A Hyperbolic Reason to Stop Speeding

• There are at least 350,000 Ford Crown Victoria Police Interceptor cruisers in the United States.

• Police cruisers log roughly 50,000 miles each per year.

• For the CVPI Crown Vics alone (not counting motorcycles, off-road vehicles, S.W.A.T Hummers, Paddy Wagons, etc.), that is about 17,500,000,000 miles (17 1/2 billion) miles per year.

• The Crown Vic gets about 15MPG on a good day, not counting when they're chasing the Duke boys over a trestle, etc.

• Per year, just the 350,000 Crown Vics in service use about 1,166,666,667 gallons of gas; or 97,222,222 gallons a month.

(For prespective, those 1,166,666,667 gallons of gas would fill Madison's Lake Wingra.)

• The average cost of a gallon of Gas on August 31, 2004 was about $1.85.

• The average cost of a gallon of Gas for September 2005 is expected to be at least $3.00 per gallon.

• So, for the cops to fuel the Crown Vics next month, just the additional money over last year's cost will be about $111,805,555.59.

• So, about $112 million extra bucks. Per month.

• The average speeding ticket in the United States costs $150.

• That's about 750,000 extra speeding tickets per month, just to cover the change in gas prices from last year.

• There are 235,000 licensed drivers in Wisconsin; and there are about 11,000 cops.

• If our local polizi are responsible for their proportion of the 750,000, that's 15,000 tix. Per month. To cover their portion of the 97mil, about $1,944,444.00. That's a decently hefty $129.00 per extra ticket.