Drone video above Downtown Indianapolis on Monday, March 23, 2020, shows a drastic reduction in people and traffic during the coronavirus pandemic. Indianapolis Star

Traffic is down. Speeds areup.

But speeding tickets written by State Policeare down, too. They're down more than twiceas muchas traffic volume.

The reason for the disproportionate decrease in tickets, State Police say,has to do with the reason traffic was down in the first place: safety precautions around the novel coronavirus pandemic.

Traffic declined in the weeks after Gov. Eric Holcomb's first stay-at-home order took effect at 11:59 p.m. on March 24.

The number of vehicles on the roads in the Indianapolis area March 24 through April 30 dropped 40%fromlast year, according to an IndyStar analysis of data from seven locations monitored by the Indiana Department of Transportation. The locations include two interstates, a U.S. highway, three state routes, and Binford Boulevard.

And when fewer vehicles are on a roadway, drivers are likely to drive faster. It's science.

Civil engineering professor Darcy Bullock teaches this to his undergraduate engineering students at Purdue University.

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Different scientific modelsshow this, but he said the core of it is simple: When there are fewer cars out there, people drive faster.The civil engineer said the exact reason whyis beyond his expertise. Its not good or responsible for me to speculate on human behavior, he said.

The science has become reality. Ron Galaviz, an Indiana State Police spokesperson, said speeds are up "across the board" not just in Indiana but nationwide.

Some of it is extreme. He referenced a driver Michigan State Police ticketed for going 180 mph on a 70 mph highway.

"We have seen an increase of high speeds," said Sgt. John Perrine, an Indiana State Police public information officer for the Indianapolis area.

If you sit somewhere long enough, youre bound to find somebody driving ridiculously fast," he said."But the combination of that and the lack of traffic on the road kind of opened the door for people that wanted to drive a little bit faster.

With higher speeds comes more opportunity for speeding tickets, yet that's not what happened.

The number of speeding tickets written by Indiana State Police troopers in Indianapolis and the doughnut counties March 24 through April 30 dropped by 93%fromlast year to this year, according to data from State Police. That is more than twicethe decrease in traffic volume over the same days.

The tickets include anything related to speed, which may include offenses like reckless driving.

The Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department has also written fewer speeding tickets since the governor's stay-at-home order, Chief Communications OfficerAliyaWishner said. She said city police haven't seena great increase in speeding on city streets. This may be because the increase in speed caused by less traffic volume is even more common on large multi-lane routes like interstates.

The difference in citations issued by State Policeis caused in part by officers trying to follow social distancing guidelines, Perrine with ISP told IndyStar. He said officers are thinking about the safety of the person they're stopping in addition to their own safety.

Our officers were using their discretion in an effort to keep everyone safe. We cant just ignore the violations of course, but we also have discretion, and that discretion allows us to pull over the most dangerous of the drivers.

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Perrine said troopers are getting creative to encourage drivers to slow down without being ticketed, though he wouldn't share many details.

"Those are the kind of things we want to keep closer to the vest," Perrine said."For a very broad example, we encouraged our troopers to sit in the crossovers on the highways so that people could see them. ...Instead of sitting in a hiding spot, we wanted them to sit out in the open so theyre visible, and hopefully that in itself could generate some of that compliance."

Engineering professor Bullock said law enforcement, like the troopers often seen oninterstates,is effective at getting people to slow down while they're out there, but the effect goes away when the troopers do.

When officers are out patrolling, there are brake lights and people slow down, he said. But "as soon as they're gone, there's no kind of history of them being out there." Drivers resume the speed they would otherwise travel.

"It's challenging for law enforcement," Bullock said."They can work hard, but it's really, really hard for them to get ubiquitous coverage consistently."

Bullock is looking at the bright side, though.

"The glass half full is let's hope the economy improves and Hoosiers are out there driving and the problem goes away."

EmailIndyStar digital producer Ethan May at emay@indystar.com.Follow him on Twitter @EthanMayJ.

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More people are speeding during the pandemic, but tickets are down 93% - IndyStar