« If you want to speed in Gwinnett, now is your chance! »

Let me first say, I am not advocating that you go out and flagrantly violate speed limits in Gwinnett.  But if you do, the Gwinnett County Police and most municipal police departments won't be able to ticket you using radar or laser speed detection devices.  Due to an ongoing dispute with local cities over the provision of services, the ability of police departments to use radar and laser speed guns has been suspended under a 1998 state law.

I have a hard time having a lot of sympathy on this one.  While I realize that traffic enforcement is a legitimate function of police departments and that there are definitely a minority of dangerous drivers that should be punished, I don't think there is much doubt that, despite the protests of law enforcement officials, a large part of traffic enforcement is all about the money.  While I have no hope this will ever happen, I would love to see the state legislature pass a law that somehow decouples writing traffic citations and the local government directly reaping financial gains from those efforts.  If all traffic fines went into a state fund rather than the local treasury, I firmly believe you would see a significant drop in the excessive, and with some municipal police departments (e.g., Duluth PD), abusive traffic enforcement.  We would quickly find out just how many speeding tickets are about safety.   As they say, follow the money.

In the meantime while the dispute remains unresolved, perhaps local police departments will actually do something like fighting crime.