Setting the Pace

Rebekah A. Hall

Atlanta is synonymous with terrible traffic and speedy drivers, but one of its suburbs is trying to slow Southerners down … with help from its trash trucks.

The city of Decatur, Ga., has established a pace car program where refuse trucks drive at or below the 15 to 35 miles per hour speed limit. By doing this, the traffic behind the trucks must do the same, and there's no room to maneuver around the collection vehicles.

Charles Hammonds, director of sanitation and facilities maintenance for the city, says the program successfully slows commuters who are racing to downtown Atlanta through Decatur's residential neighborhoods. Although the trash trucks aren't exactly NASCAR material, they are equipped with stickers that identify them as pace cars.

Miffed by the slow-going trucks, Southern hospitality is thrown out the window when some speeders flick naughty fingers at law-abiding truck drivers.
Source: American City & County