By The Expired Meter

The Second City is actually the sixth city -- at least when it comes to speeding and traffic tickets, according to the National Motorists Association (NMA), a motorists rights organization.

In the NMA's recently released bi-annual rankings of America's top ticketed cities and states, Chicago, Illinois comes in as the sixth most likeliest city to get a speeding or traffic ticket. According to the study, Atlanta won the honor of being the nation's top ticketed city, followed by Los Angeles, Dallas-Fort Worth, Miami and New York rounding out the top five.

From a state perspective, Illinois ranks a lowly eighteenth. Nevada, Georgia, Alabama, Florida and Maryland make up the top five states for ticket traps. The study used an Internet methodology utilizing a web-based tool called Google Insights which looks at search term popularity by geographic area and ranking them on a 100 point scale. The NMA used terms like "speeding ticket" and "traffic ticket" to determine their study results. Considering Chicago is the red light camera capital of the United States, why didn't Chicago rank higher?

"We didn't specifically call out red light cameras and speed camera tickets," explained NMA spokesman John Bowman. "We just didn't break it up that specifically."

However, Bowman thinks Chicago's rankings may rise when the NMA does their next survey. The reason? Speed cameras. With the city of Chicago getting ready to roll out what looks to be a very aggressive network of speed cameras across the city, Bowman believes it will have an impact on their survey.

"I would anticipate with a much higher volume of tickets being generated it will have an affect," said Bowman when asked about the city's speed cam program. "It wouldn't surprise me that speed am tickets would have an impact (on Chicago's rankings.)"

Detailed coverage of Chicago motoring issues can be found at The Expired Meter.