Question 1: How many red light and speeding tickets did Austin hand out last year?

 

17,177 tickets issued.

 

But a fine with a specific dollar amount isn’t given until the defendant shows up in court. That only happened for 10,916 of the tickets, totaling $2.2 million

 

9,586 tickets were fully collected ($1.9 million)

 

So far they’ve collected 56% of the tickets.

 

Court told us three main reasons why not everyone who got a ticket has had a court date:

The defendant did not appear as ordered and the case is in an active capias warrant (legal order for the defendant to show up in court)

The case was dismissed prior to sentencing. (different ways to get it deferred, like taking a driver safety course).

The case is pending a requested docketed appearance for jury or bench trial

 

Question 2: How does that amount compare to other cities?

 

It varies a ton, but of the cities we’ve investigated, Austin has the largest population and is issuing the least traffic tickets.

 

Nashville and Las Vegas both issued just over 20,000 traffic tickets.

 

Baltimore 750,000 tickets. 59% collection rate.

 

State of Maine 57,000 traffic tickets. (1.4 million pop. vs 1 million in Austin).

 

It’s varied in Texas as well. Arlington is giving out twice as many traffic tickets as Austin. Dallas County gave out only 1,900 speeding tickets in 2023.

 

There’s two ways of looking at it. It’s good for drivers that you don’t have to pay tons of tickets. But maybe if the city had more revenue from tickets they could stop raising your property taxes.

 

Question 3: What about parking tickets?

 

Per Austin-American Statesman: The city collects $2.8 million each year from parking tickets, but drivers owe nearly $7.4 million from 160,000 unpaid parking tickets in the past five years. 

 

There's one person with 255 parking tickets.

 

Few consequences for not paying, no impact on credit score. The Statesman says it’s an “honesty policy” to pay parking tickets.

 

Question 4: Give us some context. How significant are these tickets for Austin’s budget?

 

When you look at all the taxes and fees Austin collects, traffic and parking tickets represent about .002% of the city’s revenue. It’s almost a total nonfactor.

 

If it’s not as important to the budget, police officers likely have less incentive to write you a ticket. Coffee City, TX is only a few hours away from Austin, USA Today has reported that they’re writing 10 to 20 traffic tickets per person because their city relies on those tickets for a third or more of their budget. 

 

But in Baltimore ticket revenue is a full 1% of their revenue. Maine almost half a percent. Not a lot, but enough that it does make some difference. Then the government is at least slightly less reliant on charging sky-high property taxes like Austin residents are paying.