Each year we’re amazed at the number of good legislative bills that fail inside the committee meeting rooms at the state Capitol for apparently no good reason. On Tuesday it happened again.

Members of the House County Affairs Committee voted down a bill that would have given county sheriffs the right to use radar speed detectors on county roadways.

Currently sheriff’s deputies are prohibited from using the same type of radar used by the municipal police departments and the Mississippi Highway Safety Patrol troopers.

On the surface, it seems like a no-brainer. What could it hurt? Radar use would certainly help curb speeding which is a significant factor in many traffic fatalities. Correct?

Well, it seems logic and reason rarely have a role in such matters.

And as such our legislators chose to lift the status quo into the air and worship it, leaving an outdated system unchanged.

Opponents to the bill say their main problem with the idea is that they fear sheriff’s deputies’ abuse the law. The anti-radar advocates say deputies will set up speed traps merely for the sake of making money.

So what?

Speeding, no matter how common, is a crime, and all speeders should be forced to realize the consequences of the law.

We’d much rather run the risk of having sheriff’s deputies set up speed traps and know that, if we’re driving under the legal speed limit, we have nothing to fear rather than the alternative – more unnecessary traffic deaths.