Castle Hills has designated a Ford Mustang as a traffic unit. The department targets roads with recurring speeding and crash concerns.
The Mustang has been patrolling Castle Hills for a little more than a month, according to KSAT. The department uses it in areas with higher rates of speeding, accidents and road rage incidents, as well as in school zones. Its lettering is visible only from certain angles, the station reports.
Castle Hills Police issue roughly 300 to 350 citations per month with the unit, KSAT reports. The Mustang serves as the department's traffic-enforcement vehicle.
Trouble Spots Along the Commuter Corridors
The department has identified Northwest Military Highway, West Avenue and Loop 410 as persistent speeding trouble spots, per the same account. Those corridors run through a city completely surrounded by San Antonio, with a population of roughly 3,940 residents, according to World Population Review.
What TxDOT’s Project Information Shows
The TxDOT information cited here describes a project footprint, not daily vehicle counts. It says the Loop 410 San Pedro project covers a 4.3-mile section of I-410 from West Avenue to Broadway Street within San Antonio and Castle Hills, according to the Texas Department of Transportation. That information does not establish how many vehicles travel Northwest Military Highway on an average day or how traffic volume varies along it.
KSAT reported that driver Tyler Grona was traveling on Northwest Military Highway on a recent Thursday morning when she was accused of driving 45 mph in a 35 mph zone. She said she thought she was driving 35 mph because she was trying to be good, and she ultimately received a warning rather than a citation. Grona said drivers shouldn't speed on Northwest Military Highway or any other road.
How the Mustang Came to Be
City records show the Castle Hills Crime Control and Prevention District approved funding in June to buy the Mustang after a previous patrol car was declared a total loss following an accident, according to the City of Castle Hills. Interim Chief Jose Davila noted that choosing a Mustang over a standard utility vehicle allowed the department to return a lower-mileage vehicle to the regular patrol fleet while still keeping a dedicated car for traffic enforcement.
The legal groundwork for operating a low-visibility patrol vehicle comes from Texas Transportation Code Section 721.005, which allows municipalities to exempt specified automobiles from Section 721.004’s inscription requirement, according to Justia Law.
Texas Law Bars Traffic Ticket Quotas
Small independent municipalities inside Bexar County run their own municipal courts and set their own fee structures.
Texas law prohibits state and local political subdivisions from establishing or enforcing traffic ticket quotas for peace officers, per the Texas Constitution and Statutes.
Scale Compared to San Antonio
Even with its dedicated unit, Castle Hills issues a small fraction of the tickets written next door. San Antonio Police Department issued more than 4,100 speeding tickets per month on average in 2025 and averaged about the same figure during the first nine months of 2026, according to department data cited by KSAT. That means San Antonio writes more than ten times as many tickets as Castle Hills by comparison.
Targeted traffic enforcement isn't new for the small department. Castle Hills Police previously requested a dedicated traffic enforcement officer following a post-pandemic increase in speeding, according to the San Antonio Express-News. At the time, police reported catching drivers traveling up to 54 mph in a 35 mph zone.
TxDOT says its monitoring program conducts more than 75,000 short-term traffic counts annually on roads that include local and county roads, but its cited traffic-count information does not give a figure for Northwest Military Highway through Castle Hills. The agency’s traffic-count information therefore does not establish the road’s traffic volume or how it has changed over time.
