A couple of years back, Insurify, the big insurance clearinghouse, conducted a study listing the car models that get the most speeding tickets. Of course, to paraphrase the gun industry, car models don’t get speeding tickets, people get speeding tickets, now don’t they? Or rather, people who are attracted to those particular car models get speeding tickets, so maybe the models do have something to do with it after all. Drivers, the study said, are “living up to their vehicles’ reputations.”
Percentage of drivers with a speeding ticket, by model:
- Subaru WRX, with 18.8% of drivers showing at least one speeding ticket
- Hyundai Genesis Coupe, 17.7%
- Kia Stinger, 16.6%
- Mazda3, 16.4%
- Subaru BRZ, 16.2%
- Scion FR-S, 16%
- GMC C1500, 15.3%
- Volkswagen GTI, 15%
- Subaru Impreza, 14.8%
- Hyundai Veloster, 14.7%
Compare those numbers to the national average, in which a hair under 10% of drivers overall have had a speeding ticket. And note that Subaru, the brand that loves kids, dogs and safety, is the standout here, with three models on the list.
Now, turn the clock forward two years to 2023, and Insurify has conducted a similar study, this time ranking car brands that rack up the most speeding tickets. When you’re talking about an entire brand rather than specific hot models like the WRX or Genesis Coupe, you get a different picture.
Percentage of drivers with a speeding ticket, by brand:
- Infiniti, 8.7%
- Scion, 8.4%
- Volkswagen, 8.3%
- Subaru, 8%
- Mazda, 7.7%
- Audi, 7.6%
- Kia, 7.6%
- Honda, 7.5%
- BMW, 7.4%
- Hyundai, 7.4%
The national average across all brands is 7.1%. How did Insurify come up with this information? It’s gleaned from 4.6 million applications for car insurance. One factor not made clear in the methodology is how far back in one’s driving record this assessment goes: You may have a speeding ticket on your record from a year or five years ago that gets noted when you’re buying insurance on the WRX you just bought today.
Some other tidbits from this study:
- The brand study has one curious mention: By 2023, a newcomer had leapt up the list of car models that get the most tickets, and it’s one you definitely didn’t see coming — the BMW i3, with 17.6% of its drivers racking up speeding tickets. There was no explanation for why the heck that might be, other than it’s nimble and fun to drive. Meanwhile, Z4 drivers are just cruising the boulevard and enjoying the sunshine, with 4.5% cited.
- The car brands with the least-speeding drivers are Cadillac, at 5.4%; Tesla, at 5%; and Volvo, at 2.7%.
- The Subaru Ascent really pulled down the Subaru brand average, offsetting all those WRX tickets. Only 1.9% of Ascent drivers have had a speeding ticket.
- Cops make 20 million traffic stops a year, and 43% of those are for speeding. So over 8 million Americans each year are getting speeding tickets, or at least a warning. And with good reason: Speeding is a factor in nearly a third of all traffic fatalities.
