Couldn't resist this nugget from the front page of today's USA Today: "Speeders to Pay Extra for Police Fuel."

According to the paper, the City Council of suburban Holly Springs, GA, decided to help cover the spiraling cost of gasoline by charging speeders an extra $12 "fuel surcharge."

Holly Spring Police Chief Ken Ball tells the paper:

"I was hearing that Delta, pizza deliverers, florists were adding fuel charges to their services and I thought, why not police departments."

Why not indeed. In some ways this seems to be the perfect response to high gas prices because in addition to being against the law speeding cuts your gas mileage.

In fact, the Alliance to Save Energy says that road rage activities such as "speeding, rapid acceleration and rapid braking can lower gas mileage by 33 percent at highway speeds." My colleague Deron Lovaas writes often about these issues on his Switchboard blog. His posts are well worth reading.

Apparently the Atlanta city council has already passed a similar surcharge and Chief Ball says he is being inundated with calls from other government officials around the country eager to follow his lead.

As Holly Springs Mayor tells USA Today: "This is a self-taxing system. If you don't break the law, you don't pay the tax."