Something interesting is happening on Columbus roads, and it’s not just your imagination.
A recent deep dive into data from the Franklin County Municipal Court shows a steep decline in traffic citations across the board over the past 15 to 17 years. The analysis, compiled and shared in the r/Columbus subreddit by a local Redditor, pulled from annual court reports to track long-term trends.
The short version: a lot fewer tickets are being written.
The drop is hard to miss
Across dozens of categories, citations have fallen significantly since the late 2000s.
- Speeding charges dropped from a peak of more than 25,000 in 2009 to about 6,500 in 2024
- Stop sign violations fell from over 3,200 to under 1,000
- Driving under suspension, expired tags, and license violations all show similar downward trends
- Even categories like failure to control, improper turns, and marked lane violations have declined over time.
There’s a noticeable dip around 2020 and 2021, which lines up with the pandemic. But what stands out more is that many of these numbers were already trending downward well before that.
The Reddit post that surfaced the data makes a bold claim: that police have “functionally stopped enforcing traffic laws.”
But a drop in citations could mean a few different things.
What current data shows
More recent numbers from the Ohio State Highway Patrol add a little more context, at least for 2026 so far.
In Franklin County, enforcement stops are down slightly compared to the same period last year, dropping from 3,281 to 2,832. Warnings are also down, along with seatbelt enforcement and distracted driving violations.
At the same time, some categories are moving in the opposite direction. OVI enforcement is up, along with felony arrests and crashes investigated.
Speed-related enforcement is mixed. Total speed violations dipped slightly, but higher-end speeding, like drivers going 30+ mph over the limit, actually increased.
Taken together, the long-term trend is clear: fewer traffic citations are being issued today than they were 15 years ago. The newer data shows that there is still enforcement happening, just not always in the same ways or at the same levels across every category.
