Lead-footed drivers can hardly believe their luck.
As of Jan. 1, the Gwinnett County Police Department and a majority of the other municipal police agencies in the county are no longer allowed to operate radar and laser speed detection devices.
The failure of the county and city governments to compromise on a strategy to provide services like policing, public health and road maintenance to residents has cost them the ability to get state grants or permits.
The deadline for Gwinnett and its 15 municipalities to reach an agreement expired in March 2009. Their dispute has since been dragged into court, where a ruling could come any day from Chief Judge David E. Barrett of the Enotah Judicial Circuit.
The speed detection predicament will continue as long as the standoff does.
Gwinnett is the first county to face such extreme consequences since the law requiring counties and cities to agree on a service delivery strategy took effect in 1998, said Amy Henderson, a spokeswoman for the Georgia Municipal Association.
"It's not what we want to be first in," Norcross Mayor Bucky Johnson admitted ruefully Tuesday.
Last year, Gwinnett police alone issued 29,000 citations for speeding. About three-quarters of them were based on laser or radar speed detection, said Cpl. Edwin Ritter, department spokesman.
Auburn, Duluth, Lawrenceville, Lilburn, Norcross, Snellville and Suwanee are the cities also affected by the loss of radar and laser speed detection permits.
Loganville's permit does not expire until Dec. 31. And Braselton police are still able to use speed detection devices since their jurisdiction encompasses portions of three other counties, said Assistant Chief Lou Solis.
Just because officers lack laser and radar speed detection devices doesn't mean it's open season for speeders.
The Georgia State Patrol still can bust them. Local cops also can ticket speeders the old-fashioned way, by pacing vehicles as they drive behind them, or cite them for reckless driving or driving too fast for conditions. The Gwinnett police also have a helicopter capable of measuring time over distance to determine the average speed of a driver.
"The best advice for the motoring public to avoid negative interaction with a police officer is the voluntary compliance to all traffic laws," Ritter said.
There are no immediate plans to put more Georgia State Patrol troopers on Gwinnett roadways to help with traffic enforcement, although post commanders could opt to do that in cooperation with local police, said Gordy Wright, spokesman for the state Department of Public Safety.
Steve Gray, a Newnan resident who stopped for gas Tuesday at a QuikTrip station on Jimmy Carter Boulevard in Norcross, said it seems irresponsible of government leaders to let this happen.
"If people know about this, it could cause reckless driving," Gray said.
Another motorist at the gas station, Marvis Biggs of Gwinnett, said he wasn't disappointed at the news.
"They spend way too much time trying to police traffic," Biggs said. "I think there are more important things they need to focus on than somebody going 15 mph over the limit."
Johnson said one of the main points of contention for the cities in the service delivery dispute is that they are being taxed for county police patrols when the cities have their own police departments.
If the judge's verdict doesn't come first, there is hope city and county leaders will return to the negotiating table. The November elections brought two new faces to the Gwinnett County Commission and a new mayor in Lawrenceville.
"I would not be surprised at all if some folks got together and picked this back up again," county spokesman Joe Sorenson said.
"We feel like they can look at it with new eyes," Johnson added.
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