March 24, 2015 -- Since November, there has been a steady increase of speeding violations on the base. According to Donnie Baggs, command inspector general, Marine Corps Logistics Base Albany, the citations are issued more often in areas where the speed limit is 25 miles per hour or less.
Those areas are the industrial areas, including the Johnson Road gate, the Marine Corps Exchange and Commissary area, the Child Development Center and base housing, according to Baggs.
The constant excuse when a person is stopped is he or she was not paying attention.
“I did not think I was going that fast,” Baggs said is the overwhelming excuse he hears from accused violators.
That reason will prove to be insufficient during traffic court. According to Baggs, speeding violations will be dealt with very aggressively here on base.
“What we are trying to do is to avoid is another fatality,” Baggs said.
He explained how several years ago a pedestrian was fatally injured by someone operating a government vehicle 20 miles over the speed limit in the industrial area.
“We do not want that to happen again,” he said. “We are taking every precaution to ensure everyone is safe by enforcing speed limits.”
An employee who received a traffic citation for speeding near the Johnson Road Gate lost driving privileges for 15 days. She described her experience as very inconvenient but fair.
Her reason for speeding echoed the justification Baggs said he gets so often during traffic court.
“I was just not paying attention,” the driver conceded. “When the speed limit dropped as I travelled through the industrial area, it did not dawn on me to slow down.”
She described not being able to drive on base as very inconvenient, but quite effective in bringing to light the importance of following the posted speed limits.
Baggs explained drivers who ignore or overlook posted speed limits can expect stiff penalties. Driving on this base is a privilege, it is not a right, he noted. Individuals will lose that right by speeding and he added speeding is 1 mile over the posted speed limit.
“Here on base, it is different from out in town,” Baggs said. “A posted speed limit of 25 does not mean someone can drive 30. Some people believe they cannot get a ticket unless it is a certain mileage over the posted speed limit. However, that is not the case on this installation. The limits are the limits. There is no grace mileage.”
Baggs had a bit of advice to anyone driving on this instillation, “slow down.”