Don't curb speed crackdown

What can be so important that a motorist would go 80- to 90-mph or more in a 45-mph speed zone? The answer: nothing.

Yet, there are selfish, reckless and mindless drivers in our area who needlessly put their lives - but more importantly, the lives of others - in grave danger by traveling at those speeds, and in construction zones no less.

This problem became so perilous and frequent on Bobby Jones Expressway that construction workers around the Doug Barnard Parkway and Ga. 56 interchanges complained to police that they were afraid for their safety.

Sadly, roadway construction workers getting hit by reckless or drunk speeders is not infrequent. Fifty-six Georgia highway workers have been killed since 1973, says the state Department of Transportation. In 2003, the most recent year available, 1,028 people were killed and more than 41,000 injured in work zones across the nation, according to the Federal Highway Administration - and most of those weren't workers, but drivers and their passengers.

You'd think those statistics would give speeders pause, but that assumes they care about something other than immediate gratification - getting where they're going as quickly as possible - and that would be a wrong assumption. This is why Richmond County deputies are out in force on Bobby Jones - handing out speeding tickets in the work-zone areas as quickly as they can write them. Over a four-day period recently, they issued 203 tickets. Most were for vehicles going 55 to 80 mph, but nearly 20 were for drivers going even faster.

It's absolutely inexcusable to endanger people's lives like that. There's some solace, in that speeders in construction zones often are shocked to learn their fines are a good deal more costly than what they'd pay for being ticketed in a non-work zone - $625 compared to $120, plus the usual demerits on their driver's licenses.

In our view that still isn't enough. Motorists going 20 mph or more over the speed limit in a construction area ought to be suspended from driving altogether.

Although there's been some slowdown on the expressway, it hasn't been enough to satisfy construction workers who say there are still problems, notes Col. Gary Powell of the Richmond County Sheriff's Office. That's reason enough to keep the crackdown going until the speeders get the message. Hopefully, it will happen before anybody is hurt or killed.