Flashing blue lights in the rearview

Published 9:40 am Wednesday, March 27, 2013

By Mike Voss

You’re justifiably speeding because you’re running late. You’ve got to be somewhere in a hurry. Everything is riding on whether you make it on time.

That is until another car pulls out in front of you and you don’t have time to react because you’re going 70 mph in and 55-mph zone. Now nothing is riding on whether you make it on time, only whether you’ll make it at all.

This week you may see more Highway Patrol troopers out on the roads giving tickets. There’s a reason: the “No Need 2 Speed” campaign brought to the entire state of North Carolina by the Governor’s Highway Safety Program. Troopers are cracking down on speeding this week and with good reason: 399 traffic deaths in 2012 can be directly contributed to speeding.

If there are that many deaths caused, how many lesser accidents occur? How many insurance claims have been made? And rates increased because of a heavy foot on the gas pedal?

This week, we’ve all been warned: due to “No Need 2 Speed” there are more troopers out there and a greater likelihood you’ll get pulled over if you speed this week. But if you value your life, and those of others, more than you value shaving a couple of minutes off your travel time, there’s no need to speed ever.

About Mike Voss

Mike Voss is the contributing editor at the Washington Daily News. He has a daughter and four grandchildren. Except for nearly six years he worked at the Free Lance-Star in Fredericksburg, Va., in the early to mid-1990s, he has been at the Daily News since April 1986.
Journalism awards:
• Pulitzer Prize for Meritorious Public Service, 1990.
• Society of Professional Journalists: Sigma Delta Chi Award, Bronze Medallion.
• Associated Press Managing Editors’ Public Service Award.
• Investigative Reporters & Editors’ Award.
• North Carolina Press Association, First Place, Public Service Award, 1989.
• North Carolina Press Association, Second Place, Investigative Reporting, 1990.
All those were for the articles he and Betty Gray wrote about the city’s contaminated water system in 1989-1990.
• North Carolina Press Association, First Place, Investigative Reporting, 1991.
• North Carolina Press Association, Third Place, General News Reporting, 2005.
• North Carolina Press Association, Second Place, Lighter Columns, 2006.
Recently learned he will receive another award.
• North Carolina Press Association, First Place, Lighter Columns, 2010.
4. Lectured at or served on seminar panels at journalism schools at UNC-Chapel Hill, University of Maryland, Columbia University, Mary Washington University and Francis Marion University.

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