Edina Ranks First in Speeding Tickets Per Capita

Legend

• Green pins: 0 to 500 tickets
• Yellow pins: 500 to 1,500 tickets
• Red pins: 1,500 or more tickets

Police departments that cover multiple cities have a pin in each of the cities they cover. Sheriff’s offices, state patrol, park police, University of Minnesota police and airport police are not shown.

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In 2011, Edina police wrote more speeding tickets per capita than any other agency in the Twin Cities metro area, according to a report on WCCO-TV.

The city’s 50 sworn officers wrote 8,700 tickets for excessive speed—a rate of .18 tickets for every person in Edina. The top three locations in the city of 48,620 people were:

• Southbound Highway 100 (1,669 tickets)
• Northbound Highway 100 (1,606 tickets)
• Westbound Highway 62 (1,304 tickets)

Nearby police departments didn’t rank nearly as high. Eden Prairie police wrote the 15th-highest number of speeding tickets per capita. Minnetonka ranked 12^th. Bloomington was 20^th. Richfield was 55^th. And St. Louis Park was 67^th.

According to the WCCO-TV report, speeding tickets aren't a money-maker for local police departments, even in No. 1-ranked Edina: 

Go over the posted speed and it’s up to each department to decide what to do. There are no state standards and police departments don’t set quotas. That’s illegal in Minnesota. When departments do issue tickets, those cities don’t make much money, only about $10 to $20. Most of the money goes to the state and county.

“It’s a loser money-wise. If I could get rid of it I would but I can’t,” Edina Police Chief Jeff Long said.

See the full WCCO-TV report at minnesota.cbslocal.com. There you can also download the full database.