Earlier this year, Lyndhurst resident Richard Brown and many of his neighbors were alarmed to walk outside their Kingsland Avenue residences to see the carnage after they heard the impact. Brown’s car was gone from his parking spot. It had been flipped over and sent skidding to the front of his neighbor’s house. The culprit of the accident that also damaged two other vehicles was a 75-80-mph driving teenager of a horsepower-packed Mercedes Coupe, traveling on the 25-mph residential street.

"Financially, I don’t care what it costs, you can’t put a price on a human life," Brown told the Board of Commissioners following the incident in an effort to tighten speed control on his roadway. Soon after, flashing cautionary speed lights were installed on Kingsland near the site.

Although neither the teens nor the neighbors were injured, the neighborhood voiced concerns over what could have happened. They are not alone in their worries. Speeding is considered the second top factor in fatality related accidents, according to the New Jersey Chapter of the American Society of Safety Engineers. DWI ranks third. First is failure to maintain a lane or running off the road.

However, when at municipal court, unlike DWI offenders, speeders can pay down their tickets, walk out with his or her driver’s license still intact and the offense erased. If the offense is DWI, that person will most likely be looking at a suspension. The offenses, involving the use of a vehicle in an illegal manner, have similar results, yet the penalties are not.

A statistical danger

"Nearly one-third of all traffic fatalities are speed related," said former NJ Division of Highway Traffic Safety Roberto Rodriguez right before a statewide crackdown on speeding last summer. "In 2004, over 13,000 people died in speed related crashes in the United States with 65 fatalities in New Jersey alone. Costs related to those crashes totaled more than $40.4 billion."

That crackdown proved how many drivers, particularly local, drive over the speed limit at any given time when police are focusing their efforts on defining the problem. In the month long July pilot program called "Obey the Signs or Pay the Fines", local municipalities with the exception of Lyndhurst that did not report data for the blitz, issued 161 summonses.

Most municipal law enforcement agencies, county officers and state troopers do not discriminate when it comes to speed enforcement and cracking down on DWI offenses. Speed traps and DWI roadblocks, particularly around the holidays, are common practice and the tickets fly quickly while officers are on patrol as well.

From last July to April 2007, officers in the five South Bergenite area towns issued 307 total summonses for DWI offenses and over 17,000 tickets involving moving violations.

In Lyndhurst, according to Chief James O’Connor, this year’s culmination of the first four months of ticketing in 2007 resulted in 157 speeding summonses and 32 DWI summonses township-wide. Most DWI offenders are prosecuted. However, the speeders, causing a great number of accidents statewide, can get off without a blemish on their motor vehicle records. Seventeen of those 157 offenders chose to use a recently instated plea bargain, a plea to "unsafe driving", that allows an offender to pay a hefty fine of $430 to expunge any possible points. It can be used twice in a five-year period.

"Drunk driving is obviously looked at as a more serious crime, obviously, you’re drunk," said Rutherford-based lawyer Paul Kreisinger, who has represented both clients in DWI and speed-related court proceedings. "For speeding they should have DWT, driving while on testosterone. The laws are tight enough as it is and you’ll find that most speeding tickets, not all, but most are benign offenses. [An example] is if someone’s in a hurry to get somewhere or late to work on sometimes under-zoned roadways."

Unequal treatment

Poised with the question of whether lead footed offenders should be held to the same standard as DWI offenders in the courts, O’Connor said it’s not easily compared.

"I would say no because while you’re speeding, you still do have control of the vehicle," said O’Connor. "You’re not intoxicated or in an inebriated state."

In Carlstadt, patrol officer John Cleary said speed is by far a greater contributor to crashes occurring in the borough than DWI offenses. The penalty should fit the crime.

"In my opinion, if the speed violation was the contributing factor of the crash, regardless of whether personal injury occurred, violation points should be issued rather than a higher fine without points," said Cleary. "This would hold the violator more accountable for their actions. However, it would create a greater strain on the municipal court due to the high volume of cases."

One local resident of Lyndhurst, who wished to remain anonymous due to her offense, understands why her license was pulled for three months due to a DWI charge last October when she was returning to Rutgers University from an off-campus party. She said, however, she feels a bit jaded over speeders who can walk away with a fine, but retain their driving privileges.

"I know what I did was wrong and luckily I was pulled over before anything bad happened, but the rules should apply to anyone on the road that breaks the law," said the 23-year-old. "A person speeding can just as easily lose control of their vehicle as someone under the influence. Both are poor practices…when speeders get the right to have a free chance to keep driving, they’ll most likely wind up speeding again."

Under New Jersey law, first offense DWI convictions carry a mandatory three-month license suspension. It takes 12 points for a speeder to face a suspension. That could literally mean using the $430 get out of jail free card twice, then accumulating four more speeding tickets of 1-10 mph over the speed limit, which each carries three points.

Cleary said backlogs of the court system, volume of offenders and the structure of New Jersey administrative laws governing plea bargain availability contribute to the reasons DWI offenders and speeding offenders will never be on an equal playing ground in the justice system.

"Municipal courts have a high volume of cases that must be handled, with limited time to do so," he said. "Since most local jurisdictions in our area are comprised of part-time judges and prosecutors, there is simply not enough time and personnel resources to conduct many trials. This is why so many violations are "plea-bargained".