HIGHWAYS ARE BARELY PATROLLED AT NIGHT

In the desolate nighttime hours, Alabama's highways and interstates often
are fair game for speeders, drunken drivers and drug runners, because the
entire state is patrolled by no more than seven state troopers -- and often
fewer than that -- between midnight and 6 a.m.

During those hours, drivers probably won't get pulled over for speeding,
stranded motorists can count on helping themselves, and people who have had
too much to drink can try to weave their way home.

"You also have drug couriers," said Col. Mike Coppage, director of the
Department of Public Safety. "They know after midnight, you go through
Alabama, and there's a good chance you won't be stopped by a state trooper,
because they're not there."

And, due to funding shortages, the southern half of the state is the domain
of a lone trooper who sticks to Mobile and Baldwin counties during that time.

Among the stretches of road without an assigned trooper during those hours
is the 200-plus-mile stretch of Interstate 65 between Mobile and Birmingham.

Gov. Bob Riley raised the issue in Mobile last week while asking local
community leaders to campaign for his $1.2 billion tax increase and
government reform package.

Riley asked the crowd, gathered in the basement of the Mobile Museum of
Art, to guess how many troopers work between midnight and 6 a.m. He made a
circle with one hand and answered his own question: "Zero."

Later, Drayton Nabers, Riley's finance director, jokingly asked if there
were any drug dealers in the audience. "You can travel about 110 mph" after
midnight between Mobile and the Tennessee line, he said.

Department of Public Safety officials said Riley's assertion normally isn't
true, but it is sometimes. Seven troopers are now assigned between midnight
and 6 a.m., said Maj. Patrick Manning, head of the Highway Patrol Division.
But frequently fewer are on duty because they fill in for other shifts or
don't work because of sickness, vacation, training and court appearances.

"It could very well be that often there are none after midnight," Manning said.

The midnight to 6 a.m. period isn't an entire shift, but it's the gap
between when the latest day shift ends and when the earliest shift starts
the next day.

Southern Alabama is particularly lonely at night. All but one of the
troopers during that overnight time period work in counties in
north-central Alabama, from Birmingham northward.

Among those are two Decatur-based troopers, who patrol Lawrence, Limestone,
Morgan and Cullman counties, according to Department of Public Safety
spokeswoman Dorris Teague.

One trooper operates out of the Huntsville office and takes care of
Madison, Jackson and Marshall counties. Three troopers based in Birmingham
cover five counties: Jefferson, Shelby, St. Clair, Blount and Walker.

Mobile and Baldwin counties are patrolled by one trooper overnight. Local
State Trooper spokesman Cpl. Spencer Collier estimated that a trooper is on
duty in this area all but 10 percent of the time.

"One man covering two counties is pretty tough ... It's a lot of
territory," Collier said. Because so much of the troopers' time is spent
investigating wrecks and writing reports, he said, they have little
opportunity for actual patrolling.

"I think it's fair to say that actual patrol activity does suffer," he said.

Coppage acknowledged that Montgomery is in the middle of a blank spot as
far as late-night trooper coverage, but he noted that troopers are on-call
and respond to wrecks when needed.

Montgomery County Sheriff D.T. Marshall said on-call troopers do respond
quickly when not on duty, and sometimes one is already in the area when needed.

When a trooper isn't on duty in Mobile and Baldwin counties, there is one
person on-call in each county, Collier said. Another trooper is always
on-call for all of Clarke, Washington and Choctaw counties, he said.

"There are midnights where we go through, and there are no wrecks," Collier
said. "Generally, if a trooper is on call, it's very likely he will be
called out."

There has been a shortage of state troopers for several years now. About
600 are needed to properly patrol the state, Coppage said, but the
department has just 319 troopers in the Highway Patrol Division.

In March 2001, the Associated Press reported that 297 troopers were
assigned to patrol the state's 93,974 miles of highways, compared to 319
the year before.

Mobile County should have 35 patrol troopers, Collier said, but has only
13. In Baldwin, 12 troopers work the highways instead of the recommended
24. "We are very short; we are strained," Collier said. "In any case, we
are going to get the job done."

Coppage said the situation will improve slightly when the current class of
27 troopers graduates. But, he said, the department really needs 100
recruits a year to keep up with attrition and retirement.

The shortage of state troopers has been partly blamed for the frequency of
fatal automobile wrecks on rural roads in Alabama. A 2000 study concluded
that while more overall wrecks occurred in urban areas, people died more
often in rural crashes.

Local sheriff's departments can pick up some of the gap left by the
troopers, and several officials said sheriff's deputies and municipal
police officers are good about assisting with wrecks or controlling an
accident scene until a trooper arrives.

Deputies "do write tickets and put the occasional drunk in jail," Marshall
said.

Most sheriff's departments don't write accident reports, including Mobile
County, though a few larger counties have taken on the responsibility,
Collier said. Mark Barlow, chief deputy of the Mobile County Sheriff's
Department, said his department may be able to handle a small number of
wrecks normally covered by troopers but would need to hire more deputies to
do them all.

Coppage said his department doesn't want people to take advantage of the
trooper shortage, noting the patrol assistance from deputies and local police.

"There's always the possibility you'll get stopped after midnight, but
given the manpower shortage, it's going to be very rare that it's a state
trooper that stops you," he said.

State law prohibits police officers in towns smaller than 19,000 people
from enforcing speed limits on state or interstate roadways.