At one point you may have seen one of those plates “speed imposed by planes” along the way and you are thinking about ignoring it. Some drivers view these signs as nothing more than roadside scarecrows, while others become paranoid and seek the sky for any signs of an airplane or helicopter. So is this a real thing? Are there any employees in the sky waiting to write you a ticket?
You may be surprised to learn that, like some of the most concealed cop cars on the road, the application of airplane-based speed is definitely real. Here’s how it works: one officer is in a helicopter or a plane with a fixed wing and another is in a patrol car on the ground. The air officer measures the speed of the vehicle, or by time how long it takes to travel between two painted marks on the ground, or using technology as a video speed measurement device (VSM). The air officer notifies the ground officer when they noticed speed and the patrol car makes the traffic stop. If you decide to challenge the ticket to the court, both employees should appear as both their names will be quoted.
So, yes, depending on where you are, there may just be a law enforcement officer in a small plane or helicopter who watches you on the highway and bounces your speed. In some places, thousands of tickets are written this way a year. However, this is not true everywhere, as some countries have drastically reduced their efforts to implement air -based traffic.
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Where is the speed limit from the aircraft?
Police Helicopter in Flight – Lucian Coman/Shutterstock
Iowa is a pioneer of this type of traffic when he created the air wing of Iow’s state patrol in 1952 with only two pilots and two Piper Super Cub aircraft. To this day, it is active with five pilots and five planes-four cets and SR-22 circles. These “speed -applied speeds” signs can be found in many states, most of all Ohio and Florida. In 2009, Ohio issued 18,000 tickets with the help of air use of traffic, a five -year maximum at that time. By 2022, the state was so engaged in this method that it upgraded its aircraft with VSM systems and cameras with activated GPS, striving to capture speeds over 100 miles per hour. By September of the following year, the state issued 2832 tickets using this method.
Florida’s law enforcement is more likely to patrol highways from the sky on holidays or in certain areas on a monthly basis. The state still manages to issue (according to some estimates) 45,000 quotes a year, using aircraft -based application, with 38,000 of these quotes going to Speeders. The country’s budget for 2025 even allocated $ 2.5 million for new law enforcement planes.
Other countries are also implementing aircraft -based traffic, but not to the same extent as Florida. Washington’s air program, for example, issues several thousand quotes a year, but like Ohio, upgraded to VSMS (by the way, Ohio is among the 10 states who write the most speedy tickets). Pennsylvania reduces its pilots from 10 to three, but still fly patrols several times a week.
What are your chances of getting a ticket from a cop in the sky?
A car withdrawn by a police vehicle by sunset – Gorodenkoff/Shutterstock
The likelihood of being caught exceeding the acceleration by an officer in the air depends on where you are driving. If you see the “speed imposed by an airplane” in a country like Florida, Ohio or Washington, who actively patrols their paths from the sky, then they may catch you. However, many countries have reduced these celestial patrols or have completely terminated them.
California, for example, was another wounded pioneer of the application of movement in the air, experimenting with practice in the 60s. At one point, the state even flew patrols every day. Nowadays, however, California traffic is observed only from time to time from the sky, when the plane is already in flight for other reasons. California Highway patrol officer Daniel Hill told Kqed in 2016 that only about 10 out of 1 million tickets were issued annually by state air patrols.
Price is the main factor that has led many countries to cancel the use of traffic monitoring aircraft. Fuel alone can cost $ 150 per hour, and this is in addition to employee salaries. That is why states like Alabama, New York and Virginia have already stopped their air patrols, with New York even taking off their signs, “Airplane speeds.” Your chances of catching an exceeded speed of air cops in one of these conditions is quite low, though, of course, the easiest way to avoid getting a ticket is to manage the speed limit.
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