Speeders race through loopholes

Legislators bless PJCs, 'improper equipment' sham, DA deals

Todd Burlingame drives too fast, especially late at night when the empty road ahead beckons. He gets caught a lot, too, but it doesn't matter.

He has learned how to beat the system: He hires a lawyer who takes advantage of loopholes created by North Carolina legislators.

Over a five-year period ending last summer, Burlingame, who said he owns three pizza stores in New Bern, was charged with speeding 19 times. In court, he won every time. There are no points for speeding on the 38-year-old's driving record.

Seventeen of the 19 charges against Burlingame were reduced to "improper equipment -- speedometer," a violation that carries no driver's license or insurance penalties.

His speedometer wasn't broken. The improper equipment loophole is just one of the ways the General Assembly has devised to give speeders multiple chances to avoid costly insurance points and loss of license -- punishments legislators themselves wrote into law.

For every tough law passed to punish speeders, there are several ways to avoid the penalty.

Driving over 55 and more than 15 mph over the limit, for example, can cost a driver his license for at least 30 days and at least a 45 percent insurance surcharge for three years. But last fiscal year, 234,509 drivers charged with that offense went to court; 5,703 were convicted as charged -- 2.4 percent. Another 6.4 percent lost their licenses because they failed to show up in court.

Most of the others pleaded guilty to improper equipment, or to a lesser speed. Or a judge granted them a prayer for judgment continued, a gift that lets them keep their licenses and also blocks insurance points. In more than 11,000 cases, drivers who got one of those breaks had been charged with going 90 mph or above.

To create those breaks, legislators passed laws, year by year. Added together, their work during the past 24 years has made it far less likely that North Carolina will punish drivers who travel at dangerous speeds or who speed again and again.

"We've got these punishments and these outs," said Gregg C. Stahl, senior deputy director of the Administrative Office of the Courts. "Right now, the outs are winning."

Tough laws little used

Stahl and other court officials think that insurance penalties drive people to look for a deal. North Carolina has made speeders pay more for insurance for almost 50 years. It seems like a good idea until someone covered on your insurance policy gets a speeding ticket.

The penalties can be severe.

For a single speeding conviction -- 81 mph in a 65 mph zone, for example -- a driver would lose his license for 30 days and would have to pay 80 percent more for insurance for three years. That prompts drivers to look for ways to beat the system: legal ways, provided by the legislature.

Burlingame, for example, said his license was suspended a few years ago, when he was "younger and dumber."

So when he got his latest round of tickets, he hired a lawyer who knew the rules. He got the 17 improper equipment pleas, most of them in Craven County. One charge was dismissed. He did plead guilty once to "exceeding safe speed"; he had been charged with going 76 mph in a 55, and if he had been convicted as charged, his license would have been revoked, and his insurance bill would have jumped 80 percent.

His plea meant no suspension and no insurance rate increase.

Burlingame said he got a lot of his tickets driving home from work at 1 a.m., alone on a road with a 45 mph speed limit, a sitting duck for police.

"I really don't drive like that record looks," he says. "I don't drive crazy."