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Geek and Gadgets Set Cross-US Speed Record
Brikus writes "And you thought your car had gadgets. In this story from Wired magazine, we hear about Alex Roy and his quest to break the record time for a cross-USA road trip. One of the biggest roadblocks to breaking the record: highway patrol officers, about 31,000 along the way. So Roy decked out his E39 BMW M5 with a thermal camera, radar/laser detectors, GPS devices, police scanners, and other high-tech gadgets and toys."
Alex Roy is essentially the man behind Team Polizei: http://www.teampolizei.com/ Does Gumball rallies and such. This sort of thing isn't new to him. And no matter what, his M5 kicks some serious ass.
Well some speed limit fines are based on income, at least in some parts of Europe. I remember a few years back when a top Nokia executive was fined the equivalent of US$103,000 for speeding on a Harley-Davidson motorcycle, because in Finland, traffic tickets are based on violator's income.
Qu'on me donne six lignes écrites de la main du plus honnête homme, j'y trouverai de quoi le faire pendre.
He waited for the statute of limitations to expire on all of the traffic violations before having the story published, so he's no longer in risk of being prosecuted for them.
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To be fair:
1) The couple the racers hit ran a stop sign and were hit by a porsche going 6 miles over the limit
2) The man had a heart atack when hit and died. His wife died a few days later (not sure why)
3) The family of the deceased pleaded with the court to let him go. And they did.
Need Mercedes parts ?
Neither do I understand an arbitrary speed limit of 55 mph which exists pretty much across the whole USA. Yes, it might have made sense in the 50s when cars could often go not much more than 55, and more often than not 55 was already a rather unsafe speed in said cars.
Actually, the 55 mph national speed limit was put in place in 1974, and for fuel efficiency reasons, not safety.
The speed limits in the 50s (in many places) were still determined by the old 80% average method, IIRC. Let a bunch of people drive on the road with no speed limit, cut out the top 10% and bottom 10%, and average the speed of the remaining, and there's your speed limit. It makes sense, because that's the speed most people feel comfortable at.
Nowadays, most of the states I've seen just make a state version of the old national speed limit. Here in Oklahoma it's 65 on two lane highways, 70 on some four lane highways, and 75 on turnpikes. The speed limit on some of the county roads have gone up in response, which helps matters (some small towns are only accessible via county roads), but I still feel the old 80% system made more sense.
Bear in mind though, many cars manufactured between 1974 and 1995 were made for 55 and 65 mph speed limits. Going faster than that is exceeding the design limits of the vehicle. Sure, they'll do it, but engineers didn't have to take into account states like Montana where you could go as fast as you like and still be legal. So while those cars may have had better safety features, in theory they weren't designed for today's speed limits. There's still a lot of those cars on the road today.
Those who can't do, teach. Those who can't teach either, do tech support.
One thing that has to be considered on cross country trips is the ramifications of traffic violations in the different states and what is does to your license back at home. Today, almost all states communicate with each other on traffic violations committed by non-residents. There are only 3 states in the Union that don't consider minor offenses from other states - CO, NY, PA (no points, no record - NY will assess points for Ontario and Quebec Tickets by special agreement). A few states (MD, WI, NV) will post the violation to your record but assess no points and most states will assess points for out of state offenses. Major offenses would be a different issue such as alcohol related. The offenses that could be written up include reckless driving and I am not sure how those states that don't assess points for out of state offenses would deal with reckless driving.
There are a few states that treat speeding very harshly such as Virginia (automatic reckless driving over 80 mph or greater than 20 over the limit), North Carolina (over 80 mph or greater than 15 over the limit earns a form of license suspension) to name a few.
Assuming Alex has a NY driver's license, he would not to worry too much especially if he has an attorney to plead down major charges. I myself have a CO license and have a share of out of state tickets but not doing something like 120 mph but doing something like up to 25 mph over the limit. In fact my last two speeding tickets were something like 10 mph over the limit in Missouri and Indiana. I have family back in the midwest such as Ohio, Indiana, Illinois so usually my tickets are received between CO and Ohio. We even got pulled over in Ohio for tinted windows.
On the reciprocity part especially with today's computers, if you get your license suspended in a different state, more than likely, you will get suspended at home. Your name will be posted on the National Driving Registry/Problem Driver Pointer System (NDR/PDPS) if you get suspended by your home state or a differnt state. The NDR/PDPS would be a tool to prevent you from getting a license in a different state. For myself, I have points in Missouri for a ticket I got more than a year ago (May 2006). Some states in addition to reporting the ticket to your home state will also open up a point file on you as well. This can snare poeple like out of state college students. Ohio does this as well. My brother went to school in Ohio, held an Indiana license back in the early 1980's. Ohio at the time didn't report tickets to other states. He was a ticket away from being suspended in Ohio but he had a clean record in Indiana. I got a speeding ticket myself in Ohio back in 1986 right before Ohio joined the compact.
Coming down the pipe unfortunately and the Real ID Act has something to do with this is the requirement that states communicate with each other - share databases. Don't know how extensive this will be yet since it is still being worked out. Another item is the Driver License Compact (DLC) and Non-Resident Violator Compact (NRVC) will be replaced by the Driver License Agreement (DLA) which is more harsher. The DLA will require states to share their whole databases not only with other US juridictions but also must share with Canadian and Mexican jurisdictions as well. In addition, there are no loopholes for blowing off parking violations unlike today with the NRVC. The sharing with foreign countries combined with identity theft was why the DLA was the most controversial element of the Real ID Act. The mandate for states to sign the DLA was removed from the final bill that was signed into law. Connecticut has signed the DLA and they will pull your license for blowing off an out of state parking ticket. In addition, some states don't like tinted windows