Speed trap

A speed trap is a location whose police have a reputation for writing an unusually high number of traffic tickets, usually for speeding. Sometimes, the posted speed limits are not easily seen; in other places, police have chosen to strictly enforce speed limits, and the limits are typically set far lower than warranted by road conditions or population. Speed traps often are found in small towns, often near major highways, in which travellers are unlikely to return to challenge a speeding ticket.

Some communities with reputations as speed traps have a disproportionately large number of their local workforce involved in law enforcement or judiciary occupations.

In some small towns and counties, traffic fines make up a large fraction of the income of the local government, which gives the police an incentive to write tickets. In the state of Texas, this conflict of interest was so severe that the state legislature passed a law limiting the fraction of revenue that a local government could derive from traffic tickets.