How common is speeding in your country and how likely to get a ticket for it?

15 comments

1. In France, super common. There are automated speeding radars everywhere. Ticket goes to the car owner. It may happen that the ticket never reaches the owner especially if he did not update his home address. But they are pretty good at finding you back.
   If you drive with a car registered in another European country, good chances are that you will get the fine too.

2. Extremely common in my region, particularly on the major motorways.. between cities. Chances of getting caught and fined are very low.

   In the city, it’s pretty difficult to speed.Too much traffic! About the only time you can do so is in the middle of the night…

3. I can only speak for the people I know, but my understanding is that it is very normal. The country is quite big, and especially on longer car trips on a familiar route at least my friends and family will rather drive over the limit than “waste” time by driving at the speed limit. My family’s summer cabin is around 400km away, so on the highways my family members often drive at least 10 to 20 km over the limit depending on the conditions and whatnot.

   The most common way to get a ticket is by driving too fast into a traffic enforcement camera. There are plenty of cameras across the roads. These days many people have an app on their phone which tells in advance the location of the cameras as part of a GPS system. Not all of the cameras are even on at all times, so it’s not super common to get a ticket.

   Most often it seems to happen when people for whatever reason are distracted and don’t register the camera and then get a ticket in the mail later. A few months ago my brother got a hilarious one, he was driving somewhere with a friend who was telling him a joke. He was laughing and focusing on the story instead of checking for cameras, and that’s how they got him. So the picture on the ticket has him smiling like an idiot with his teeth visible and all, it looks so funny! I would love to know what the person making the ticket thought about it.

   Since speeding fines are based on a [persons income in Finland](https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2018/06/in-finland-speeding-tickets-are-linked-to-your-income/) people generally try to be very careful about them.

4. very common,
   getting a ticket depends, there are automated speeding radars hard to avoid, all you can do is know the threshold when they send the fine. Then highway speed patrol cars are not hard to identify if you know what to look for. The rest is quite random

5. I would say that speeding is quite common here. And I would dare to say that people in my region drive the fastest.

   As for the speeding tickets – the fixed cameras are usually marked with a sign a few hundred meters beforehand and are very rare outside of built-up areas and highways. From my experiences, the highest concentrarion of such cameras is in towns north of Ljubljana.

6. Probably more common than in many other countries. Often due to relatively low speed limits on many roads that “tempts” many people to push a bit harder on the pedal. Many types of roads in norway that has a speed limit would have speed limit +20 to 30km/h higher in other countries of europe. The amount of speeds radar photoboxes are also high and many civilian police cars around. And last but not least the rates of the tickets in insane high. If you drive 90km/h at a 70km/h limited road, you would get ticket of about 500euros. Many times that type of road could be a 90km/h in another country. For many decades 90km/h was highest speed limit in norway. In 2019 about 182.000 speeding tickets were awarded in Norway.

7. Depending on the region it’s either super common or rather uncommon. For example in the more rural parts of Rhineland Palatinate speed limits are considered a challenge more than a legal limit: “You must never be slower than…”

   In the Eifel being 15-20 km/h too fast, even in villages, seems to be standard. This is assisted by a lack of speeding cameras.

   On the other hand, I haven’t seen much speeding in rural Thuringia, because there is a speeding camera every few kilometres, and almost certainly two in every village.

   So the likelihood of getting a ticket for speeding depends on where you are. In the Eifel: pretty slim. You could be speeding for months without ever seeing a speeding camera. In Thuringia or Saxony you’d probably have your ticket within less than 15 minutes.

8. In Poland- it’s common and universal that you go at least +10 in built up areas, some people push you to go +20( limit being 50). Big trucks often go 90, regardless of the limit. On the left lane of motorway, driving according to limit(140) is considered being slow and people will drive on your bumper and flash lights for you to move away.

   Biggest ticket you can get is 500pln -roughly 120 eur. And it’s quite hard to get one.

   Driving in Poland is fucking nightmare.

9. Belgium has the highest amount of speed cameras per kilometer but a lot of people routinely drive 10-20 km/h over the limit if they can get away with it. Just got to know where the cameras are and hope you don’t get flashed by a mobile camera.

   I’ve been driving almost daily for eight years and I think I’ve gotten three or four tickets in that time.

10. Not European (American). 99% of people do

    Chance of getting a ticket depends on the state. Here, it is a bit uncommon to find patrol cars and they usually pull people over going 15+ (25km above) but can technically ticket you for going 1 mph above the limit. For example, you pass a cop going 90 in a 75 (145 in 120), it is 50/50 that he even pulls you over and if he does, it’s another 50/50 that he gives you a warning.
    There also aren’t any speed cameras. On a 300 mile (500km) road trip, I would only see 2-3 cop cars the entire way (and usually completely visible). Many people exceed 100 (160km).

    States like Ohio and Virginia are much stricter. Ohio has cops basically every 10 miles (15km) and would pull you over for 7 over (12 km) and have limits of 65-70 (105-110). You get your car towed for anything above 85 (140) in Virginia though most of the cops there are in Emporia or NOVA

11. There are multiple ways you could get a speeding ticket here, either by automated radar or being pulled over by a traffic police. Radars are usually located in towns on major junctions, otherwise in areas such as boulevards where drivers are prone for speeding. Traffic police rarely patrols outside of larger cities and common whereabouts of patrols are usually known among locals. It can get tricky if you are driving somewhere you don’t know the whereabouts, but usually there are drivers who would signal you in advance that you are approaching the traffic police. In villages traffic police usually likes to camp just behind the sign which signals entering an urban area and issue fines.

    That said, outside of larger towns and in most rural areas it is very common not to obide by speed limits. Especially in roads where is flat, like in northern Serbia. Although speed limit is 80, many would drive 100-110km/h on a single-lane road. Highways are even more notoroius, especially with Turkish and Albanian *gastarbaiters* travelling in groups of 4-5 cars in left line driving 160km/h+. Rest of the drivers, foreign and Serbian would usually break speed limit (130) by driving 140km/h.

12. Speeding a bit is pretty much expected, particularly on the motorway. I’ve been caught once (on a 125cc motorbike, personally I’m quite impressed with that).

    The worst people are the 40mph (64km/h) everywhere people. You can be behind them for ages going between country roads (60mph/97km/h) and residential areas (20 or 30mph/32 or 48km/h) and they’ll never change from 40mph.

13. I always try to drive around the speed limit, but the amount of people overtaking me on the highway is still a lot. Most people use a app called ‘Flitsmeister’ which tells you where the camera’s are.

14. *laughs in Italian*
    Speeding is the norm. Tickets can be common, depending on the area, but after a while you know what speed checks actually work and what are empty

15. Extremely common in Ireland. Every speed limit is routinely broken by 10-20km/h. Country roads are 80 but many do 100, motorways are 120 but many do 140. Sometimes there are small towns on main roads where the speed limit changes from 80/100 to 50 but people still go through them at 70+.

    Speed cameras are random in Ireland, they are found in vans which park at random points on a random road. Drivers warn each other a speed camera is coming up by flashing oncoming drivers, who slow down as they pass the camera and speed up again once they get past it.

    Police officers occasionally park up to check speeds but they can only issue speeding tickets if they pull you over. Many will not even bother to pull you over unless you are blatantly racing on a public road.

    Speeding in the cities is uncommon as you can’t really speed “safely” like you can on major roads.