Alabama Will Resume Crackdown on Speeding

I'm not sure what level of "crackdown" we can have with only 360 state troopers, but I'll take the state's word for it. Some interesting facts from this story:

Last year, troopers gave out 17,403 speeding tickets from Aug. 26 to Oct. 18 This year, they gave out 7,527 over the same period.

Earlier this month, federal statistics showed that speed had surpassed driving under the influence as the leading killer on Alabama highways.

Alabama ranks fifth nationally, at 47 percent, in deaths where speed was the leading cause of a highway wreck, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. That is more than twice the percentage in 2003 for neighboring states Georgia, 20 percent; Florida, 17 percent; Mississippi, 20 percent; and Tennessee, 23 percent.

The last two statistics don't explicitly say whether it was an increase in the number of speeding deaths or a decrease in drunk driving deaths (or a combination of the two) that contributed to Alabama's rank. Bet I can guess, though.