Trafficking
in convictions

Noting a dramatic increase in recent years in the number of 100-mph drivers, Kansas Highway Patrol recently proposed increasing fines for flagrant speeders.

We at the newspaper had trouble figuring out why the number of 100-mph scofflaws had increased so suddenly until we realized that the increase began around the time that a new court record system made it difficult for newspapers to publish, as they always had, the names and fines of traffic violators.

We set to work figuring out a workaround. This week, Traffic Division returns to our weekly Docket page. Now, speeders outside city limits, in District Court, will get the same publicity as those inside city limits, in Municipal Court.

Fines already are quite hefty, but the cost exacted for speeding in a court of law may be less than that exacted in the court of public opinion.

Just keep in mind that the system prevents listing ages and hometowns, meaning there easily could be more than one person hereabouts with the same name — a fact personally made relevant to this writer when living in Champaign, Illinois, where a person with the same name owned a string of campus dive bars.

— ERIC MEYER