Savannah court changes placeholder on speeding tickets after $1.4 million fine draws attention
After a $1.4 million fine on a Chatham County speeding ticket made national news, the Savannah Recorder's Court has changed the placeholder language on super speeder tickets.
The $1.4 million on a man’s speeding ticket was not a fine, but a placeholder automatically generated by software called Odyssey, City of Savannah spokesperson Josh Peacock confirmed in a phone call.
Peacock could not confirm if other users of this software use the placeholder fine.
According to Peacock, the software automatically puts in a $999,999.99 base amount plus state mandated costs. The software generates the final placeholder number.
Peacock said the city doesn’t track how many tickets were set for the same dollar amounts. The software has been in place since 2017, and the city hasn't heard of any previous complaints about the placeholder fine, said Peacock. The city has not been able to confirm how many super speeder tickets have been issued since the implementation of the software, said Peacock.
"Since the software was implemented in 2017, the placeholder language didn’t seem to cause any confusion among those receiving a super speeder citation," Peacock wrote in an email. "The recent case of the person being confused caused staff to reevaluate the language being used and adjust it moving forward."
However, anyone with a super-speeder ticket would have received that placeholder, said Peacock. Georgia law dictates that super speeders are drivers ticketed for traveling 75 mph or faster on a 2-lane road or 85 mph or faster on other roads or highways.
According to a copy of the ticket obtained from an open records request from GSP, the man, named Connor Cato, was driving home in his Kawasaki motorcycle on Sept. 2, 2023, when he was pulled over by Georgia State Patrol (GSP) for driving 90 in a 55-mile-per-hour zone. In addition to "speeding in excess of maximum limits," Cato also received a warning for an expired tag.
City of Savannah Recorder’s Court handles all court appearances related to speeding within Chatham County, and super-speeder tickets are mandatory court appearances. However, there aren't any upcoming court cases for Cato, according to a review of court records. The actual fine for the ticket is determined by the recorder’s court judge. In the state of Georgia, the fine can be up to $1,000 plus court costs, and revoked licenses.
This article originally appeared on Savannah Morning News: Savannah court changes placeholder on tickets after fine draws attention
