Speeders beware: the Georgia State Patrol and the state's local law enforcement agencies are ready to put the brakes on speeding during the third annual “Operation Southern Shield,” which will take place in five southeastern states from starting Monday.
“The mission for us is the same in our neighboring states and that is to save lives on our roads by preventing traffic crashes,” Governor’s Office of Highway Safety Director Allen Poole said. “Working together in ‘Operation Southern Shield’ has saved lives and we want everyone who is traveling in the southeast to know that if you are driving over the speed limit, you’re more than likely going to get pulled over and handed a ticket.”
According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, speeding has been a factor in nearly one-third of all traffic deaths in the country over the last two decades. In 2017, speeding killed 9,717 people, which was about 26 percent of nationwide traffic fatalities that year.
Preliminary numbers from the Georgia Department of Transportation show there were 268 speed-related fatalities statewide in 2018, which is an eight percent increase from the 248 speeding fatalities the previous year.
State and local officers with 224 law enforcement agencies in Georgia wrote more than 11,000 citations during last year’s Southern Shield and 75 percent of the citations were issued for speeding. Officers wrote 8,435 speeding citations, 3,070 seat belt citations, 624 distracted driving citations and took 566 suspected DUI drivers off the road in a seven-day period.
“The goal of Southern Shield is to not write a lot of tickets but to show drivers how speeding drastically increases their chances of being in a crash,” Poole said. “We are warning drivers now so those who do not want to see blue lights in the rearview mirror will follow the speed limit, wear their seat belt, and drive alert and sober."
http://accesswdun.com/article/2019/7/813568/annual-crackdown-on-speeders-begins-monday