A New Year’s resolution to ease off the gas pedal could spare lead-foot drivers hundreds of dollars – and make roads safer.

Starting Friday, Jan. 1, a new state law in Georgia will tack on an additional $200 fee to any local fine received for a speeding conviction. The “Super Speeder Law” is aimed at “high-risk” drivers whose speed are deemed threats to fellow motorists.

Georgia averages one speed-related death a day, according to the official “Super Speeder” Web site.

“That makes speeding a habitual disaster just waiting to happen,” said Governor’s Office of Highway Safety Director Bob Dallas in a statement. “But it’s one of life’s bad habits that can and should be kicked.”
The added fine will be applied for any driver convicted of speeding at 75 mph or more on any two-lane road or 85 mph and over anywhere in the state.

Sheriff Richard King encourages motorists to drive safely.

“The best thing to do is to keep a watch on the speedometer,” he says. “If you watch your speed, you won’t have to worry about being a super speeder.”

Getting slapped with the new fee might feel like a double-whammy. A driver will get the initial speeding ticket from the local jurisdiction, only to receive a letter of notice for the state fine. Read the rest of this entry »

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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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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