Atlanta Suburb Turns Drivers Into Fuel Pumps

It’s a ridiculous concept, but somehow it seemed inevitable.  Check out this story from USA Today:

The surging price of gasoline has come to this: a “fuel surcharge” on your next speeding ticket.

Drivers caught speeding in this north Atlanta suburb [Holly Springs] soon will have to pay an extra $12 — to cover $4-a-gallon gas costs for the police officers who stop them.

Is your police cruiser running low on fuel?  No problem, just pull over someone driving home from work, ticket them, and you’ll have a full tank of gas in no time. It doesn’t matter who you pull over because — thanks to Atlanta’s notoriously under-posted speed limits — everyone is a speeder.

Need to balance your budget? Maybe you should look to Pizza Hut for inspiration:

[Police Chief Ken] Ball says he was seeking ways to maintain patrols despite record high gas prices. “I was hearing that Delta (Air Lines), pizza deliverers, florists were adding fuel charges to their services, and I thought, why not police departments?” he says.

Unfortunately it looks like this isn’t going to be an isolated case. As with any situation where money is available to be taken from citizens, local government is on the case immediately:

Ball says he’s being “inundated” by calls from police chiefs and city managers. “I’ve heard from at least a dozen police chiefs and half a dozen city managers,” he says of the measure passed Monday night. “They want to know how we did it, and could we send them a copy of the ordinance.”

Yikes. For an extra dose of craziness, check out this story on phantom speed bumps.

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