Important headlines for July 31st - Is South Florida's speeding the issue or is it simply increased opportunity?
Bottom Line: These are stories you shouldn't miss and my takes on them...
Excerpt: State records show 33,821 more crashes in Broward, Palm Beach and Miami-Dade counties in 2017 than in 2012. At the same time, cops in the three counties issued a half-million fewer tickets for speeding and other non-criminal moving violations.
Hot Take: It's likely that there's some type of connection between fewer speeding citations and more accidents occurring but I think that might be an overly simplistic answer. How much of it is simply due to more people being on the roads? I pulled the population and tourism numbers from 2012 & 2017. Here's the difference.
Tri-County population-
2012: 5.8 million
2017: 6.25 million
That's 450,000 additional people alone. Presumably most of which drive at least some of the time. And then there's the tourism boom. Over that five-year window – tourism exploded in South Florida as we emerged from the recession.
South Florida tourism-
2012: 15.7 million visitors
2017: 31.1 million visitors
That's a 15.4 million visitor increase in five years. Presumably some of them are on the road some of the time. So, is it really about fewer speeding citations or simply considerably more opportunity for something to go wrong? The answer might be a combination but it's almost certainly not simply about fewer spending tickets being issued.
Until Tomorrow...