He was fast and then furious.
A man caught speeding down a Georgia freeway was bewildered when cops slapped him with a $1.4 million speeding ticket last month.
Connor Cato was driving home through Savannah on Sept. 2 when the Georgia State Patrol caught him doing 90 in a 55-mile-per-hour zone, he admitted to WSAV-TV.
While he expected a hefty fine (for speeding ticket ), Cato was astounded when he was handed the seven-figure charge.
He called the court, assuming the fee was a typo, but reportedly was told he either had to pay the sum or appear in court.
“‘$1.4 million,’ the lady told me on the phone. I said, ‘This might be a typo’ and she said, ‘No, sir, you either pay the amount on the ticket or you come to court on Dec. 21 at 1:30 p.m.,’” he told the local outlet.
Criminal defense attorney Sneh Patel said he had never seen such a high fine for a speeding ticket .
“Not $1.4 million — that’s something that goes into cases that are drug trafficking, murders or aggravated assaults, something of that nature,” he told WSAV.
Must Read : The Cost of Speeding: Fines, Penalties, and Their Impact on Drivers
Luckily for Cato, the massive price actually was a “placeholder” that he was never expected to pay.
The staggering figure was generated by e-citation software used by the local Recorder’s Court that is automatically applied to “super speeders,” anyone caught going more than 35 miles over the speed limit, said Joshua Peacock, a spokesman for Savannah’s city government.
A judge will set the real fine for the speeding ticket — which cannot exceed $1,000, plus state-mandated costs — at the mandatory court appearance.
“We do not issue that placeholder as a threat to scare anybody into court, even if this person heard differently from somebody in our organization,” Peacock said in a statement.
“The programmers who designed the software used the largest number possible because super speeder tickets are a mandatory court appearance and do not have a fine amount attached to them when issued by police.”
