Princeton Police Now Issuing Less Than One Quarter As Many Speeding Tickets as Before Pandemic

Graph showing number of summonses for speeding issued by Princeton Police in 2019 and 2025

On Tuesday night, September 23, Princeton Council will review the Princeton Police Reports for the months of July 2025 and August 2025. Anyone who pays attention to these police reports will have noticed an extraordinary fact: they show that Princeton police have basically stopped writing speeding tickets.

According to Princeton Police, 162 summonses for speeding were issued in May 2019. The equivalent figure for May 2025 was 18. The police also reported that 200 summonses for speeding were issued in June 2019. The equivalent figure for June 2025 was just 20. Massive drops in the number of speeding summonses are also clearly reported for the months of July and August, when comparing the figures from 2019 to those from 2025.

For the four-month period of May – August 2025, Princeton police issued just 14.8% of the number of speeding summonses as for the equivalent period in 2019. That drop continues a trend that we first noted in 2022 (Report from 11/14/2022: “Princeton Police Issuing Less Than Half As Many Traffic Tickets As Before Pandemic“) At that time, the explanation was that police were not writing as many traffic tickets because traffic levels were lower after the pandemic. But the number of speeding tickets issued has actually continued to fall since 2022, and it’s hard to justify that based on the amount of traffic.

As revealed by excellent ongoing reporting by Carolyn Jones at “Tap Into Princeton”, drivers in Princeton get into about 58 crashes every month. In August 2025, three pedestrians were struck by cars in crosswalks, and a cyclist in a cycle lane was also run over. It’s not clear to what extent speed was a factor in these crashes, but people who walk or cycle around town can easily observe that there is a lot of speeding, a lot of casual cell phone use, and a lot of inattention from operators of motor vehicles. Drivers may have figured out that their chances of getting a ticket for this kind of thing in Princeton are really very low.

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1 Response to Princeton Police Now Issuing Less Than One Quarter As Many Speeding Tickets as Before Pandemic

Alex Merchant says:

September 22, 2025 at 9:30 am

Not at all surprised. I remember attending a Council meeting before the pandemic (maybe late 2019 or early 2020?) where the Chief of Police gave a presentation on the effectiveness of speed displays at reducing speeding. But, he also made it pretty clear he did not take speeding as a serious issue. In response to a comment that Princeton should adopt a town-wide limit of 25 MPH, he intoned he was sympathetic with the “frustration” of drivers who would naturally gun it as soon as traffic levels make it possible. The impression he left me was he thought this was human nature and nothing could be done about it. And the councilmembers all sat on their hands deferring to this guy like he was an expert witness with a scientific background.