Editor,

For four years I have lived a good portion of each year on the unimproved portion of Rye Patch Road in Long County. In that period, I have yet to see a single traffic enforcement stop on the road.  

I live between two “Slow, Children Playing” signs; one at the corner of Rye Patch and Highway 301, and one at the corner of Rye Patch and Bill Rogers Road.

Because of those signs, you are to go no faster than 25 mph. If those signs were not there, then the speed limit set by the state of Georgia is still only 30 mph because of the residents.

O.C.G.A. 40-6-183 (2010): “Alteration of speed limits by local authorities does not allow the limits to be raised above the state-mandated limit.”

O.C.G.A. 40-6-181 (2010):
“(1) Thirty miles per hour in any urban or residential district;

“(1.1) Thirty-five miles per hour on an unpaved county road unless designated otherwise by appropriate signs.”

There is not a day that goes by that many vehicles traveling past my residence aren’t traveling well above 60 mph.

This includes, at times, empty and fully loaded log trucks.

Long County Sheriff Craig Nobles and a number of his deputies have been asked by me personally to enforce the law. The only Long County Sheriff’s Office vehicles I have seen on the unimproved section of Rye Patch are deputies exceeding the speed limit on their way to or from work.

A deputy recently told me that they would not stop anyone unless they were traveling over 10 mph above the speed limit. Yet O.C.G.A. 40-6-1 (2010) says any speed more than 5 mph over the limit will result in a fine.

I also personally went to the Georgia State Patrol in Hinesville and requested they post a trooper to enforce the law. To date, nothing has been done; even though I was assured that the GSP would take care of the problem.

Nothing!

Robert J. Macfarlane Sr.
Ludowici