		Tickets/Person	% change from 2013
Westlake	6225		1171		5.32	13%
Pantego	5424		2466		2.20	4%
Haslet	3180		1529		2.08	-16%
Dalworthington Gardens	3765		2077		1.81	-32%
Krugerville	2730		1603		1.70	-16%
Wilmer	6297		3779		1.67	-27%
Roanoke	9603		6488		1.48	23%
Cockrell Hill	6310		4267		1.48	-16%
Westworth Village	3643		2541		1.43	6%
Northlake	3282		2410		1.36	-57%
Copper Canyon	1462		1353		1.08	42%
Van Alstyne	3220		3101		1.04	35%
Highland Park	7321		8796		0.83	-24%
Lake Worth	3847		4671		0.82	-12%
Forest Hill	9554		12612		0.76	-8%
Argyle	2345		3282		0.71	90%
Sunnyvale	3691		5480		0.67	-31%
Double Oak	1571		2951		0.53	1%
Hutchins	2819		5410		0.52	-4%
River Oaks	3921		7575		0.52	-39%
Lake Dallas	3632		7306		0.50	-30%
Ferris	1203		2469		0.49	-39%
Aubrey	1220		2595		0.47	-22%
Bartonville	620		1469		0.42	61%
Fairview	3248		7882		0.41	-7%
Westover Hills	227		635		0.36	52%
Crowley	4377		13762		0.32	1%
Richland Hills	2495		7933		0.31	17%
Lakeside	432		1418		0.30	-40%
Lavon	712		2367		0.30	-35%
Josephine	219		791		0.28	-17%
Addison	3578		13056		0.27	-45%
Celina	1787		6558		0.27	89%
Princeton	1992		7520		0.26	-39%
Farmersville	856		3393		0.25	-33%
Parker	959		3974		0.24	164%
Azle	2619		10947		0.24	-33%
Edgecliff Village	670		2883		0.23	-2%
Krum	1029		4508		0.23	19%
White Settlement	3758		16571		0.23	-8%
Royse City	2075		9755		0.21	-10%
Blue Mound	467		2394		0.20	-77%
Prosper	2253		12503		0.18	20%
Pilot Point	691		3967		0.17	-8%
Oak Point	478		3011		0.16	-12%
Murphy	2997		19154		0.16	-1%
Glenn Heights	1509		11671		0.13	16%
Trophy Club	856		9451		0.09	-16%
Ovilla	299		3460		0.09	-34%
Seagoville	1213		15379		0.08	-33%
Highland Village	1119		15589		0.07	-17%
Anna	571		8249		0.07	11%
Everman	363		6213		0.06	-45%
Shady Shores	153		2729		0.06	-17%
Ponder	68		1536		0.04	-19%