Due to budget cuts, Virginia State Police will no longer be patrolling the skies looking for dangerous drivers, according to The Virginian-Pilot. The hope is that the program may be re-instated when the state has more money to fund the program.

"The Cessna spent 4-1/2 hours in the air Dec. 6, manned by Virginia State Police and winging over Interstate 64 in Chesapeake on a hunt for dangerous drivers.

They issued 14 tickets that Saturday, and it turned out those would be the last. Troopers haven't taken to the sky to enforce the rules of the road since. Those 14 tickets came at a cost of roughly $90 an hour.

Nine years after Virginia changed its law to allow State Police to catch speeders from the air, the program is effectively over.

State Police blame millions of dollars in budget cuts, which have also forced the closure of its Manassas airport and the sale of one of its planes, spokeswoman Deborah Cox said.

The program might be re-instated when times are better. But the lawmaker who sponsored the bill that made aerial patrols possible doesn't expect that to happen until 2011 or later."

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