The gas crunch is bad enough to drive people to buy vehicleswith higher gas mileage, or even walk or ride bicycles. But locallaw officials say they’re not doing something that would seemrather obvious: slowing down.

Brookhaven Police Chief Pap Henderson said while the solutionmight seem elementary, numbers of speeding citations written by hisofficers really have not seen any kind of change in the wake of theflaring gas prices.

“We have had no noticeable decrease in citations,” he said.

Mississippi Highway Patrol Troop M Public Affairs Officer RustyBoyd said it’s hard to tell if there has been an increase on thehighways because there is a higher number of troopers on the roadnow than ever before.

“Right now we’re above what we’ve ever been in 20 years as far asmen on the road,” he said. “That has an effect on how manycitations are issued.”

But when faced with the question of if he personally thinks peopleare slowing down to conserve fuel, Boyd agreed with Henderson thatit seems to have no effect on the average motorist.

“Not really, I wouldn’t think. From what I’ve seen people reallyaren’t,” he said.

Lincoln County Sheriff Steve Rushing said it’s hard to tell anyeffect of gas prices on speeders in the county since county lawenforcement is not allowed to use radar detectors.

Boyd said while a major factor in accidents is commonly speed,there’s no way to tell about the impact of gas prices on motorists’lead feet.

“Wrecks go up and down. But in addition to the ones that involveexcessive speed, we also have low-speed crashes and fenderbenders,” he said. “Speed doesn’t have something to do with everywreck, so it’s hard to say with all the variables exactly what’saffecting the number of wrecks.”

The one place law enforcement can tell almost definitively that gasprices have taken a toll is on holiday travel. Boyd said the Fourthof July holiday was fairly lightly traveled compared to past years,and that seems to be linked to people who want to save money byspending their holidays at home.

“It’s safe to say the volume on the roads over the holidays hasdropped off somewhat from what it used to be before gas prices shotup,” he said.