Many people have noticed these “Velocity enforced by plane” indicators on busy highways and freeways and scoffed, unbelieving that the state has the finances to place planes or helicopters within the air merely for pace enforcement. And absolutely legislation enforcement has higher methods to spend their time, proper? Most of us count on the police to implement pace with their toes firmly on the bottom, utilizing radar or LIDAR, with pace traps, and even with automated pace cameras.
It seems these indicators aren’t simply meant to scare you into following the pace restrict — the police do certainly implement pace from the air. The California Freeway Patrol has a devoted unit of fixed-wing airplanes that companion with items on the bottom to nab pace demons. In Colorado, the police use two Cessna 182 planes that regulate state highways, and do not be in an excessive amount of of a rush to get to Disney World — the Florida Freeway Patrol has additionally been identified to nab drivers utilizing its fleet of fixed-wing planes. Different states are in on the air motion as effectively, together with Ohio and Wisconsin.
The Missouri State Freeway Patrol has an plane division that has been utilizing planes to implement pace on the bottom for the reason that latter a part of the Fifties. Police need to implement the pace restrict in a number of counties, they usually see success with each flight. However how do police nab lawbreakers from 2,000 toes up?
How Missouri catches speeders from the air
The Missouri State Freeway Patrol accomplished at the very least 40 aerial surveillance flights in 2025 to implement pace in building zones. To patrol from the air, air patrol companions with floor troopers, however the course of additionally wants one different companion — Missouri Division of Transportation (MoDOT) employees that paint strains on the highway.
Here is the way it works. MoDOT staff go to deliberate pace enforcement websites forward of time to color white blocks on the highway one eighth of a mile aside utilizing an authorized tape measure for exact measuring. As soon as the highway is marked, troopers within the air solely want a stopwatch and a radio to nab rushing motorists. They set their stopwatch to ⅛ of a mile, and easily look ahead to when a car hits the primary block and reaches the second block. The stopwatch offers a automobile’s pace, and the troopers radio that info together with an in depth car description to their companions on the bottom, who’re in a position to pull over the offending car to difficulty a ticket.
A spokesperson for the Missouri State Freeway Patrol instructed the native ABC17 station that if they don’t seem to be one hundred pc sure they began and stopped the stopwatch on the mandatory moments, they won’t pull over a suspected offender. Most flights see a median of about seven rushing tickets, and most offenders had been clocked going 11-20 mph over the pace restrict, so hold an eye fixed out for these warning indicators, even when it is a fairly antiquated approach of catching speeders. A number of states, together with Virginia and New York, have given up on their aerial applications as a consequence of excessive working prices.
