It's happened to all of us at some point in time. You're driving along with the windows down and the wind whipping around, just enjoying your day, or maybe you left your house just a few minutes too late and the boss has been on your case lately about your "tardiness." Either way, those flashing blue and red lights look the same and you spend the next 30 minutes of your time trying to talk yourself out of the ticket and waiting in your car until the police officer finishes whatever they do for the eternity they spend sitting in their cruiser.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration gathers all kinds of information over a few years to get a good idea of the number of tickets issued and what that translates into when it comes to money. Every year roughly 41,000,000 Americans receive a speeding ticket, translating into one ticket for every second of every day that ticks by, and the average ticket is about $150. Okay Mathematicians, that's about $6.15 Billion for speeding fines alone. $6.15 Billion. And that doesn't include the money raked in by insurance companies when those little tickets hit their systems. The average person's insurance goes up by about $900 for one speeding ticket received in a span of three years.

So, how do we avoid getting speeding tickets? Okay, the only real answer is to not speed, but if you must then you should probably move to a place where the fine is a little tamer than others. In Tennessee and Connecticut, the first violation of speed will only get you a fine of $50, while Pennsylvania will only charge you $42 for your first. The lowest speeding ticket assigned for the first violation is awarded to North Dakota, who only dishes out a $20 ticket.

Live in New York? That's a whopping $600 fine for your first offense. Utah gets even worse at $750. Want to get a killer speeding ticket for your first offense? Bog down in Illinois, Nevada, or New Hampshire to receive a $1,000 speeding ticket, and that's only for your first time.

The moral of the story is to be safe and not speed. Of course, if that's not enough to convince you, then check out more of the specifics in the images provided.