Report: Idaho isn't a ticket-happy state

This press release was just received from the National Motorists Association:

The 4th of July is one of the busiest traffic days of the year and nothing can ruin a vacation more quickly than an undeserved traffic ticket.

Information on how many traffic tickets are issued in each state is hard to come by because most localities -- especially ticket-happy speed trap towns -- are reluctant to publicize their ticketing prowess and states typically don't have an agency responsible for gathering and summarizing ticket data from the various jurisdictions.

That means that getting drivers the information they need to protect themselves from unjust tickets requires a little creativity.

The National Motorists Association (www.motorists.org) -- a motorists' rights group that has been helping drivers fight their traffic tickets (www.motorists.org/fightticket/) for over 25 years  -- has come up with a way to give 4th of July travelers some insight on which states are most likely to ticket drivers.

The rankings below were generated by analyzing ticket-related search queries such as "speeding ticket" and "traffic tickets" over time using Google's Search Insights -- a public tool that shows state-by-state search trends across the United States.

After crunching the numbers, the National Motorists Association found that the state most likely to hand out a traffic ticket is Florida, followed closely by Georgia and Nevada. The state where drivers are least likely to get a traffic ticket is Montana.

Here are the 10 states (and District) most likely to ticket motorists:

1) Florida

2 tie) Georgia

2 tie) Nevada

4) Texas

5) Alabama

6) Missouri

7) New York

8) North Carolina

9) District of Columbia

10) New Jersey

And here are the 10 states least likely to ticket motorists:

51) Montana

50) Wyoming

49) North Dakota

48) South Dakota

47) Alaska

46) Maine

45) West Virginia

44) Idaho

43) Nebraska

42) New Mexico

Obviously, these rankings aren't perfect (search queries can be impacted by a number of different factors), but the National Motorists Association has found that the list matches up well with their day-to-day experiences helping motorists fight traffic tickets.

The full list of state rankings and further information on how they were calculated can be found at www.motorists.org/ticket-trends/.