FORSYTH, Ga. — A Moultrie man has been forced to pay a $280 speeding ticket to Monroe County despite the fact that he was rushing his son to Piedmont Hospital in Atlanta for a life-saving kidney transplant.

Felton McCant Jr., 59, of Moultrie said he got a call from doctors on May 12 saying that a kidney had become available for his son. Time was of the essence because McCant was called only after the initial recipient was found to be too weak for surgery, said Dr. John Whelchel, head of transplantation at Piedmont Hospital. If the McCants could get to Atlanta quickly, the medical staff said, the kidney would be his.

McCant’s son, Felton McCant III, had been on the waiting list for a kidney after suffering a stroke, having his kidneys shut down and being partly paralyzed on his left side. So father McCant, who’s a veteran truck driver, called his local sheriff’s office in Colquitt County and asked what to do. They told him to turn on his headlights and hazard lights and if he was pulled over, to tell the officer what he was doing and he would have no problem. (That makes extraordinarily perfect sense!) With his ailing son in the back seat of their Cadillac Deville, McCant drove north from Moultrie up I-75.

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I recently had a birthday and invited a few friends over for the festivities.

There was dinner, dessert, drinks, and…

Pizza!

…compliments of the Lakeway Papa John’s.

Seems a few of the drivers there had seen me on the road with my sign;
and, I guess this was their way of saying “Thanks!”

Of course, the “STA” is for “Speed Trap Ahead”!

Thanks Papa John’s!

The political theory is that traffic laws should be fairly uniform, make sense to the average person, and the difference between legal and illegal behavior should be obvious. That’s the political theory. Reality is a whole different story. No traffic law better displays the disconnect between this political theory and reality, than the officially described “U-turn.”

The statutory definition usually makes reference to a vehicle turning in a manner that it reverses its direction of travel.

Fair enough, but what makes one of these turns legal or illegal?

It all depends where you are when you make that U-turn. While most states have some kind of legal structure that differentiates between legal and illegal U-turns, the game doesn’t end there. The states also allow local governments to further define what is legal and what is not.

So, the state may allow a mid-block U-turn, but the Town of Prongville, population 879, can have an ordinance that says mid-block U-turns are illegal.

How does the average motorist know what rule applies?

He doesn’t, not unless a prominent sign is posted explaining the more stringent local ordinance. Often, no such sign exists, prominent or not. There is no one universal code of conduct that can keep you out of harms way when it comes to implementing a U-turn.

However, if you abide by the following rules your chances of being rousted for the hideous crime of “making an illegal U-turn” will be greatly reduced.

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Sorry, this doesn’t have alot to do with much of anything… except it’s just TOO funny! Enjoy!

Axe attack in Victoria, Australia leaves speed camera vehicle with smashed door and window.

A forty-year-old speed camera operator in Victoria, Australia was frightened yesterday by a man armed with an ax. The operator parked on Wedge Road in Carrum Downs at around 7:30pm. After turning on the camera, he relaxed in the passenger’s seat as the automated machinery proceeded to generate citations ready for mailing to the owners of passing vehicles.

At 10:30pm, the operator was startled by the sight of an ax shattering the driver’s side window of his vehicle. The axman poked his ax toward the operator a few times before leaving the scene. The operator was unharmed, only suffering a slight cut to his finger from glass shards. The speed camera car’s door suffered extensive damage.

Police are now looking for the axman, described as 5 foot 10 inches tall wearing a dark jacket, dark pants and a beanie. A police dog’s search of the area failed to turn up evidence of the axman’s whereabouts, but it did succeed in uncovering an elderly man’s marijuana growing operation.

The surging price of gasoline has come to this: a “fuel surcharge” on your next speeding ticket.

Drivers caught speeding in Holly Springs, GA, a north Atlanta suburb, soon will have to pay an extra $12 — to cover $4-a-gallon gas costs for the police officers who stop them.

The City Council passed the fee hike, effective July 1, to offset fuel prices that have eaten up nearly 60% of the police department’s 2008 fuel budget, Police Chief Ken Ball says.

He expects the fee increase, which applies to all moving violations and can be rescinded if gas prices fall below $3 a gallon, to generate $19,500 to $26,000 a year for the town of 7,700.

Ball says he was seeking ways to maintain patrols despite record high gas prices. “I was hearing that Delta (Air Lines), pizza deliverers, florists were adding fuel charges to their services, and I thought, why not police departments?” he says.

Atlanta might be next. Monday, the City Council approved by a 13-0 vote Councilman C.T. Martin’s proposal to add a $10-$15 surcharge for motorists convicted of speeding and other moving violations, Martin says. “I want to recover the cost of the extra gas … without raising property taxes,” he says. The legislation awaits Mayor Shirley Franklin’s approval.

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