Suffolk County tests traffic enforcement plane

RIVERHEAD, N.Y.

Traffic enforcment in New York's Suffolk County may soon take to the air.

The county sheriff's office is testing the use of a small plane to spot bad drivers.

In a trial program tested during Friday morning's rush hour, spotters aboard a plane hovering over the Long Island Expressway looked for aggressive driving and radioed details to deputies below.

Sheriff's deputies handed out 88 traffic tickets between 7:30 and 10:30 a.m., many based on what the spotters saw from the single-engine plane.

The plane was a loaner from Bergen County, N.J.

But Suffolk County has applied to the federal government for funding for its own plane.

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