I Hate Speeders

Gus Philpott
Woodstock Advocate
October 8, 2007

Yesterday and today I had the pleasure of driving from St. Louis to Columbia, S.C. I guess it's almost time to stop complaining about speeders on the Illinois Tollway.

Drivers in southern Illinois on I-64 were fast. Drivers in Asheville, N.C. were Fast. Drivers approaching Columbia were FAST. I saw plenty of tailgating, weaving when there appeared to be little safe room for lane changes, and lots of speeding.

No one pays attention to Work Zone speed limits. Well, let me correct that. Only one driver obeyed Work Zone speed limits. Truckers on I-40 in Knoxville are bumper-to-bumper at 55-60MPH. I mean, Bumper-to-Bumper. Less than one car length...

And eastbound on I-26 from Asheville to Columbia? In the 70MPH zone, truckers were running 80-85MPH and cars were passing them!

What is needed is national PhotoRadar. No doubt about it. I saw one pair of state troopers in N.C. and one pair in S.C. Oh, yes; I saw one lone Missouri state trooper on I-40 on Sunday morning, as I drove into St. Louis from the west. Looked he was using LIDAR, which allows the trooper to pick out one car in a pack and measure his speed.

PhotoRadar is the ONLY way that speeders are going to slow down. And none of this funny business, such as required in Illinois, where the State Police must announce its use. Just mounted the cameras, connect them to the computers, and let 'er rip. If a driver received 5-6-10 speeding tickets all at once, like I've heard they do in Europe, and all convictions were reported to the DMV and insurance companies and no Supervision, perhaps then drivers would slow down and obey speed limits.