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Legislators everywhere have gotten tough on drunk drivers. But The (Raleigh, N.C.) News & Observer found that speeders, not drunk drivers, cause the most deadly car crashes. And yet the court systems are full of ways for speeders to catch a break, plead to lesser charges or have no record of their speeding at all.

In fact, the paper says its in-depth analysis of state data shows that 80 percent of speeders get off easy. In addition, the number of speeders caught going more than 100 mph has risen by 79 percent compared to 2000. And yet only about one in five people ticketed for going 100 mph were convicted as charged. If you go less than 10 mph over the limit, you almost never will get a ticket in the Raleigh area. Ninety-nine percent of tickets the paper examined were for 10 mph or more over the speed limit.

The paper says:

Speed-related accidents kill about 10 people a week in North Carolina, according to the UNC Highway Safety Research Center. That's far more than are killed in accidents involving alcohol. But while state legislators and court officials have gotten tough on drunken drivers, they have eased up on speeders.

Legislators have created major loopholes in laws designed to slow drivers down. Traffic courts are so crowded that district attorneys and judges have thrown up their hands, a News & Observer investigation shows. They are letting almost 80 percent of speeding defendants -- well over half a million a year -- get off easy.

Most speeders are not convicted as charged, especially those ticketed at high speeds; in the most recent fiscal year, only 2.4 percent of those accused of driving above 55 mph and more than 15 miles over the limit were convicted as charged. The overwhelming majority saved their driver's licenses and avoided any increase in their insurance rates.

Loopholes aren't merely free passes to drive fast. They drive up the cost of auto insurance for everyone else, and they keep unsafe drivers on the road.

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Al's Morning Multimedia

Look at all of these sidebars The News & Observer produced for the project above:

• Look up the names of drivers who were caught going 90 mph or faster and find out what happened to them in court.

• Roll over an interactive chart to see how fast most people were going when they were ticketed.

• View a photo gallery of people who have suffered because of speeders.

• Listen to an audio slideshow of the state's most prolific ticket-writing cop. Very well done.

• Read about the reporter, the great Pat Stith, who led the project with a top-notch team.

• Hear voices from the community, including some who laugh at speed limits.
  

• Look at graphics organized by drop-down menus.

Of course there is a bulletin board for people to react to the newspaper and online material. 

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Armed Forces Day

Saturday is Armed Forces Day.

Brass players will perform "Echo Taps" at every national cemetery in America as well as state cemeteries and national battle monuments. If you click here [PDF], you will see the people who have signed up to play at 190 locations around the country. These will all be live players, not the DVD versions that cemeteries have had to use because there were not enough buglers to play at vet funerals. Here is a short video that tells you about a previous "Echo Taps" event.

Background on Armed Forces Day:

President Harry S. Truman led the effort to establish a single holiday for citizens to come together and thank our military members for their patriotic service in support of our country.

On August 31, 1949, Secretary of Defense Louis Johnson announced the creation of an Armed Forces Day to replace separate Army, Navy, Marine Corps and Air Force Days. The single-day celebration stemmed from the unification of the Armed Forces under one department -- the Department of Defense.

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Sunglasses: More Than Fashion

Newsweek points out:

Summer heralds fun times in the sun, but it also triples the intensity of ultra-violet (UV) rays, in comparison to milder winter beams. Exposure to this harmful radiation spurs the onset of macular degeneration (changes to the part of the retina that is responsible for sharp vision), as well as cataracts -- a condition that causes vision loss for some 20 million Americans over 40 and is a leading cause of blindness in the world.

Children are the most susceptible to sun damage, since their eyes are not fully developed. So head to the store and look for glasses that block at least 99 percent of both UV-A and UV-B light (that information is usually available on the price tag). The better the lenses wrap around your eyes, the more they prevent radiation from spilling in around the sides. Tints that are gray, green or brown are ideal for blocking out visible light.

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Editor's Note: Al's Morning Meeting is a compendium of ideas, edited story excerpts and other materials from a variety of Web sites, as well as original concepts and analysis. When the information comes directly from another source, it will be attributed and a link will be provided whenever possible. The column is fact-checked, but depends upon the accuracy and integrity of the original sources cited. Errors and inaccuracies found will be corrected.

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