The North Carolina Governor’s Office of Highway Safety in partnership with the NCDOT and local law enforcement agencies just launched North Carolina’s annual “Speed A Little, Lose A Lot” campaign. It started yesterday and will run through this coming Easter Sunday (April 1).

The campaign will employ thousands of additional ‘speed traps’ across our state this week to crack down on speeding and remind drivers of what’s at stake.

The NCDOT’s website details the importance of the campaign and of drawing people’s attention to speeding;

A crash on a road with a speed limit of 65 mph or greater is more than twice as likely to result in a fatality than a crash on a road with a speed limit of 45 or 50 mph and nearly five times as likely as a crash on a road with a speed limit below 40 mph.

Speeding can have dangerous consequences, including:

• Reducing a driver’s ability to negotiate curves or maneuver around obstacles in the roadway
• Extending the distance traveled before a vehicle can stop
• Increasing the distance a vehicle travels while the driver reacts to a hazard
• Increasing the risk of crashes and injuries because other vehicles and pedestrians might not be able to judge distance correctly

In 2016, 88 percent of all speeding-related traffic fatalities in North Carolina occurred on non-interstate roadways – where the posted speed limits were 55 mph or less. Only 12 percent of the state’s speeding-related fatalities occurred on interstate highways that year.

The “Speed a Little. Lose a Lot.” annual campaign reminds drivers that there is no reason to speed because the consequences could be more than just getting a ticket – your life or someone else’s.

Even with increased efforts by the police to crack down on speeding, some drivers are still getting around the law by using advanced radar detectors and license plate hiders for auto camera speed traps (which have been outlawed in North Carolina).

What do you think of North Carolina’s annual speed campaign? 

The N.C. Center for Missing Persons has just issued a Silver Alert for 17-year-old Sydney Harper, who is believed to be suffering from dementia or some other cognitive impairment.

The alert was issued early this morning at 2:23am in Marion, NC, where Harper was last seen;

Harper is described as a white female, 5’5″ tall and weighing 150 lbs. She has brown eyes and medium-length blonde hair and was last seen wearing a pink shirt and blue jeans.

If you have any information about Sydney Harper, please call Lt Jenkins at the Marion Police Department at 828-652-3231.

America’s oldest gunmaker, Remington Arms, headquartered in Madison, NC, has just filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy in federal court.

This past February, we reported that Remington had reached a deal with its creditors to continue operating while seeking bankruptcy protection. The papers were officially filed yesterday afternoon in the bankruptcy court of the district of Delaware, records show.

The gun maker has been pummeled by recent lawsuits tied to the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre, and falling sales from recent political policies.

A lawsuit claimed the company had some degree of responsibility for the shooting after producing and marketing the Bushmaster AR-15-style rifle that was used. They have since won the legal battle and have been cleared of any responsibility over the shooting, but not without significant damage from their investors and buyers.

The Trump administration has also been bad news for the company. After significantly looser gun regulations have passed and vocal support for the NRA has continued, fear-motivated gun buying (as was common during the Obama administration) has all but dried up.

Donald Trump even became the first sitting president to publically address the National Rifle Association in over 30 years. During his address last Spring, he told NRA members, “You have a true friend and champion in the White House.”

Firearm background checks, which have historically been a good measure of gun sales, rose steadily under the Obama administration, then began to fall off sharply when the current administration took office;

Remington‘s biggest American rival, Colt, also went through bankruptcy reorganization in 2015, and this isn’t “the first time Remington has been in financial trouble; it probably won’t be the last,” the president of the Independent Firearm Owners Association, Richard Feldman, told Bloomberg News. Feldman also sees hope on the horizon with the midterm elections: “I suspect that if the Democrats make a resurgence this November, gun company stocks will come roaring back with them.”