Moseley, 44, had been caught driving too fast eight times since 2001. But every time, her lawyer cut a deal to preserve her right to drive.

It took killing Joe Williams, a 76-year-old retiree, in a head-on collision to get her off the road. Last summer, Moseley slammed into Williams' pickup at 60 mph, 15 over the speed limit.

Speed-related accidents kill about 10 people a week in North Carolina, according to the UNC Highway Safety Research Center. That's far more than are killed in accidents involving alcohol. But while state legislators and court officials have gotten tough on drunken drivers, they have eased up on speeders.

Legislators have created major loopholes in laws designed to slow drivers down. Traffic courts are so crowded that district attorneys and judges have thrown up their hands, a News & Observer investigation shows. They are letting almost 80 percent of speeding defendants -- well over half a million a year -- get off easy.

Most speeders are not convicted as charged, especially those ticketed at high speeds; in the most recent fiscal year, only 2.4 percent of those accused of driving above 55 mph and more than 15 miles over the limit were convicted as charged. The overwhelming majority saved their driver's licenses and avoided any increase in their insurance rates.

Loopholes aren't merely free passes to drive fast. They drive up the cost of auto insurance for everyone else, and they keep unsafe drivers on the road.

Interstate 40 and new highways in Wake County -- Interstate 540 and the U.S. 64/264 Knightdale bypass -- have been turned into racetracks, says District Attorney Colon Willoughby. He says judges have given big breaks to drivers, including teenagers, caught cruising at 100 mph or more.

"They go so fast the light poles look like a pair of corduroy breeches," Willoughby said. "I mean, they just -- shoooeee."

Speeds are increasing, according to the state Highway Patrol commander, Col. W. Fletcher Clay. He said troopers are encountering more cars fast enough to challenge their specially equipped cruisers.

In July 2005, Clay ordered more emphasis on speeding by periodically putting more troopers on the roads. Last year, the patrol wrote 433,984 tickets, 100,000 more than it did just six years ago; Clay thinks last year's total is the highest ever.

Even so, speed-related deaths investigated by the patrol last year increased 23 percent. The number so far this year is slightly lower.

"We believe, consistently now, that speed is coming out as our number one cause of fatalities and collisions," Clay said.

Last year, by comparison with 2000, the patrol cited about 40 percent more drivers going faster than 55 mph and more than 15 mph over the speed limit. The number caught running 100 mph or more increased by 79 percent, an N&O analysis of patrol data shows.

Almost half the drivers charged with speeding last year were younger than 30. For that age group, the leading cause of death is vehicle crashes, according to the State Center for Health Statistics.

Speed is dangerous for three reasons: It leaves a driver less time to react. It requires more time to stop. And it magnifies the damage at impact. A crash at 80 mph is four times as bad as one at 40 mph.

Speeding drivers, especially chronic speeders, are more likely to have accidents, The N&O's analysis shows. Sometimes they just smash a fender. Sometimes they break a bone. Sometimes they kill themselves -- or someone like Joe Williams.

Escape to the beach

Nancy Moseley doesn't really remember the crash. She and her mother, Sue Moseley, had been arguing all morning. Nancy Moseley had moved to Brunswick County to look after her, but she was desperate to get out of the house that day. She grabbed her car keys and headed to the beach.

She soaked up the sun as she cleared her head. That's the last image she has of July 13, 2006.

Joe Williams came through Southport after visiting a neighbor at a local hospital. He was headed to the next town over to see another friend about church matters, said his widow, Ann Williams.

Less than a mile shy of a busy commercial intersection in Southport, Moseley and Williams met. Moseley crossed the center line and rammed into Williams' truck.

Ann Williams was in a nearby store when she heard a chorus of ambulance and fire truck sirens. She said a silent prayer that whoever was in the accident would be OK.

It would be five hours before she knew the sirens blared in an attempt to save her husband.

Joe Williams and Moseley were unconscious for days. Williams' wife and Moseley's mother -- friends from church -- ran into each other in the waiting area for the intensive-care unit at New Hanover Regional Medical Center. It took several minutes before they realized their loved ones had collided.

The first thing Nancy Moseley can recall is seeing a state trooper at her bedside. He filled in the gaps of the accident for her.

"That man died, didn't he?" she asked the trooper before he could break it to her. Moseley collapsed against the bed and wept as he charged her with misdemeanor death by motor vehicle.

Her guilty plea put her under a probation officer's close watch and cost Moseley her right to drive.

Many get off light

Eight times before, officers had charged Moseley with driving too fast. Three times, she was going 15 mph or more over the speed limit.

In all but one case, a lawyer negotiated with the prosecutor or judge to have the charges dismissed or lowered. Twice, they allowed her to blame her fast driving on a broken speedometer.

Speeding drivers usually don't kill anybody. Otherwise, Moseley's case is similar to thousands of others. Troopers, police officers and deputy sheriffs keep catching speeders, but the courts don't do much to penalize them -- even for dangerously high speeds.

Last year, only 19 percent of drivers ticketed at 100 mph or above were convicted as charged.

Clay, leader of the Highway Patrol, says what the courts do is not his business.

"We make it clear to the troopers, 'Your job is to take enforcement action on clear-cut violations of the law,' " he said. "Our job is not to manage the court system."

Responsibility for punishing speeders is blurred. Legislators approved harsh penalties and then shot them full of holes. Prosecutors and judges apply the laws unevenly. The agency that operates the court system says all it can do is ask for more money.

"It's kind of a mess, isn't it?" said Gregg C. Stahl, senior deputy director of the Administrative Office of the Courts. He said penalties are so stiff that no one is willing to accept them.

Ralph A. Walker, a retired Superior Court and Court of Appeals judge, is the AOC director.

"District attorneys and judges are elected," Walker said. "We can point out statistics to these elected officials and the legislature -- but you know, at that point, it's up to the judges, the DAs, to adjust their policies, or the legislature to mandate a change in administration of the traffic laws."

Mild speeding ignored

Almost everyone speeds.

J. Kevin Lacy, the state traffic engineer at the Department of Transportation, says the "free-flow" speed in urban areas is about 7 mph above the limit, and in rural areas, about 12 mph above. Free flow is the speed drivers choose when they are not impeded by traffic.

An N&O analysis of patrol citations shows that troopers ignore almost all speeders who are going less than 10 mph over the limit. Last year, more than 99 percent of the speeding citations written by troopers were for 10 miles over, or more.

There's no doubt that speed kills. In 1974, when gasoline shortages forced the federal government to impose a nationwide 55 mph speed limit, highway deaths dropped. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration estimated that nearly 42,000 lives were saved in the first six years.

Congress allowed states to raise the speed limit on some rural interstate highways in 1987 and removed the federal maximum limit in 1995. Every state has adopted higher speed limits, ranging up to 75 mph. The maximum lawful speed in North Carolina is 70.

A well-publicized enforcement campaign aimed at drunken drivers, called "Booze It & Lose It," and relentless pressure from citizen groups such as Mothers Against Drunk Driving have helped create public and legislative intolerance for impaired drivers.

Another well-publicized campaign called "Click It or Ticket" has helped drive seat-belt use in North Carolina to an all-time high, 88.5 percent, and saved more lives.

But there has been no similar, sustained campaign against speeding. That's true even though speed-related deaths are so commonplace that few are widely reported unless it involves several people or a child.

Among the recent cases getting attention: Last month, a Johnston County teen, Luke Boyd, died after he lost control of his car at 75 mph in a 55 mph zone. In March, Johnston authorities said Charlie Strickland, 22, of Princeton was exceeding a safe speed on a wet road when his car crossed the center line. It hit the Rhodes family of Goldsboro, killing Thelma Rhodes and injuring three others.

State and national highway safety officials have not emphasized the dangers of speed because speeding carries no stigma, according to Darrell Jernigan, director of the Governor's Highway Safety Program. Last fiscal year, his agency spent about $1.3 million on campaigns to encourage seat-belt use and to discourage drunken driving. It spent $21,000 on a program to reduce speed.

"We really have kind of limited funds when it comes to speed," Jernigan said. "Our pots of money that come from the federal government are specific -- child passenger safety, occupant protection, seat belts ... booze."

Is any of it specifically designated for speed?

"No," Jernigan said.

'Woman driving crazy'

Ann Williams, 71, barely recognized her husband hours after the crash as he slept in a hospital bed in Wilmington. Tubes snaked out of his head, swollen twice its normal size. Dried blood dirtied his forehead. His eye was swollen shut, vertebrae were shattered, his leg was broken. Every time she touched his bed, Joe Williams winced in pain, Ann Williams recalled.

"I just knew he wouldn't pull through," she said.

In the 10 days Joe Williams lived after the accident, he muttered over and over about a white Honda sailing toward him. Williams complained to his wife that he was poking along on his way to visit a friend and "here comes this woman driving crazy."

Months after Ann Williams buried her husband, she cornered Nancy Moseley outside the Brunswick County courthouse. Williams shoved a picture of Joe Williams in her face and told her she hoped that image would burn in her head when she woke each day.

Moseley recoiled. She felt like a monster and had no words to offer.

"I was too afraid to say anything to her," Moseley said, for fear Williams would yell at her. "I didn't want to hear it. I didn't mean to do it."

Speed limit lip service

No legislator wants people like Joe Williams to die on the highway. Still, there is no political will in North Carolina, or nationally, to tackle speed, said David L. Harkey, director of the UNC Highway Safety Research Center.

When Harkey went to work at the center in 1993, he said "Click It or Ticket" was starting to take hold and "Booze It & Lose It" followed. A campaign to reduce speed was to have been the third leg of those highway safety campaigns.

Harkey recalls meeting in Raleigh with representatives of law enforcement agencies, the Governor's Highway Safety Program, the Department of Transportation, and others, when he realized there wasn't going to be a campaign to reduce speed.

"Nobody ever thought they could get legislators to get on board in supporting any kind of program that had enforcement teeth to address the speeding issue," Harkey said. "All of us agree that we should put on our seat belts. All of us agree that you shouldn't drink and drive. I think all of us pay lip service to the fact that you shouldn't speed."

About 1,600 people a year, an average of more than four a day, die on state highways. But they get relatively little attention, in part because collisions seem so inevitable the government used to call them accidents.

There doesn't seem to be a strong connection in the mind of most drivers -- or some judges -- between speed and death.

Willoughby, the Wake district attorney, is frustrated that some judges let off young drivers clocked at 100 mph or above with a "prayer for judgment continued," which allows them to keep driving.

"If you want to know why I can't do anything about slowing down young kids, I can show you," Willoughby said, handing over a stack of 100-mph citations. "I'm trying to take people's driving license, but they're not taking them."

Wake Judge Craig Croom gave PJCs to at least three teenagers last year who were charged at 100 mph, including a 16-year-old clocked at 101 while roaring down Main Street in Fuquay-Varina.

"This is not something I typically do," Croom said. "Usually it takes some convincing for me to do it at this high speed. I know that each one of them had lawyers, so they probably convinced me."

One was a 19-year-old Marine about to deploy to Iraq, he said. Croom required the others to take a driving class and perform one hour of community service for each mile per hour over the limit.

Anger and suffering

It has been 10 months since Joe Williams' death, but anger still eats at Ann Williams. Moseley's punishment in February -- loss of license and probation -- did little to temper that.

Ann Williams misses her husband terribly and sometimes thinks his death was just a bad dream. Joe Williams did almost everything for her. She's always late now and gets lost driving to doctor appointments.

Moseley is suffering, too. Her family members didn't want anything to do with her after the accident, she said. She can't drive; she really doesn't want to. Even riding in a car makes her nervous. One of her legs is mangled; physical therapy will have to wait until she can afford health insurance.

Moseley can't figure out why she survived and Williams didn't.

"Most days, I feel like the whole world has just caved in on me," she said. "But I'd like to think there's a reason I didn't die in that wreck."

Because of Moseley's record, Ann Williams wonders why she was driving at all:

"She should never have been on the road in the first place."

(News researcher Brooke Cain contributed to this report.)

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