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Anti-Speed Camera Activist Buys Police Department's Web Domain
Brian McCrary just bought a website to complain about a $90 speeding ticket he received from the Bluff City PD — the Bluff City Police Department site. The department let its domain expire and McCrary was quick to pick it up. From the article: "Brian McCrary found the perfect venue to gripe about a $90 speeding ticket when he went to the Bluff City Police Department's website, saw that its domain name was about to expire, and bought it right out from under the city's nose. Now that McCrary is the proud owner of the site, bluffcitypd.com, the Gray, Tenn., computer network designer has been using it to post links about speed cameras — like the one on US Highway 11E that caught him — and how people don't like them."
The reason why they have speed cameras is because they get lots of racing fans because the town is located just south of Bristol Motor Speedway. Nascar racing fans have a general disregard for speed limits and I bet that on a big race weekend one police car could not write tickets fast enough.
We have the best government that money can buy.
Y'know, this guy can make back his $90 and then some by putting ads on the site. The PD must have already setup links everywhere, all he has to do it set it up, sit back, and collect a check. What are the chances this guy will be sued?
Zhrodague.net - I do projects and stuff too.
Awesome! I tip my hat to this dude, nice one...
do the fine, don't do the crime!
--- Void where prohibited. Your mileage may vary. ---
It's gonna be a real bummer for him when he gets stopped for speeding, he acts "suspicious", they search his car, and then they just happen to "find" some cocaine in the trunk.
Concerns about privacy are serious and stuff, but is this guy just seems like he's throwing a 4-year hissy fit about being scolded by his mommy.
The guy broke the law (probably) and was observed in a public space doing so. It's not like they put a camera in his residence.
My other sig is clever.
Domain hijacking isn't cute, particularly for something so petty as a parking ticket.
I wonder why the city had a .com to begin with - it would've been more appropriate to have a .us or .gov
For every problem, there is at least one solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.
How come it's always those who break the rules that complain the most about new techniques to uphold the rules?
"Speeding cameras are against the constitution" - so? Speeding is against the law and kills hundreds of people. Is your constitutional right more important than a hundred lives you endanger?
Just shut up and follow the rules!
Most of those races see upwards of 60,000 fans, usually over 100,000. They dont need cops to issue speeding tickets, they need cops to direct the stop and go traffic that surrounds such events.
I think that's hilarious and in a true 1980's movie fashion the police would bungle stealing it back, fess-up to getting caught, the commissioner would step-in, and everyone would have a good laugh. ...Or, in 2000's fashion he'll be marked as a terrorist and in the cross hairs of watch-list databases for the next decade.
Don't screw with the cops man, at best it's a College frat gone bad. However technically right you may be this is playing with fire while surrounded by dynamite.
-Matt
--- Need web hosting?
First of all, I love the idea. This guy is my hero.
Everyone's a critic, but I feel like this guy's website could use a little help. I know he is a network engineer and not a web developer so I'm going to try not to be a prick about this.
1. Choose a font. Times New Roman is the ugliest font ever. It's the default web font to remind you to pick a font.
2. Just one page? this isn't MySpace. There is enough content on this site for a nice small multipage site. It would definitely make it easier to navigate and find content.
3. Pictures - Find some legal images to use on your site. the badge holding the dollar bill is a good start. Put that as many places as you can.
4. Work on the formatting. The variable width thing is not working for this site. It looks like an unformatted term paper.
Anyways - just a bit of friendly advice. Good work buying the site so the pigs can't have it. Hope you turn it in to something great.
Or any other rights offline, other than the fact that he is basically a cybersquatter?
I know slashdot has this anti-authority, anti-police bias, but posting this story as some kind of heroic act on the part of a convicted speeder is ridiculous.
Slashdot should be a little more professional and above this.
I'd hate to see the "live footage" when they strip search him with one of those 'anti-speed cameras'. ;-)
Actually people drive like dumbasses here and speed regardless, race fan or no. I can tell you where they don't speed: a 100 foot section of road in front of those speed cameras.
Also I submitted this story 3 weeks ago when it was actually news. Article should also have "slow news day" tag, because this is the 3rd article the paper has run about it.
This guy spent $80 on the domain name and website after his $90 ticket...
I don't understand people that think speed limits are moral imperatives that fall on the same line as murder or arson. You people act like I just raped somebody if I want to go 55 in a 50 mile an hour zone.
I live in Houston on I-10, and due to a huge environmental/safety push they lowered the speed limit from 70 to 55. It was a joke, the highway is built for speed and it has excellent lines of visibility and intelligently designed merging sections, and they make you crawl down it. Nobody did the speed limit so they upped it to 60, which didn't really help. As a result you get fast swerving traffic trying to move at the natural pace down the highway, moving through slow road bumps.
If they would pick a reasonable speed limit based on the design of the road, and not the result of some safety pissing campaign then I bet you could get people to actually follow it.
Not sure how their "speed" tickets or red light tickets work, but in Missouri, we had a problem with the way the city of Springfield (not homer simpson's home) did it's red light cameras. A RETIRED highway patrol officer was caught in one, he did not claim he didn't run the light, he ADMITTED it, but he had a problem with they way the process worked. You ran a light, the BACK of your car was photographed, and the registered owner of the vehicle was mailed a 100 dollar ticket in the mail. Ok, TWO things. 1. You were PRESUMED guilty, the ticket was considered a "civil infraction" 2. What if it was a commercial vehicle, your son or daughters car that was registered in the fathers name, you let someone borrow the car. Did not matter, the REGISTERED owner got the ticket. He protested the ticket, since he was not allowed due process, it worked it's way up the ladder and the supreme court through it out, refunded him the ticket (he donated the money to the MADD organization) The supreme court said in no small part that you cannot presume someone guilty without due process, and told the city to turn off the cameras until they change the ordinance. Not only did that happen, but the EIGHT HUNDRED THOUSAND DOLLARS they collected in less than a year (yeah, I'll give them that, this city DOES have idiots that run lights), is being refunded via the same attorney that defended him, via law suits. No one really had a lot of problems with the cameras, IF THEY DID A COUPLE THINGS. 1. Snap the FRONT of your car, showing who was driving the car. 2. Run the ticket through the normal court process, where you can challenge the ticket.
I'm no Nascar fan, but, puh-leeze. Citation needed. I'm going to go ahead and assume you think Mario Kart fans have a general disregard for speed limits as well.
Adidas To Bring Back Sneakernet
Is the Police Department now a commercial entity? Why do they buy and privately operate a .com name?
The police is a branch of the government. For security and trust alone, they should have a .gov in order to avoid being impersonated. And this couldn't have happened either.
I used to hate the idea of speed cameras until I saw how they were slowing traffic on a major street near my home. Now I wish they'd install them on my street. Maybe I could walk across the street without taking my life in my hands. Don't want a ticket? Then slow the f*ck down!
No sig? Sigh...
In addition to this story, I also read about another "somewhat related" story where another municipality had a 20+% decline in ticket revenues from the previous year. They are blaming some new software installed on their police network indicating that it is so slow and cumbersome that it decreases the number of tickets that can be issued by a single officer in a day.
While this story might give further cause to grin or giggle, I have to take issue with the use of the word "revenue" in conjunction with the penal system. It is unquestionably a "revenue stream" for government. But let's just call it what it is before we go on to attack it. The fact is, various government bodies persist in telling lies to the people that the purpose of these red light cameras, speeding cameras and officers on the street is to collect money, not to make the roads safer. Either they have to behave as though their lie is the truth and respond to complaints and studies (For example, most states in the U.S. that once made radar detectors illegal had to eventually acknowledge the fact that people who use radar detectors are actually SAFER DRIVERS because they are actively watching the road as part of the "game" of using a radar detector... the game, of course, is "find the cop." The result of their acknowledgment is that most of those states lifted their bans on radar detectors... all but the State of Virginia and in the District of Columbia.)
These government entities want to "punish more people" in order to collect more money. That is an abuse of the legal system in ways that I find to be simply horrific. If you want to tax the people to get more money, fine! Do that! Risk being unpopular. But the fact is, taxes can be made legal and offer a better guarantee of revenue streams. But using the [CRIMINAL] JUSTICE SYSTEM as a means to bring in more money? It's just wrong on so many levels and it is also a somewhat unfair means of doing so as it often unfairly targets specific demographics while at the same time providing a means for "certain individuals" to get released from their burdens if they have the right connections or position in society.
If we try to kill this problem locally, we will have to keep fighting this same battle at every local government again and again and again. If we kill it at the U.S. Federal government level, we only need to kill it once. It needs to either be ruled unconstitutional to use the criminal justice system as a revenue source or law must be written to prohibit the use of such money as revenue for the state, county or other local governments.
"Citation needed."
ha ha ha, and correct.
From what I've seen, stock car fans/crowds are generally better behaved than those at other major events.
Maybe they already got back at him... by submitting the story to slashdot ;) Wait til he sees his bandwidth bill!!
(And they shoulda been whatever.gov in the first place.)
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
keeping the peace is not the same as draconian big brother and a big money making scheme. Notice how all of these speeding camera companies are not non-profits with their CEOs limited to $80k salary? If they want to enforce the speed limit then they should have actual officers there doing the job.
I don't understand people that think speed limits are moral imperatives that fall on the same line as murder or arson. You people act like I just raped somebody if I want to go 50 in a 55 mile an hour zone.
Seriously, speed limits are maximums, not minimums. If you tailgate someone because he's not 'doing the speed limit' you are the idiot who is being dangerous, not the person who is going too slow for you.
He speeds.
Gets caught.
Complains.
Why is this even on Slashdot? So he pulled a prank on a police department, its not even an original one.
It doesn't mater "that everyone goes over the limit", it is law, don't like it work to change it. I don't like getting speeding tickets any more than the next person but when I see people going 40mph in a school zone or down a residential street with children around I would love to see some cameras in place. I have a friend who has lost members of his family to cars due to a casual disregard for the residential speed limit.
If you don't want to get a speeding ticket, don't speed. If you get caught, that is the breaks. You play, you pay.
You people act like I just raped somebody if I want to go 55 in a 50 mile an hour zone.
Are you suggesting that there are several police cars and a full-scale manhunt for every speeding stop? Or are you just being a jerk? Frankly, by even implying that people treat rape remotely the same way as speeding, you should be ashamed of yourself and should be apologizing to rape victims for exploiting their horror for your petty ranting about getting caught breaking the law.
If they would pick a reasonable speed limit based on the design of the road, and not the result of some safety pissing campaign then I bet you could get people to actually follow it.
And yet every time I've seen them raise the speed limit on a road to what drivers were doing, drivers responded by raising their speeds by the same amount. I'm pretty sure that you're wrong. (And I'd rather trust traffic engineers about what's a safe speed than some anonymous guy in Texas who apparently has no sense of proportion.)
Having been to Bluff City and the Bristol race for many years now,
I can assure you that during race weekend a car goes anything but fast. The traffic in and out of the track is brutal, starting Friday and going well into Monday. 6+ hours before the race, traffic is already backed up for several miles, in both directions. After the race, it can take several hours to get out of Bluff City and be on your way. There are about 500 police officers (local, county and state) and a squad car about every 500 feet for a good mile in each direction because the pedestrian traffic is so heavy. I've arrived at the track 6 hours prior to the green flag and have parked 2+ miles away and walked, just because the traffic so obnoxious.
These camera's in Bluff City have very little to do with Nascar, and I would imagine speeding tickets on race weekend generate but a tiny fraction of the revenue these cameras otherwise generate.
jeff
I don't understand people that think speed limits are moral imperatives that fall on the same line as murder or arson. You people act like I just raped somebody if I want to go 55 in a 50 mile an hour zone.
They don't. That's why you get a $90 fine, not a prison sentence.
The reason why they have speed cameras is because they get lots of racing fans because the town is located just south of Bristol Motor Speedway. Nascar racing fans have a general disregard for speed limits and I bet that on a big race weekend one police car could not write tickets fast enough.
Have you ever tried to leave a large sporting event or concert? It doesn't matter how fast you *want* to go -- you're stuck going as fast as the repeated failures to merge/yield allow you to go. That is - about 5 mph. This continues onto the highway as well when we're talking 60k + people in a mass exodus.
I don't understand people that think speed limits are moral imperatives that fall on the same line as murder or arson.
I don't think GP said anything similar to that statement
You people act like I just raped somebody if I want to go 55 in a 50 mile an hour zone.
Well, unless by driving recklessly you cause an accident and actually kill someone.
With some googling I found out that in the year 2000 15,517 people were murdered while 41,611 died in car accidents. That means that if we could prevent all car accidents the benefit in human lives would be almost three times greater.
You might only be driving 55 on a 50 mph zone, but a lot of people are driving much faster and statistics show it is fairly dangerous.
"I see undead people" Warcraft III - Necromancer
He needs a place to vent about his problem with personal responsibility. I've shed a tear for him, hope he knows that
Make driving laws about safety and engineering, not revenue creation.
Join the NMA.
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
Also, if the limit is 50, but the flow of traffic is going 70, the few cars that ARE going 50 are impeding the flow of traffic and are themselves a hazard. Arguing whether its right or wrong is moot because its just the way it IS.
And jumping off a cliff isn't dangerous until you hit the ground. Just because it's not immediately damaging to exceed the speed limit doesn't mean the consequences aren't much greater if and when you do hit someone (or ram a guardrail) at that greatly increased speed.
As for "right or wrong", it's wrong if the increased frequency and severity of accidents ruins human lives for no good reason other than getting people to work slightly earlier. "That's just the way it is" can never be an adequate response to such pointless, selfish endangerment of other human beings, and I'm disgusted with you for saying such. If you think 50 mph is lower than necessary for a safe speed limit, then say so directly, but the safe, intelligent speed at which everyone ought to travel is not relative to how fast everyone already travels. Would you not have any problem if the freeway nearest your house suddenly traveled at 90 mph? 110 mph?
I agree completely that speed limits should be set sensibly to the road, and that it often isn't the case now, but do you really think that lack of enforcement is the best way to solve that problem?
I know the law is imperfect, but surely it's better to try to fix it than to bitch when technology allows it to be applied thoroughly?
We have a whole shitload of stupid laws on the books that are rarely enforced (not necessarily saying current speed limits are or aren't one of them), and this just leads to a situation where the cops can easily grab you for something or other if they happen to feel like it. Impeding the enforcement of these laws just allows more to pile up. The only real solution is near 100% enforcement - either the law will be generally accepted or you'll finally manage to piss off so many people that the law is changed.
What a great idea!
"The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old......They literally know nothing." - Ben Rhodes
Nascar racing fans have a general disregard for speed limits and I bet that on a big race weekend one police car could not write tickets fast enough.
Do you have any evidence to support this? Sounds great on paper, but I live about 3 miles away from a major raceway and the single road stretching about 2 miles away from the midpoint where the stadium is has a speed limit of 30 mph.
Some facts about the road:
1. It's a four-lane median-separated road, with cutouts for protected left and right turns.
2. Outside of that magic 30 mph zone, speed limit is 40 - 45 for the length of the road before the name changes to something else.
3. There are no crazy curves, no visibility obstructions, nothing short of a few palm trees.
4. On game day, the road is so clogged anyway with traffic and pedestrians that no one is going faster than 5 mph anyway.
So the question I'll pose is, why 30 mph? Would you say that's a reasonable speed limit, or that it was designed to be used as a bullshit speed trap justified by "ooh, race fans don't obey the law"?
Ok, but what is a "reasonable speed limit"? And why is it based only on the design of the road? Certainly the design is important - good sight lines, no pedestrians, no way for slow moving vehicles to suddenly slow, no chance of traffic light change. But I think there are other factors that affect the speed limit. Three quick examples: Vehicle: A reasonable speed limit in a 2010 Mustang is a lot higher than one for a 1998 Ford Explorer with Firestone tires or for an 18-wheeler. Weather: A reasonable speed when it is dry and light without direct sunlight is higher than what it would be in the rain at night. Traffic: How much space is there between you and the car in front of you, and the car behind you? Obviously intelligent, reasonable people are capable of making these decisions for themselves. Unfortunately, such people are also rare, so the nanny state sets a speed limit based on some pessimistic-average-case scenario.
Having worked for the police in multiple cities, and for the government in many more, I can safely say that you'll never get a ticket for going 55 in a 50 zone. Yeah, I know there are exceptions, but just don't use that as an argument. It's silly and wrong.
Having said that, I agree with everything else you wrote. Some of the speed limits around here are insanely slow. Cars are different now - they can handle it. It's just the people I worry about. Everybody thinks they're a better driver than everyone else, but none of them are really as good as I am.
Haida Manga
Most of those races see upwards of 60,000 fans, usually over 100,000. They dont need cops to issue speeding tickets, they need cops to direct the stop and go traffic that surrounds such events.
That's what I was thinking... How low is the speed limit there that, in the crush of raceday traffic people are exceeding the limit
You people act like I just raped somebody if I want to go 55 in a 50 mile an hour zone.
Well, unless by driving recklessly you cause an accident and actually kill someone.
So, is "reckless driving" related for driving too fast for reaction/stop times or is it related to tailgating, aggressive driving, and weaving in and out of traffic which is what happens when artificially low speed limits are applied on perfectly safe roads?
I hypothesize that more accidents are caused by said aggressive, distracted, impaired, or unskilled driving outnumber accidents genuinely caused by speed way more by several orders of magnitude. But such a study will never be conducted on the fear that police will lose justification for bullshit speed traps.
More Twoson than Cupertino
Then they can hire another police officer. Traffic cameras are a slap in the face of freedom.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
No, the real solution is to put the money generated by fines out of the hands of the police department that writes them; you'll see really quick what laws are important to the PD if they aren't seeing money coming in from writing traffic tickets. The only department that should be self funded is maybe the parking ticket guys, since there would be zero incentive to enforce those laws without it (and even that is ripe for abuse). Instead of pulling over people doing 5 mph over the speed limit you'd get them focused on pulling over people driving in ways that are actually dangerous, and of course you'd free up a lot of officers to patrol bad neighborhoods, respond to non-emergency calls (usually took about 90 minutes in Milwaukee at least), and do all the other things that the police should actually care about.
Buy all sorts of iterations of Bluff City PD to make it veritably impossible to get their web presensce back. This is actually a funny, passive aggressive prank and it will teach the police a lesson about responsibility. Citizens still have some freedoms and Brian McCrary did absolutely nothing wrong!
Didn't realise that was the case, and I totally agree with you that a system of that type is just asking to be abused.
I don't think that fact conflicts with anything I said, though.
>I know the law is imperfect, but surely it's better to try to fix it than to bitch when technology allows it to be applied thoroughly?
I don't have a problem with having laws enforced, but there is no sane technological way to enforce traffic laws purely from the standpoint that the driver of a vehicle caught on camera could possibly not be the owner of the vehicle. Granted that "most" of the time, the owner of a vehicle is driving, but the relative of the owner could be driving, or it could even be a rental vehicle.
Let's do a check of your facts...
Find me a report that says increases in speed limits increase actual speeds. According to the US DOT, they did a study that found increasing the speed limit did NOT affect the average speed of traffic. http://www.motorists.org/speedlimits/home/effects-raising-and-lowering-the-speed-limit/
Next, I would trust traffic engineers too, unfortunately, there IS probably some anonymous guy in Texas setting the speed limit.. A politician. Engineers don't set speed limits.
Yes it's an anecdote! Were you expecting original research in a Slashdot comment?
Up here in Dallas, they seem to set speed limits based on driving revenue. Central Expressway, I-35(E/W), and 635 are all 60 MPH. Dallas North Tollway, 121, and PGBT are 70. The difference being you pay about $1.50 per 10 miles on the latter group. Gee, wonder why they upped the speed limit? Maybe to get more people to use them and get more money for the NTTA?
Doesn't stop everyone and their brother from doing 85 on Central, of course.
God invented whiskey so the Irish would not rule the world.
It's gonna be a real bummer for him when he gets stopped for speeding, he acts "suspicious", they search him, and then they just happen to "find" some cocaine in his rectum.
Fixed that for you.
Except for the fact that the "crime" can be eliminated by simply increasing speed limits.
The fact is, the law should conform to the will of the people, not the people to the will of the law.
Well, no. The law should promote the overall well-being of the people. There is a difference.
One of the basic examples of this is "the commons problem". If you have a shared resource, and everyone has unrestricted access to it, the resource will ultimately be over-used and abused until it is worthless. Basically, there's going to be someone, somewhere out there who will use this resource selfishly and irresponsibly - and so anyone at all who wants to benefit from the resource must do the same, and try to do it first. The more stable, more widely beneficial case, in which everyone uses the resource responsibly, derives a moderate benefit, and leaves the resource in a condition where others can do the same - it's a kind of equilibrium but not what you'd call a stable equilibrium. Therefore, a resource like that must be managed and protected if it is to be of any benefit.
In the context of speeding limits - one could argue that a higher speed limit serves a few who really feel a need to move faster, while making everyone suffer a higher incidence of traffic accidents (and the resulting traffic jams)
I don't reject the idea that some speed limits out there are ridiculously low - but when the law follows the wishes of the people, it serves only a few. Therefore I reject the idea that the law ought to serve the "will of the people" in all cases.
Bow-ties are cool.
Since it's been shown that aerobic exercise can improve reaction time, I can't help but wonder how much better of gamers they would be if they also exercised a bit as well. They wouldn't need to go to a gym. Just some running, or crunches, or something on a regular basis would help, I would bet.
// file: mice.h
#include "frickin_lasers.h"
The reason why they have speed cameras is to generate revenue just like every other municipality that has them.
Fixed.
I still cannot find the droids I am looking for...
Totally agree, about ten years ago, in Fort Worth, they lowered the speed on 820 from 70 to 60. No reason whatsoever.
On 635 in Dallas, its not unusual to have people pass you up if you are doing under 70 in a 60. The highway is very wide, clear, straight, there is really no reason why the inside lanes are at 60. (It should be noted, though, on 635, we tend to have several people who seem to think the speedlimit posted is in kph, not mph, and will do 42).
During rushhour, on I30 and I20, heavy traffic will, on average, be moving 3-7 miles over the speed limit (source - morning news traffic reports).
You people act like I just raped somebody if I want to go 50 in a 55 mile an hour zone.
If you just want to go 50, GET OFF THE FUCKING FREEWAY.
We need to reinstate the minimum speeds on the freeways. If you can't or won't drive any faster than the frontage/service/whatever you call it road's speed limit, then just take the next exit and enjoy cruising along out of the way of people who have somewhere to be. Around here, the frontage roads are 50 mph and the freeways are 65. That gives us 3+ lanes where people can drive 55, 60 and 65 and pass each other (without exceeding the speed limit... but let's be honest here, everyone does 70 in the left lane). Except that every day there's SOMEONE who thinks they should tow their car at 40mph up the center lane of the freeway. Or drive a cement mixer 30 MPH up one side of the overpass and 60MPH down the other.
At least we've got rules that keep the overloaded dump trucks out of the left lane.
I agree with you completely. Let's take away the money from fines and donate it to the homeless shelters in the city (if you let the city have it it just becomes part of their budget and the incentives for how fines are generated don't change).
Now, how much of a tax increase can I put you down for? Police departments aren't cheap you know, and recently it's become a fact of life that money from fines has to replace money lost from income and property taxes. Especially with unemployment high and people losing their homes. So - a 5% increase in your city taxes? 3%? How much extra are you willing to pay to recover the budget money lost from losing those fines?
Although I completely agree from an ideological perspective that the whole thing is stupid, I'm also perfectly content to drive the speed limit religiously in areas that I either don't know well OR know to be speed traps/covered with cameras and let the fools who like to take chances make up for my tax money. I'd be willing to go along with a tax increase to cover my own ideological problems with the whole setup - I have no ideological problems with paying money for services, and a functional police department actually provides a valuable service to a community - but I doubt I could get my neighbors to go along with it. For some reason they hate taxes more than they like cops.
And yet every time I've seen them raise the speed limit on a road to what drivers were doing, drivers responded by raising their speeds by the same amount.
Citation needed.
I still cannot find the droids I am looking for...
http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/publications/research/safety/05049/
April 2005
"...the lesser severities and generally lower unit costs for rear end injury crashes together ensure that the increase in rear end crash frequency does not negate the decrease in the right-angle crashes targeted by red-light-camera systems."
"This analysis, which was based on an aggregation of rear end and right-angle crash costs for various severity levels, showed that RLC systems do indeed provide a modest aggregate crash-cost benefit."
"...this economic analysis represents the first attempt in the known literature to combine the positive effects of right-angle crash reductions with the negative effects of rear end crash increases and identify factors that might further enhance the effects of RLC systems. ... Even though the positive effects on angle crashes of RLC systems is partially offset by negative effects related to increases in rear end crashes, there is still a modest to moderate economic benefit of between $39,000 and $50,000 per treated site year... The modest benefit per site is an average over all sites. As the analysis of factors showed, this benefit can be increased through careful selection of the sites to be treated ... and program design..."
The study's conclusion does point out that red light cameras are not a cure-all for every intersection -- "RLC systems would be most beneficial at intersections where there are relatively few rear end crashes and many right-angle ones." But think about it -- would you rather be in a rear-end collision or a right-angle collision?
$ echo "ceci n'est pas une pipe" | sed -Ee 's/(eci n|pas )//g'
You don't see murderers and rapists complaining about CCTVs in other people's buildings.
Actually, if they or their attorney had a good legal argument for why that CCTV was illegal, or its footage inadmissible, I believe murderers and rapists would be happy to take advantage of this and prevent the footage from being used as evidence against them.
Bow-ties are cool.
I don't expect Nascar fans have less general respect for speed limits than the general population. I certainly expect spectators leaving the racetrack are more likely to speed than the general population; or even that themselves when going to the store for milk or whatever. That's just human nature. It's the same reason I ride faster on my bike when thinking about the pro cycling race I saw on TV than when thinking about what I have to do at work.
Entirely anecdotally, my friend the state trooper told a funny story with exactly the same point: He would park a little way down the road from the local racetrack, and listen to the cars peeling out of the parking lot. You couldn't ticket them all, so you'd wait for the ones who's tires squealed multiple times as they went up through the gears.
People here need to learn the difference between criminal and civil law.
I doubt that this guy is a local (and my guess is that he will be steering well away from that town from now on). Bluff City is a well-known speed trap. Its speed cameras have been featured in Times magazine. The drunk locals (and anyone equipped with an up-to-date TomTom/Garmin) slow down for the stationary cameras, and then burn rubber once they're past the camera's field of vision. It's a great revenue-generating scheme for such a tiny local government. It only taxes the outsiders, without negatively impacting the insiders, the ones that get to vote on who their next police chief is. Many small cities would do well to find such a politically popular (among its local citizens at least) source of income.
We need to reinstate the minimum speeds on the freeways.
They're already in place on virtually all major freeways...it's 45 MPH.
It may be unpopular, but yes the constiution does trump all else. It is the law of land. If you or anyone else find it to be defective in any way I suggest you urge an Amendment be passed. What I think you will find however is that the vast majority of those who follow this issue are aware of the massive new dangers provided by drivers slamming their breaks, the huge payout to PRIVATE firms from the ticket a person gets, and all other kinds of shaddy tomfoolery. Look into it and would imagine you will see why it isn't just speeders, but everyone on the road who should oppose these schemes. Just the fact that the make the roads more deadly should be reason enough to ban them. Google it friend.
One would think that Nascar fans would speed, yet all the ones I fly past are usually extremely slow.
yeah but that doesn't take into account the people that died in accidents that would have been murdered had they not... sheesh haven't you ever seen Final Destination.
Collector's Edition
"Traffic cameras are a slap in the face of freedom."
Why?
If the speed limit itself is not the problem, how does the technology of the enforcement mechanism make any difference? I don't understand why having a human issuing tickets protects freedom. It just seems more expensive and potentially less impartial.
He said nothing about tail gating. They are two independent things.
Around here the cops care more about separation than speed. If you're fast but have a huge buffer they're going to leave you alone over the 5+ over tail gater.
This is known as targeting the unsafe behavior rather than the law breaker.
I find being offended by me offensive.
Amen, I-10 in West Houston is a beautiful, wide, straight, smooth expanse of concrete now. Cruising at 80-90 mph in the left or HOV lane is quite relaxing, and quite safe. Just watch for the occasional cop hiding behind the toll buildings. They're easy to spot though, because of the folks in front of you slowing down from their 80-90 mph cruise speed.
Before any self-appointed road police have a hissy, first remind yourself you can drive slower in the RIGHT lanes without bothering anyone. Then educate yourself that slowing everyone down has a NEGATIVE effect on traffic safety - so move to the right! Third, not interfering with others' driving is just being courteous. If you've got cars stacking up behind you in the left lane, YOU are the jerk.
However - engineers engineer things to a spec. They won't build a road with sight-lines and curves for cars moving at 60mph if notified that the project will be signed for 40mph.
Several years ago in West London a scheme was tried on several roads where white lines were stripped from the tarmac and other roadway features drivers would normally use to align themselves in a lne were toned-down or removed, leaving a smooth road surface where pavement was separated from carriageway by a change in surface material (smooth edge between black tarmac and grey traditional pavement-stones), no barriers marked the limit of pedestrian travel, and 'traffic islands' were removed from the centreline where they separated directional traffic
the result was a road thhat forced drivers to consider the flow of traffic ahead, clearances, the actions of pedestrians - in short forcing the sort of situational awareness that good driver training instils as a matter of course. The average speed of traffic did not significantly change but the flow improved, with a detectable reduction in contact incidents with other cars or pedestrians (walkers were generally reckoned safer as drivers could rely less on their commonsense and had to watch them instead) . I think health and safety concerns were an issue though nonetheless. Here's a contemporary news link
I have been a user for about 10 years. This ends Feb 2014. The site's been ruined. I'm off. Dice, FU
Having worked for the police in multiple cities, and for the government in many more, I can safely say that you'll never get a ticket for going 55 in a 50 zone.
Well, unless you're black. Or the cop needs to make his numbers for the month. Or the cop's wife decided she was tired of being a punching bag that morning and left. Or you're in Arizona and Latino, in which case you might wind up deported.
You just described Washington, DC. ;)
Many people have been killed by being rear-ended thanks to drivers being afraid to get a ticket and slamming our their breaks. I'm deeply sorry for your loss, and I will not ever support unsafe driving, but the issue here is one in support of the cause of safety, not opposed to it. I realize with what happened in your family that might be hard to see, but as a non-speed I have seen 2 accidents myself caused by these very camera. Add in the fact that lights are sometimes shortened to dangerious length and you have a recipe for a lot of dead folks killed in the name of the greed of the states/cities/ and municipalities involved.
I was just recently in St. Cloud, MN, and the locals informed me that you would get a ticket for going 38 in a 35. They’re pinching pennies.
I was just as incredulous as you most likely are, but they swore it was true.
Alexander Peter Kristopeit bought his basement from his mommy for one dollar.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KVKDQgT_b-Y
If people wouldn't speed or run red lights, there wouldn't be any speed or red light cameras. I have no pity for those who get caught.
Wherever you go, there you are.
Your evidence contradicts your premise.
Your evidence clearly states everyone going really fast is just as safe as everyone going really slow. It also states that not speeding can be dangerous.
Also your evidence doesn't even address fatalities yet your premise mentions it.
I find being offended by me offensive.
I believe the road should be designed for the speed limit. Lane markers, traffic islands, bollards and margins all delineate an area in which the driver in a car feels they have complete right of movement, and given a clearly marked lane ahead will accelerate to the speed they feel most comfortable with.
if you make the way ahead less obviously marked and force drivers to approach each corner or junction with an eye to where it is safe to drive you force a slowing-down through common-sense that is hard to enforce by law
I have been a user for about 10 years. This ends Feb 2014. The site's been ruined. I'm off. Dice, FU
Speeding doesnt cause accidents. Accidents are caused by the stupidity of drivers. Whether someone fails to look at their mirrors before lane changing, or they're too busy putting their make up to pay attention. Speeding only increases the severity of the accident but not the frequency. The problem though is that there is not strict enough punishment to prevent accidents. If you get into an accident you are given a ticket and you go on your way. If you start imposing stricter punishments then you will see better drivers.
The only real solution is near 100% enforcement - either the law will be generally accepted or you'll finally manage to piss off so many people that the law is changed.
That's the perfect solution. I really hate it when people spend all this time and energy to get around laws, to complain about laws, to fight the lawful punishments for those laws, but nothing on getting the laws changed. If this guy's so eager to get the law changed, start a Paypal or something similar to get donations to fund a road study. Take those results (assuming it says the speed should be upped) and a petition signed by voters in the area, and get in front of the city council to get the limit changed. But no, it's easier to buy a domain, setup a website, and whine.
Same thing with the kids in schools where the parents get all huffy when their son or daughter gets suspended for a zero tolerance policy because they took aspirin to school without a note from a doctor. Why didn't they hire a lawyer to fight the rule when it was proposed instead of waiting till their kid gets popped for the offense?
this is just a placeholder till i send back my real sig from the future.
I would bet dollars to donuts that if any one of your parents/sisters/brothers, etc. were hit by a hit and run driver in an intersection with a red light camera, that footage would be good enough for you to find out who did it right? Or would you whine about maybe it wasn't the car owner? Or no, you'd cry about how it violated your rights?
We trust computers to do our banking, we trust computers to keep us alive, but trust them to give a speeding ticket, are you serious? You mean I can get in trouble for breaking the law? This is just ludicrous!
Personally, I would much rather get a ticket in the mail than spend 30 minutes on the side of the road becoming increasingly late for work that I was already speeding to get to. Not to mention maybe they'll want to look through my car or hassle my passengers.
Maybe we shouldn't allow computers to monitor for credit fraud either? Shouldn't we have a real cop watching all of the credit card transactions people make in real time too?
I can't believe people this dumb can afford the internet.
With some googling I found out that in the year 2000 15,517 people were murdered while 41,611 died in car accidents. That means that if we could prevent all car accidents the benefit in human lives would be almost three times greater.
You might only be driving 55 on a 50 mph zone, but a lot of people are driving much faster and statistics show it is fairly dangerous.
Where are these stastics that say ignoring the speed limit and driving the road for what it was built for is "fairly dangerous"? I seem to have found some statistics that claim quite the opposite(pdf warning).
Moreover, by your rationale, I shouldn't be allowed to eat butter or salt as more people die from heart attacks than from car accidents or murders combined. Or to flip it, since you'll likely try to spin this as something I'm doing to you; no one should be allowed to serve things containing cholesterol or salt.
-- ...only life can kill you
Hitting bottom after jumping off a cliff is inevitable.
Hitting a guardrail or car after speeding is not. It is not even probable.
Go green: turn off your refrigerator.
It's only extortion if he turns around and tries to sell it back at a absurd price. Assuming he keeps it I imagine he's in the clear. Though there may be other laws that deal with this as well. That said it isn't a copyrighted name or a trademark, and it is the name of a public office, so I think he will be just fine. Legally that is, the cops are gonna PISSED though.
Kinda like testing a banking program for buffer overflows by sequentially adding incremental sums. Doesn't reflect real life risk. Want actual safety? Real simple. Send a bug report in for every single crash. Every crash earns someone a point ticket (or several). There are no accidents, only errors and oversights. Either equipment failed or somebody overestimated. Ticket! Use bad judgment AND break a rule? Two tickets. Know yourself and your vehicle, or pay the price.
Novel theory: Modern Man evolved from psychopath
You suggest that the slow car in a convoy is a worthwhile target..
Consider though, a lot of people drive at 50-60mph now not through an innate desire to crawl but because most cars become progressively less efficient as speed rises above 55mph. A lot of them would drive faster if they could afford the extra fuel (and didnt care for the climate concerns)
Technology can improve car efficiency to an extent but with so many legacy vehicles working out their design lifespan on the secondhand market, pollution control and energy independence are well-served by cars not going above 60mph
I have been a user for about 10 years. This ends Feb 2014. The site's been ruined. I'm off. Dice, FU
I agree completely that speed limits should be set sensibly to the road, and that it often isn't the case now, but do you really think that lack of enforcement is the best way to solve that problem?
Enforcement by human beings? Or enforcement by cameras and computers?
It's a very, very different answer.
Comment of the year
Sorry but thats BS Yes you can get a ticket for going 55 in a 50 zone. My best friends father got a ticket for going 35 in a 35 zone. When he asked the police officer about this the officer responded "Just because the speed limit is 35 doesn't mean you have to go 35"
Cops are all crooked and so are the judges
The irony is that with how mismanaged they usually are through poor maintenence (hey as long as it bring in the $$) and tweaks meant to shorten yellows, you had better hope you don't have a license plate on you're butt. The shortening of yellow lights, and the random sight of cameras by (admitedly speders) cause tons of accidents thanks to quickly applied breaks and the ensuing rearending- sometimes into an intersection (t-bones are the most fatal type of accident). I wish cars would drive slower in my neighborhood, but I don't want to have to report and accident every week either.
i would bet that about 40% of the folks that hear my domain being spoken will
1 spell it with 4 Ws three for the www and then one in laUrence
2 put it as a dot com not a dot org (i currently don't own the dot com)
because of 2 things
1 "Everybody" spells laurence as lawrence
2 "Everybody" knows that the Internets sites all end in dot com
Any person using FTFY or editing my postings agrees to a US$50.00 charge
OT, but small correction - butter, cholesterol and salt are good for you, it's carbohydrates that cause heart attacks, diabetes, obesity, cancer and other chronic diseases. If they wanted to make anything illegal, it should be sugar, whole wheat bread, sweet fruits and their juices, potatoes, and all other starchy snacks and sugary drinks.
Reference: http://webcast.berkeley.edu/event_details.php?webcastid=21216
"The camera doesn't lie" you might say - but where is the proof? The lines placed in the picture aren't really on the pavement. The timing betwen the two pictures is done by the camera system. There is no way you can remember exactly how fast you were going when the picture was taken. About all you can do is shake your head and pay the fine. Oh, and if you think about protesting it, there is a good chance the fine will double because you didn't pay it quickly enough. If you do go to court, it is unlikely that the court will even entertain the notion that the camera system might not be accurate.
Now as long as everything is on the up and up, fine. But what happens when the camera is "adjusted" a bit? It will be extremely hard to determine whether the tickets are fair or not.
You haven't driven in Oregon, have you? They will give you a ticket for 2-3 over.
Don't steal. The government hates competition.
I've received a ticket for 65 in a 60. I even tried to fight it and failed. Some cops are just simply assholes. Some judges feel the need to back the cop to "enforce the law" rather than to "protect society". And no, those are not always one and the same.
I got a ticket for 60 in a 55 once.
It was raining, and the officer told me that speed limits were designed for optimum conditions in daylight hours and that I needed to slow down.
What a prick.
Who's your admin now [culturally popular descriptive noun self-redacted]!
In many jurisdictions in the US (e.g. Oregon), the speed/red light camera also takes a photo of the driver. Unless you have an identical twin, that suffices to prove it was you. They mail the photo with the ticket.
"The reason why they have speed cameras is because they get lots of racing fans because the town is located just south of Bristol Motor Speedway. Nascar racing fans have a general disregard for speed limits and I bet that on a big race weekend one police car could not write tickets fast enough."
Ridiculous. I've been to a Bristol race and I think it took 2 hours just to get out of the parking lot. No one was moving for miles and miles around.
We know where leadership by an anti-intellectual "strongman" who scapegoats minorities and likes boisterous rallies goes
Liar.
Sorry, I still feel it makes more sense for the city government to decide how big the police force should be, rather than have the police force decide their budget and then fund it by fining people for things that 99.9% of the population are guilty of, including the officers writing the tickets (including when they're on duty). What you're basically saying is that the police department is payed for by a tax on the stupid, that might make a large number of people feel warm and fuzzy, but in my opinion it's a horrible and unfair way to run a government office.
Personal experience? Rule of thumb I was *taught* was Speed Limit + 10 kmph=Okay to drive at... as that put you under getting demerit points on your ticket (and thus an insurance hike), so a ticket was just a cheap one.
Was this on the books? No. This was though what the driver's ed instructor informed his classes 'informally', so there are groups of people with this mindset.
It's also observable in a highway that changes speeds: 110 in the 100 zone, drop to 100 in the 90, 70 in the 60, then back up to 110 in the 100.
At least here in Ontario that seems to be the case (disregarding the ones that just do 130 the entire way)
Or you're in Arizona and you don't have your passport on you to prove your citizenship and the judge won't accept the birth certificate your sister managed to convince the county to release to her (since it's not like they're going to let some illegal out on bail and leave the state to pick up their birth certificate) and you nearly get deported to Russia before a Senator steps in and convinces the judge to accept the certificate and release you.
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2008/01/24/25392/immigration-officials-detaining.html
All it takes to fuck you over is a cop willing to claim he "suspected" you were Russian. Or Canadian. Or British, or whatever other country white people come from. Obviously you picked up the southern accent while you were here trying to blend in.
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
You've never seen a speed trap? Next to where I live, they park 3 cop cars underneath a bridge next to the main road. You can't see the cops before you get to the bridge, so they always have at least 1 person pulled over to give them a ticket. The worst part is, they do it right where the speed limit changes, right before the sign. If you live here long enough you know where all the speed traps do, but they certainly do setup a full scale man hunt for it.
I never see any rape traps setup, although I think "Jail Bait" might qualify.
So, is "reckless driving" related for driving too fast for reaction/stop times or is it related to tailgating, aggressive driving, and weaving in and out of traffic which is what happens when artificially low speed limits are applied on perfectly safe roads?
Both apply. Generally, if you are not paying attention, driving too fast for your ability to react, or driving near your vehicle's limit of traction, you are driving recklessly. As a purely anecdotal argument, however, most people probably pay more attention when speeding excessively, which would help minimize the apparent increase in risk due to driving at those speeds.
If it were about safety, then cops would be issuing criminal citations. I once got nailed by a "speed van," where a COP was sitting in a plain van (because drivers are too alert to speed by marked police cars), radaring and photographing cars, and then the owners (usually the drivers, as it was in my case) would get their civil citations in the mail 3 weeks later. Think about this: a cop (public safety official) observed something supposedly unsafe, and then didn't do anything to stop it?! He thought I was a danger to other people, and then let me go on doing the same thing for 3 weeks without even a warning?
Imagine if I can killed someone down the road from there. Would people be screaming about that cop who knew there was a public menace but then didn't do anything, like some kind of pre-9/11 FBI fuckup?
I can understand a non-cop not wanting a confrontation, but for a cop, that's part of the job and they have the initimidating power. Ergo, one can conclude that nobody, neither the cop nor the city councilors who enacted the ordinance, actually thought there was a true safety issue. If they thought there was a safety issue, they would have made the policy be that .. oh this is sooo radical! -- cops confront and ticket speeders.
I'm no Nascar fan, but, puh-leeze. Citation needed. I'm going to go ahead and assume you think Mario Kart fans have a general disregard for speed limits as well.
No, they have a habit of throwing banana peels and shells on to the road; so they can be ticketed for littering.
I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
Think there have been studies on that. Conclusion was that speed limited reaction time, and vastly increased severity of the accident, but erratic driving, distractions and hesitation were more a causing factor. Still, two cars crashing at 20 are at less risk of having fatalities than two cars at 100.
I say keep the cameras, then fire a whole lot of police officers and save some tax dollars, or have police officers focus on more violent crimes and never give out any more speeding tickets, or get rid of the cameras and do it the old fashioned American way...have an officer clock me and issue a ticket.
The difference with eating butter and salt is that the only person it's going to kill is you. If driving at a certain speed increases not only your risk to yourself, but to others, then there is a moral imperative. That said, I've seen more speed limits set by people who wanted to increase revenue with speed traps or got lobbied by people who had no business determining speed limits, than otherwise.
What about the people who are driving 45 and causing problems in that respect? Speeding isn't the only factor in dangerous driving. "Making a point" and driving 45 in the left lane of a 50mph highway is probably more dangerous than doing 55mph in that same lane.
Flow of traffic seems much more important to me than strict adherence to the posted speed limit. I grew up driving on the Illinois tollway and if you stuck to the speed limit you would be a dangerous impediment to general traffic, even in the right hand lane.
We had a fatal accident due to someone driving 35mph on a highway with posted minimum speed limits of 50pmh. How is that less dangerous than doing 55mph in that same area?
Well, I've been driving for years now often over 100mph (you know that's what German cars and expressways are built for), and funnily, never ever anything happened me at these high speeds.
(guess the natural adrenalin kick that for me usually starts at 100mph keeps you alert. One does not fool with these speeds). On the other hand, the last 2.5 hours passing the Austrian border, switching on cruise control at 80mph (well, actually it's usually 87mph, that being the range where you can even overtake a police cruiser without being stopped), have been the most dangerous stretches of expressway. Guess it's boring, you don't have to think because you are dictated the allowed speed (in Austria most of the A8/A1 have dynamic speed displays), so my brain goes into sleep mode. All by itself. Interestingly, that never happened say the last couple of 100 miles before crossing over into Austria, were weather and traffic permitting I traditionally have kicked the car into it's electronic cut off.
I don't.
At least here, the Motor Vehicle Act and the Criminal Code are completely different bits of legislation. Not the least of which is that the first is provincial while the second is federal.
You can design roads for speed, both fast and slow. You would want your residential areas designed for slow speeds. To slow traffic, all you have to do is put in some planters, bike lanes, and curve the road. Make the roads wide, flat, and smooth and people will be doing 50 without thinking about it.
It also depends on context. If people are speeding in school zones or park zones then they should lose their licences. If you want to blow down the highway at 80 mph, have fun.
Now, the penalties for killing someone while in your car are a different matter -- they are WAY too lenient -- but that's a different thread.
---
ECHELON is a government program to find words like bomb, jihad, plutonium, assassinate, and anarchy.
Right, but the consequences *aren't* much greater. "Greatly increased speed"? If you're going 50, the car going 70 isn't your problem. If he hits you and you go off the road, it won't have made a difference if he was going 70 or 55 - you get hurt on impact.
And to the GP - "hundreds" is nothing, considering how many people are on the roads. This is the same 'save the children' BS that keeps getting BAC limits pushed down, well past the point where there's any statistical correlation, never-mind causation, with safety.
Incentives. It costs $X to keep an officer on the road for a day, and he/she can write Y tickets for $Z each. Or, it costs $A to put a machine on the side of the road, and it issues B tickets. If Y*Z - X B*Z - A, then use the machine (As long as there is due process and a mechanism for challenging tickets). If the officer it frees up can be investigating actual crimes, even better.
Now, if we can use the much higher enforcement rate to think intelligently about what the rules should be, we can get somewhere. A 55 mph limit with a 0.1% chance of getting a ticket for driving 65 is an acknowledgment that the rule is flawed, and getting a ticket feels unfair. A 65 mph limit with a 99% chance of getting a ticket for going over 70 sets much clearer expectations for everyone.
When people are speeding excessively they pay attention. If you up the speed limit to 90 though people will drive it and NOT pay attention.
That's why many localities have different speed limits for cars and trucks. Trucks generally ignore that, which is good because otherwise they become impediments to car traffic.
Weather: A reasonable speed when it is dry and light without direct sunlight is higher than what it would be in the rain at night.
And that's why you can get a ticket for speeding ("too fast for conditions") even if you are going the posted speed limit or less. Or it may be written for careless or wreckless.
Traffic: How much space is there between you and the car in front of you, and the car behind you?
And that's called "tailgating" and you can get a ticket for that, too. In fact, in Oregon at least, they advertise that they have a radar that detects tailgaters and you will get a ticket for it.
Obviously intelligent, reasonable people are capable of making these decisions for themselves.
Any argument based on "obvious" is usually not.
Unfortunately, such people are also rare, so the nanny state sets a speed limit based on some pessimistic-average-case scenario.
"Pessimistic" and "average case" are contradictory concepts. In the 50's and 60's, speed limits (for large highways) were based on design. In the 70's and 80's it became a political football based on oil prices. Some places have returned to design limits, most have not.
How about we trim the budget 5% instead of raising taxes. Have you seen all the crap in a police car these days? I don't mind paying for what's needed (noticed that didn't say wanted) and most of what I see is not needed.
Please don't read my sig.
You put the money in the general fund.
PS, I don't mind paying higher taxes for good police depts.
This country is way undetaxed for the services it wants and gets.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
If you could stop being assholes for one minute as you are BOTH wrong.
You always drive at the speed of the prevailing traffic ... i.e. whatever speed everyone else is going is ALSO the speed YOU should be going.
Drive over prevailing, you tailgate people and cause slower drivers to panic.
Drive under prevailing, you end up getting tailgated, and cause faster traffic to swerve.
A lot could be learnt also about using the correct fucking lane ... which means if you want to drive slow, you're on the left (trucks, busses, Sunday drivers, old people etc), and if you want to drive fast, your in the middle (normal people in normal vehicles). The right lane is always for overtaking only then get the fuck back in the middle lane, the right lane is not your personal speedway.
(Disclaimer - If you're in UK, of course reverse the above to avoid mass confusion and panic).
A drivers license is proof of identity and citizenship.
If you were driving without your drivers license you don’t have much room to complain about being hassled.
Alexander Peter Kristopeit bought his basement from his mommy for one dollar.
Then everyone in Los Angeles is in violation.
Have you ever been on the 5 or the 405 during rush hour?
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
I see that only one person has even mentioned the real reason why traffic/red light cameras should be outlawed...the massive potential for abuse! As the other person mentioned, the driver is not necessarily the one ticketed. How is it even legal to ticket someone who was not driving the car when the violation occurred! Then there is the fact that these cameras can be used to track individuals at the whim of the system operator, without any warrant or even a suspicion that the individual has done anything illegal.
I do agree about speed limits on many streets and highways being too slow for no good reason.
You stated one exception and maybe there are a few others. That does not justify banning the enforcement for the other 99.99% of the times that the person in question could also not produce documents because they are here illegally. Illegal is the key here, wait until you or one of your family members get in a hit and run from an illegal person that does not have insurance and your opinion will change. Wait until you go to the hospital with a broken finger and you are 19th in line behind the many illegals there for exaggerated minor care or major care because they did not handle the problem when it was minor (broken finger turns into a swelled up blistered hand that is infected). Those are NOT exceptions. They are the norm in areas where there is a high percentage of illegals. I live in an area that passed similar laws as Arizona (Prince William County VA). Local businesses and small employers are the only ones that benefit from a large illegal population. Yes, some of that increase in local business does support come back to the community as a whole but it does not even out with the drain from other areas.
Having worked for the police in multiple cities, and for the government in many more, I can safely say that you'll never get a ticket for going 55 in a 50 zone. Yeah, I know there are exceptions, but just don't use that as an argument. It's silly and wrong.
There are many small towns in Indiana, and more in Ohio, where you're likely to get a ticket for going five over. In Preble County, OH, there's a good chance that even the State Police will give you a ticket for going 70 in a 65.
I've never known this to be the case in an actual city, but small towns are different.
Having worked for the police in multiple cities, and for the government in many more, I can safely say that you'll never get a ticket for going 55 in a 50 zone. Yeah, I know there are exceptions, but just don't use that as an argument. It's silly and wrong.
You may want to tell your police friends this.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2010-03-30-speeding-cushion_N.htm/
Are you dyslexic? In my state it's the right lane that's supposed to be the slow lane. As in, slower traffic keep right. Or, keep right except to pass.
Or did you mean to say to reverse if you're in the US? I see you said "overtaking" not "passing".
Everybody thinks they're a better driver than everyone else, but none of them are really as good as I am.
Especially when texting.
Yes, sugars and starches make you fat, but fat on it's own isn't as risky as high cholesterol or high blood pressure. My grandfather was always quite the rail but had 2 separat quadrupple bi-passes during his life.
I actually live very close to the track you're talking about and during a race I am basically a prisoner in my own home. All the roads around me are blocked off. I'm not a nascar fan so the only way I know a race is about to happen is that the isles in the local supermarket get about two yards longer. That's because of all the beer stacked at the ends of EVERY isle. Nascar is nothing but an enabler for drunk rednecks.
not all states require proof of citizenship to get a license.
I've only gotten one automated-camera ticket. I knew I was getting a ticket right when the flash went off and the fine was due in about the same timeframe as with a human cop.
"Oh, and if you think about protesting it, there is a good chance the fine will double because you didn't pay it quickly enough"
I've experienced this system, and don't approve. Nothing to do with cameras though; same deal with human-issued tickets.
"Now as long as everything is on the up and up, fine. But what happens when the camera is 'adjusted' a bit? It will be extremely hard to determine whether the tickets are fair or not."
What happens if the human cops say-so is 'adjusted' a bit? I've gotten tickets. I'd have no way of knowing if he added a couple MPH. I'm sure that happens. The camera system has the advantage that is could be independently audited more easily. You can check if someone 'adjusted' a camera after the fact, but if a cop just decided to lie, there's no physical evidence to check.
I agree it is unlikely that the court will entertain the idea the camera is inaccurate, but it's not more likely they will believe the cop is lying.
So I don't see the disadvantage of cameras, but what about the advantages? As a teenager, I got pulled over maybe 5 times. I got a ticket every time. My friend got pulled over a lot more, but usually didn't get tickets. I can only speculate that her being an attractive, flirty girl had something to do with it.
That's mildly annoying, but if I were a black guy in the south, or a Hispanic in Arizona, and I thought I got more tickets because cops didn't like me as much, I think my annoyance would be more than mild.
Any system can be abused if the cops have a financial incentive to issue tickets; cameras don't change that. They do prevent issuing tickets based on who the offender is.
If you want to convince people to find and fix problems in the system, whether that's corrupt cops or excessively low speed limits, unbiased, consistent enforcement is a good thing.
You can put me down for a reduction in police budgets. If the cops in my town weren't busily writing tickets for improperly limited areas and conducting 7 month long undercover investigations to bust a dozen teenagers smoking pot in their back yards we wouldn't need so many of them. Even with all that useless busy work we still manage to have at least 4 cars (and I've seen as many as 8!) respond to somebody getting pulled over with a nickel bag in their pocket. I don't care if you found a bloody hatchet, rubber tubing and empty lime bags in the trunk, it doesn't take 12 cops in 8 cars to subdue a single 110lb. 17 year old girl!
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Instead of pulling over people doing 5 mph over the speed limit you'd get them focused on pulling over people driving in ways that are actually dangerous, and of course you'd free up a lot of officers to patrol bad neighborhoods, respond to non-emergency calls (usually took about 90 minutes in Milwaukee at least), and do all the other things that the police should actually care about.
While I understand the theory, the reality is that the traffic tickets are paying for the officers to patrol bad neighborhoods. You need one to do the other.
Find me a report that says increases in speed limits increase actual speeds.
Actually, there have been quite a lot of studies of this topic, and most of them have said that there is rarely a (statistically significant) speed change when a speed limit is changed. People mostly drive at a speed that's determined by the road and other driving conditions. If you want them to drive slower than the "natural" speed of a road, you have to post police cars along the road. Alternatively, of course, you can post hidden police cars along a stretch with a lower-than-natural speed limit, as sa revenue enhancement measure.
There was a funny speed-vs-accidents statistic published here in Massachusetts years ago that is still appearing in discussions. It's from back in the 70s, when they lowered the speed on major highways to 55 mph. The claim you hear is that in the year after the lowering of the speed limit on the Mass Pike (I90), there were 25% fewer traffic fatalities. This was brought up in all sorts of "discussions". Finally, some news guys told us that they'd decided to investigate, and found that the figures was exactly right: The year before the change had 5 fatalities, and the year after had 4. So the decrease was exactly 25%. But it was pretty obvious to most people that the numbers were trivial, and the 25% figure was being used to mask the fact that the actual numbers weren't significant.
Some people had fun with the numbers by pointing out that they could be read another way: The number of fatal accidents didn't change at all. There were 4 in each year.
Years later, when the speed was upped to 65 mph, there was a lot of data collected during the adjacent years. The number of fatalities didn't change, and it also turned out that the mean speed of traffic didn't change. This is a toll road that uses tickets stamped with the time, so they had exact travel times and mileage for all trips on the road. The changes were insignificant, lending strong support to the claim that people drive according to conditions, not to the speed-limit signs.
Of course, this is only one 100-mile stretch of (super-)highway, with only a few million cars per year. But there is data around from other highways, too.
Funny thing about the above story: In a recent local political discussion, I once again heard that claim that lowering the speed limit to 55 MPH on the Pike had produced a 25% decrease in traffic fatalities. I do suspect that the speaker knew that the claim was bogus, but used it anyway. The current media term for such misuse of statistics is "cherry picking", and it's a good example.
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
I don't understand people that think speed limits are moral imperatives that fall on the same line as murder or arson. You people act like I just raped somebody if I want to go 55 in a 50 mile an hour zone.
I live in Houston on I-10, and due to a huge environmental/safety push they lowered the speed limit from 70 to 55. It was a joke, the highway is built for speed and it has excellent lines of visibility and
, and they make you crawl down it. Nobody did the speed limit so they upped it to 60, which didn't really help. As a result you get fast swerving traffic trying to move at the natural pace down the highway, moving through slow road bumps.
If they would pick a reasonable speed limit based on the design of the road, and not the result of some safety pissing campaign then I bet you could get people to actually follow it.
I'm betting that the Texas DOT had more to do with those merging sections than God... Crazy Texans, always trying to push intelligent design.
My sausage tree didn't grow, does that make me a bad mommy?
No, it is not.
While it is true that sometimes the border guards along the Mexican border of the U.S. will let you back in without a passport, just a license, they don't have to. It mostly depends on their mood, how polite you are to them, and the color of your skin.
What's really fun is when you're traveling in a car with several other people and they decide to let some of you back in because you remembered your passports, but keep the ones who didn't bring theirs until they can prove their citizenship.
If the masses can keep you down, you're not the Ubermensch.
By what means do you thing that raising speed limits would affect assholes who tailgate, drive aggressively, and weaving in and out of traffic?
Bad driving is not caused to speed limits. Regardless of the legal limit, asshole speed freaks will still encounter slower-moving vehicles, and will throw tantrums and tailgate or weave.
I certainly don't feel any moral imperative to limit myself to the posted limit; on a clear rural controlled-access divided highway during daylight hours with good weather, I'll sometimes go as fast as I can. Which, in my 1993 Subaru, means about 80 mph. :-) But I've been passing a couple of cars doing 65 in the right lane, and had some asshole going 100+ come up and ride my ass.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
The cameras in question are nearly 10 miles before the speedway, on one of the two main roads leading to the speedway.
11E is a 4 lane divided highway with a speed limit of 55 or higher except where it passes through stoplights. Bluff City conveniently has a total of 2 stoplights on 11E, although neither one is really necessary.
The two cameras here, along with many more that have been placed in the region over the past couple of years have only been placed in high traffic areas where the speed limit drops below the normal for a very short distance. Those areas have historically been some of the safest & most accident free stretches of road in the area.
The problem, and the common complaint about the cameras and their placement is that the various law enforcement agencies in the area are focusing on generating income by way of fines rather than focusing on reducing accidents and increasing highway safety.
Disclaimer - I live not just in the area, but less than 1 mile from another of the unnecessary set of cameras. I am also familiar with Bristol Motor Speedway, the cameras in question, and the traffic on race weekend from having provided network/server support to the speedway in the past, including during race weekends.
I would be elated if we could double the highway speed limits around here. However, it'll never happen, so I'm not holding my breath.
Do you think everyone on the Autobahn travels exclusively at the maximum (governed) speed of their car all the time? No, they travel at speeds appropriate to the conditions and their car. More importantly, the left lane is used for passing, not for cruising in for hours at a time, doing 20 under the limit.
Game! - Where the stick is mightier than the sword!
You obviously never lived or worked in Cleveland Heights. It was routine for cops to be handing out tickets for 28 in a 25 (in an area that had no business being 25 mph in the first place, tucked between two 35 mph zones).
Civil engineers do set the speed limit in practice when they design the roads. :)
"But officer, I wasn't driving recklessly."
"In my opinion you were. You were driving 10mph faster than I would have driven in those circumstances. Case closed."
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I live in Houston on I-10, and due to a huge environmental/safety push they lowered the speed limit from 70 to 55. It was a joke, the highway is built for speed and it has excellent lines of visibility and intelligently designed merging sections, and they make you crawl down it.
The highway may be built for speed, but the cars are not.
Standard cars can survive a front-end collision at about 50mph, and much above that they start to fall apart. They have about 50 inches of crush space in the front, and it takes all 50 inches to decelerate a car from 50mph. Above 50 mph, the engine goes through the passenger compartment and the passenger compartment falls apart. Once the passenger compartment falls apart, the likelihood of survival is much lower -- almost nil. There are engineering limits to the accident speed that you can design a car to survive.
The most dangerous accident is a rollover. Even if you're wearing a seat belt, there's a lot of energy to dissipate and it's impossible to design a car to reliably protect passengers in a rollover at speeds above 50mph.
But when auto engineers collect 100 reports of fatal or near-fatal accidents, they can see clear patterns and one pattern is that fatalities increase sharply above 50mph, for reasons that make a good high school physics class. (The classical paper is by Nils Bolin in the Stapp Car Crash Proceedings in 1967, if you want to look for it on the Internet.)
There's the old question of what speed do you want to drive at and how many lives do you want to sacrifice for it. With the present speeds we lose (Fermi estimate) 50,000 lives a year. So we're talking about a lot of lives.
You can say, "It's my life and it's my decision what risks I want to take." I'm sympathetic to that.
The problem with that is that most people have a very poor sense of what the risks actually are. You drive on the highway all the time and it *looks* safe, and you've never had any trouble. Life-threatening accidents are rare events. You might have only 1 or 2 accidents like that in your entire life -- and just 1 is enough. You're like the guy who jumps off the 50-story building and passing by the 10th floor says, "OK so far!" But you're going to be driving at night, in bad weather, after a couple of drinks, after a prescribed medication, talking on the phone, while sleepy, with mechanical failures. All it takes is one time.
The other problem is that you're sharing the road with other people. First, if you're driving fast, you're going to hurt them more if they have an accident. Second, they have to keep up with your traffic flow.
65mph was probably the best compromise they could get, but above 55mph you're exceeding the designed crashworthiness limits of the car. It's like climbing without a rope. If you get into the fatal crash of your life, you'll be dead or severely injured. You probably know people who have died in auto accidents above 50mph. Was it worth it?
Clearly there is no way possible for any sort of investigative reporter or concerned citizen to independently test a speed camera and see if they receive a ticket to check out claims of rigging. Why they'd have to pony up the money for some sort of wheeled vehicle installed with some sort of magical speed measuring device. Maybe in the future such technology will be available.
Have fun with that where I live. Out here the cops are hated by a large portion of the population.
They don't want to bother with anything unless they can get a cut it seems like unless the media gets involved or they have no choice.
It is 55 MPH where you are driving and you did 58 MPH and got pulled for it. You won't be mad about the 3 MPH ticket you got cause you didn't get one. You got a ticket for 70 MPH even though you didn't go that fast and have fun trying to fight it against a cop lying through his teeth. Also have fun getting your car searched illegally plenty of them times. Only times you can avoid that stuff is if are friends with them or you look like you have a decent enough money to put up a good fight.
Sorry but I agree with the guy above you. The Police should not get any money out of the money they collect. Sure they might lose some cash but when they actually do their jobs more the crime rate might actually go down enough that it won't matter.
If he thinks he had problems before, now he better think about moving. The police aren't going to like what he did and I bet he will get pulled over a ton now. Every little infraction he can expect a ticket. Sure, he can complain about it on his website, but that won't matter.
Screwing with the police is a very, VERY bad idea!
Same in BC.
I wasn't taught this explicitly of course, just going with the flow.
In some places it's been 10 above the limit, rising over time the past while to even 20 above the limit, where the limit seems unreasonable. (ie. 50kph on a highway.) Probably due to recent lack of enforcement, and people being emboldened to speed when seeing cops go well above the limit.
Most of the tailgating, aggressive driving and weaving in and out is caused by a disparity between the speed most people go on the road and the speed limit. You get a few people adhering to the limit, and they're almost as bad as a dog randomly running across the road. Doubly so when they think that they're also police officers and should cut off and otherwise slow down people who are going over the limit.
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There is a big difference between making sure the same DEPARTMENT doesnt get it than saying (as you so readily jump to) that the city shouldnt get it at all. Nitwits like you are the most annoying type, because you loudly voice your opinion but quietly shrink away when talked to with facts and rational logical debate.
It's because all of them have a couple guns on a rack in the back window. I wouldn't wanna piss them off, either ;)
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
Complaining about laws:
Investment: trivial
Probability of successful result: zero.
Getting around laws
Investment: small (e.g. radar detector, research on speed camera locations, using Mk I eyeball)
Probability of successful result: high (there's always another fish)
Fighting lawful punishment
Investment: moderate (time spend in court)
Probability of successful result: low (judge has heard it all before).
Getting laws changed
Investment: high (buying politicians, running for office, managing petitioning campaign)
Probability of successful result: damn-near-zero (insurance companies and other speed-kills folks can always outbid you)
Now tell again why you think people should spend time and energy on getting laws changed when two of the others provide so much better result for so much less investment?
Oh, and for completeness:
Following speed limit
Investment: high (pain of driving slow)
Probability of successful result: low (cops find people driving the limit suspicious and find excuse to pull them over)
Not having car
In Texas? I think it's against the state Constitution, except maybe in Austin.
Because the legal system doesn't work that way. If they tried to fight the rule proactively, they'd have their case dismissed for lack of standing. There are exceptions but this is the general rule.
They mail the photo with the ticket.
And expect you to serve the ticket to the pictured driver on pain of arrest if they fail to pay it?
No thank you.
Their job is to apprehend the violator at the time of the infraction, not expect the car's owner to do your legwork for you.
Taken to the extreme this is the same as sending a ticket to every red Ford Focus owner and expecting the violator to fess up because one ref Ford focus was photographed running a red light.
Do they even compare the picture with the driver's license photo of the car's registrant? If not, I'd mail it back saying "it wasn't me - try again."
Tiller's Rule: Never use a word in written form that you've only heard and never read. You will end up looking foolish.
How old are you? What happened to fight for your rights? I bet you're very young or your parents and or guardians have taken care of you your entire life. Its because of people who stood up and done something that we have everything good in this world. You know it was against the law to free slaves and people went to jail for doing just that. It used to be against the law for women to vote and to go shopping on Sunday and yes people went to jail for that too. Not challenging bad laws is a very bad idea because it had produced some of the worst despotic regimes the world has ever known.
That's the most idiotic thing I've heard all day. What the hell is wrong with you? Just because someone says he thinks people should obey the speed limit doesn't mean he equates breaking it with rape or murder.
Clever signature text goes here.
How about we get rid of the failed war on drugs and then we won't need any tax increase at all?
fuck that. people need to slow down. I was driving the other day and had a guy tailgating me. So I was nice and moved over. The thing is I was going 75mph already, I was driving too fast, and this guy thought I was going too slow. This world is messed up is a reckless jackass like myself is driving too slow. Oh and where the hell are you that frontage roads are 50mph!?? They are 30mph here in Minnesota, 45 in some places.
Having worked for the police in multiple cities, and for the government in many more, I can safely say that you'll never get a ticket for going 55 in a 50 zone. Yeah, I know there are exceptions, but just don't use that as an argument. It's silly and wrong.
You can't make a statement, knowingly acknowledge it to be false, and then say "Don't call me on my false statement as an argument.".
The reality is there are TONS of places in this country where you'll get a ticket for going ANYTHING over the speed limit. In a local town around here (Jamestown, SC if you want to know the name) I've known people who have been ticketed for 2 MPH over the limit - and this happens regularly.
The reason is simple: that shanty "town" (with it's 2 cops, 1 judge, major, etc. the entire workforce is less than a half-dozen people) derives 65% of it's yearly operating budget from traffic tickets. I'm sure there are many similar towns across the country. What's bad is that this "town" is little more than an intersection. It's official population is less than 100 people. Nothing really happens there. It's police force exists pretty much exclusively to write tickets and fund their own jobs.
The system as it is broken. No organization should directly receive a portion of the fines it levies against citizens. It's 1 of the 4 major issues I have with our current government setup (the other three being that the losing party in a lawsuit isn't liable for the defense costs of the winning party, unrelated legislation can be attached to bills are riders, and lack of instant runoff elections make third party candidates non-viable).
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
Absolutely correct. Even for people who don't exhibit obesity, carbohydrates can still cause cholesterol problems and heart disease, because of the way they cause fat to be processed by the liver. The important thing to note here is that dietary cholesterol does not directly head to the bloodstream -> it is packaged and processed by the liver and fat cells, and this packaging is moderated by carbohydrate intake, with more carbohydrates making the blood serum cholesterol more dangerous and damaging.
So not only can carbs cause obesity, but even for those who aren't obese, carbs can cause diabetes, heart disease, cancer and other chronic diseases.
I live in Houston too and I do what I've done my entire life. I drive between 75-80 mph on I-10 unless I see a police officer. Then I slow down long for whatever amount of time I have to and go right back to driving between 75-80 mph. From what I can tell most of our fellow Houstonians do the same thing. As you said it's a lot closer to the natural and reasonable speed for that big, wide, flat expanse of concrete. I love I-10 since they finished rebuilding it.
Appended to the end of comments you post. 120 chars.
I know this response was coming, hence, I revised the comparison to make it illegal for someone to serve anyone else butter and salt as they would be harming them to do so.
If you're in the left lane, and there is space between you and the car in front of you, you need to accomodate people who want to go faster. If you're going 150, but there's room in front of you, you need to let the guy going 200 pass. That's just the way of the left lane - if you don't like it, there are other lanes.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
And you will never get a ticket for failing to blink, but I just did... Turns out the police in Austin don't have the manpower to patrol neighborhoods where 2/3'rds of the houses have been broken into. They do have the manpower to post cops on a highway, cause a traffic jam, and then pull people over doing .01 miles (per the ticket) in a 60 mile/hour zone for failing to signal sufficiently when changing lanes.
Doesn't get bored obeying the speed limit?
Sorry sonny but I've had enough close calls trying to stay out of the way of empty-headed, irresponsible kids slaloming through traffic as if they owned the road! If my family was killed by someone like you, the best thing you could hope for would be life in prison and for you to lose everything in a civil action. I won't say here what I'd be tempted to do.
I killed da wabbit -Elmer Fudd
Why does everyone think they are entitled to being green without extra cost or inconvenience?
Am I the only one who doesn't have any speeding tickets? It's the easiest thing in the world to slow down.
I don't understand people that think speed limits are moral imperatives that fall on the same line as murder or arson.
Yeah, with murder and arson you're picking the victims, when you decide to drive like a lunatic at 70MPH, you just risk killing random people you've never met in addition to the people in your car.
And all to save what, a minute off your travel time? Is your time really so important that you can't spend a minute going the fucking speed limit?! There's no reason to speed. Ever. The speed limits were set by people smarter than you are for a damned good reason. Just because you think you can go faster doesn't mean it's actually safe to do so.
Speed kills. Being a minute late doesn't. End of story.
I'm no Nascar fan, but, puh-leeze. Citation needed.
That's just backwards - you'll never manage to get a Citation up over 55!
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
I agree with you completely. Let's take away the money from fines and donate it to the homeless shelters in the city (if you let the city have it it just becomes part of their budget and the incentives for how fines are generated don't change)
Or you could actually give it back to the taxpayers. You know, the people with jobs, rather than leaches, alcoholics and drug addicts.
But wouldn't that be aiding them in breaking the law? I was only passing a long line of slow pokes myself. But I have to disagree with your logic. Unless that guy going 200 to pass me is an emergency vehicle then I am under no obligation to break recklessly endanger myself and others to accommodate their recklessness. Our actions have consequences.
It's cheaper still to buy a junker with no engine, paint it up like a police car, and drop it in the shoulder where you'd like people to slow down. Many small towns used to do this, with good effect. Tickets are such an important revenue source these days that this has fallen by the wayside. Speed cameras are sold entirely as a revenue source, much like red light cameras.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Also, if the limit is 50, but the flow of traffic is going 70, the few cars that ARE going 50 are impeding the flow of traffic and are themselves a hazard. Arguing whether its right or wrong is moot because its just the way it IS.
And jumping off a cliff isn't dangerous until you hit the ground. Just because it's not immediately damaging to exceed the speed limit doesn't mean the consequences aren't much greater if and when you do hit someone (or ram a guardrail) at that greatly increased speed.
As for "right or wrong", it's wrong if the increased frequency and severity of accidents ruins human lives for no good reason other than getting people to work slightly earlier. "That's just the way it is" can never be an adequate response to such pointless, selfish endangerment of other human beings, and I'm disgusted with you for saying such. If you think 50 mph is lower than necessary for a safe speed limit, then say so directly, but the safe, intelligent speed at which everyone ought to travel is not relative to how fast everyone already travels. Would you not have any problem if the freeway nearest your house suddenly traveled at 90 mph? 110 mph?
That all sounds great but in my reality I'm receiving what can be justifiable called Pavlovian training everyday. Why my government wants to do that to me I don't know? Its also pretty ridiculous to compare speeding to cliff jumping. If I jump off a cliff, I am almost certain to hit the bottom. Whereas the governments own statistics (UK) show that very few accidents are caused by speed. Having driven quickly on roads for many years I can confirm that stupid driving is the most dangerous factor. Often the drivers who are doing said stupid actions are going the speed limit. So unless you are doing truly high speeds around pedestrian streets you are not a danger.
These measures are used because they can touch many people, the majority of adults in the UK drive. You want to start changing the nature of governments relationship with its citizens then on the road is good place to start. It should be noted that air travel (esp. the airports) provide the same opportunity. Here we have seem a dramatic rise in the number of middle-aged people who have been to court make their first appearance. This is a symptom of government agencies taking an increasingly real role in our lives, no longer is it just taxes and news stories - you might actually end up having to defend yourself from these people. This will not end well for us in my honest opinion, still at least they're doing something about those evil speeding motorists.
Really? Tell that to this boy.
more examples.
"Probability of successful result: low (cops find people driving the limit suspicious and find excuse to pull them over)"
First time I've ever heard that one. But I haven't spent much time in TX (I assume you're there). Seems odd.
...the future crusty old bastards are already drinking the Kool-Aid.
"Speed kills" is the mother of a slippery slope argument.
If 50mph is better than 70, then surely 30mph is better than 50.
Why not just set all the limits to 30, and city limits at 15? Surely that would stop fatal accidents due to drunk people who are not obeying the law... oh wait...
It's like gun control - the population that is screwed, are the people who respectfully obey the law already.
fuck that. people need to slow down. I was driving the other day and had a guy tailgating me. So I was nice and moved over. The thing is I was going 75mph already, I was driving too fast, and this guy thought I was going too slow. This world is messed up is a reckless jackass like myself is driving too slow.
Oh and where the hell are you that frontage roads are 50mph!?? They are 30mph here in Minnesota, 45 in some places.
Well Texas is a 'safe and prudent' state which means you can go over the speed limit without breaking the law in certain instances, Passing for example. There is sufficient case law that states that the speed limit of the frontage road can't be less then 20 MPH below the speed of the freeway, Otherwise it might not be safe to enter or exit the freeway.
I know at least one person who argued this pro se and won.
Also FYI. the minimum speed limit is set by statue to be exactly 20 mph below the posted speed limit for speeds above 25MPH
They're rarely enforced, but almost every state has laws for "slower traffic keep right" or "left pane for passing only".
http://www.mit.edu/~jfc/right.html
In California, it specificically states "Notwithstanding the prima facie speed limits" in CVC 21654(a). Even if you are already driving faster than the speed limit, drivers must yield the left lane to traffic that's moving faster.
My intuition tells me this guy had better watch his speed in the near future. LOL
Currently hooked on AMP
but do you really think that lack of enforcement is the best way to solve that problem?
I have a problem that the enforcement seems more tied to revenue than safety.
Out of modpoints but really liked a post? 1BDkF6TtmmeZ3yqXbz9yhdYVqRYnwFoXDj
OK, so it's not unlike some places near where I am -- driving on a road that's 55mph, except when it passes through some little town and it drops to 35mph for 1 mile or so -- except here we don't have speed cameras. In Newport News, we DO have red-light cameras at select intersections.
I never said or so much as implied that you're guaranteed to hit something if you speed, I said the results are worse IF you hit something IF you are speeding, and that's categorically impossible to deny. Stop taking my argument to it's completely irrational conclusion and spouting off bullshit like "if 50 is safer than 70 then why not make everyone do 15?" I'm sorry the stupid cliff thing offends your very souls. Forget I said it.
Funny, I once got a ticket for tailgating a police car at 5 mph. 1) Seriously, who tailgates police cars? 2) At 5mph, "safe stopping distance" is what, a couple feet?
Want to know what happened? The DA said "You should never have gotten a ticket for this." and dismissed it. I didn't even have to say anything. He just read the ticket, realized the patent absurdity of it, and dismissed it.
The fact of the matter is police are people with power. People with power sometimes exploit it because they have a hair out of place, the wifey chewed them out, the boss chewed them out, or whatever else. Don't pretend they always do the right thing. Don't pretend they don't make mistakes. Basically, don't pretend giving them a badge and a gun makes them right. They remain people, no better than you or I, with badges and guns.
Now, how much of a tax increase can I put you down for?
Would it be such a horrible thing to see the true cost of our services bundled to a direct tax?
Actually, that would be pretty damned awesome. It would be a hell of a lot better than having the fund for a service split between Hotel Room taxes, Alcohol tax, income tax, telecom surcharges, beverage taxes, alcohol license fees, fines, and 50c per drink served at the bar (isn't that something Pittsburgh implemented?)
Having a single x% Police tax would be a godsend.
Out of modpoints but really liked a post? 1BDkF6TtmmeZ3yqXbz9yhdYVqRYnwFoXDj
First time I've ever heard that one. But I haven't spent much time in TX (I assume you're there). Seems odd.
I've been pulled over many times for 'reports of someone matching your description'.
"Really officer, I must be the first white guy driving a Buick you have seen all day."
Out of modpoints but really liked a post? 1BDkF6TtmmeZ3yqXbz9yhdYVqRYnwFoXDj
And that's why you can get a ticket for speeding ("too fast for conditions") even if you are going the posted speed limit or less. Or it may be written for careless or wreckless.
I had a ticket written like that. Except according to NOAA, it was 70F and sunny at Noon when the ticket was written. It was also physically impossible for me to violate the speed limit at that location due to the fact that my car couldn't break the speed limit in under the 25 feet from my driveway.
The cop didn't show up and the judge STILL tried to convict me until he got to the part where the cop forgot to even fill in what method he used to determine that I was driving too fast. If I hadn't lived on that road for 25 years, I'd probably have had to pay the $150 ticket (so much for a reasonable fine for a minor infraction)
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I don't think the judge would buy it, I was already 20mph over the limit, which in MN is considered reckless driving. Related, the guy that I moved over for was pursued by a state trooper into a residential neighborhood. I don't know if he caught him or not. My point being, the slower traffic was on the right, I was the faster traffic but then this guy was still faster than I. It's a fine line. I followed the law, I was passing and moved over when it was clear. just because I was slower than him does not give him the right to be a jackass and endanger my life. In fact in MN, where I am, and thanks for the link, He should not have come within 500 feet of my rear bumper (I may be mis-interpreting, but nevertheless he was too close and breaking yet another law).
17 year old girl!
But she said she was 18!
The only real solution is near 100% enforcement - either the law will be generally accepted or you'll finally manage to piss off so many people that the law is changed.
So when I get a ticket driving through Louisiana, how many pissed off out of staters will it take to get the law changed? Or do laws have to be so draconian so that significantly impact the day to day lives of everyone before we can decide that they are probably bad laws?
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I've driven I-10 in Houston and I agree. I also lived in Atlanta for over 10 years and both cities have the same problem with "slow [moving] road bumps." Why can't the police enforce "slower traffic keep right" or "keep right except to pass" laws? I recently drove the PA Turnpike, which is mostly 2 lanes each direction, but is peppered with Keep Right signs. It was so much easier to drive across that state than it was to drive the +4 lane I-75/I-85 highways around Atlanta.
Why the heck does a municipal government organization have a .com address anyway?
a township capacity to sue is outside their charter.
did you know that "United States" is a federal corporation in the District of Columbia, created by the organic act in 1871 to incorporate, it is animated by a nation not recognized by the Government Printing Office, and is not a member to The 48 united States of America.
UNITED STATES is in admiralty, and is not one of the United States of America.
US Code Title 28, 3002, 15a.
The point is, the drivers license is proof of identity, and once your identity has been proven your citizenship status can easily be looked up... if the law enforcement officers are so inclined to take the trouble. So it does prove your citizenship, only indirectly.
Probable cause is required for a LEO to detain someone. If somebody stopped for a traffic violation produces a valid Arizona drivers license, there is no probable cause to believe they are here illegally.
Alexander Peter Kristopeit bought his basement from his mommy for one dollar.
Since when were the tailgating, aggressive driving, and weaving a necessary consequence of lowered speed limits? Have a little self control and don't do it, problem solved. You act like humanity is incapable of self determination.
If the speed limits are higher, you'd have the same "aggressive, distracted, impaired, or unskilled" drivers now legally able to do their stupid things at faster speeds.
People will push whatever speed limit you give them - if you raise it, they'll think "gee, now I can go five miles per hour over this one too" and push it some more. Be realistic, people are impatient. Until you break that impatience, setting the speed limits low is the only way to keep them going at a reasonable speed. As long as you keep speeding, the people who set the limits are going to say "the average person drives X mph over the limit, so we need to set it that far below where it belongs." And as long as that says true, the cops are going to have a legal excuse to give you tickets if you can't get a grip on your patience and just do it.
Honestly, what stops you from choosing to drive the speed limit and almost entirely eliminate the chance you'll get a ticket?
1) Demand a jury trial.
2) When called to serve on a jury, vote to acquit the defendant if a speeding camera is involved.
3) Contribute to and vote for politicians who will remove the cameras.
4) Repeat until speeding cameras are withdrawn
IOW, the fines for the first 5 mph above limit goes to the State, and the rest to the PD?
ID: the nose did not occur naturally, how would we wear glasses otherwise? (apologies to Voltaire)
uhm.. The instructions you gave "right lane is always for overtaking only" etc *is* for the UK. Your disclaimer at the end about avoiding mass confusion and panic will cause just that. Good job.
Going from 5 to 4 is a reduction of 20%; 4 = 0.80 * 5. The only case where you would see 25% using these two numbers would be when going from 4 to 5, an increase of 25%.
Where are these stastics that say ignoring the speed limit and driving the road for what it was built for is "fairly dangerous"?
From your article:
There are a number of road segments that cross the mountain ranges. [...] While many segments are posted at 90 km/h, few vehicles can safely be maneuvered near that speed.
I'll spell it out for you: If vehicles cannot be maneuvered safely at that speed then it is "fairly dangerous."
And of course, there is research showing that about 40% of road deaths were caused by speeding, which would account for 16,644 deaths if we go by my original numbers of 41,611 deaths in car accidents.
Also, your analogy fails, what I said is that driving recklessly could lead to killing someone. If someone wants to serve things with salt they can do it, if they want to force me into eating them, then we will have a problem. Or do you allow people in the street to force you into eating anything they want?
"I see undead people" Warcraft III - Necromancer
Or, to make a car analogy, like making it illegal to sell someone a car that goes 120 MPH as you would be aiding them in breaking the speed limits by doing so.
Alexander Peter Kristopeit bought his basement from his mommy for one dollar.
Grandparent poster was right.
You better watch out, there may be dogs about . .
So what, exactly is the problem? The speed limit is posted so there really isn't an excuse to ignore it. Why is there an addiction to speed when driving slowly - at the posted rate - is safer? I'm also curious at how many people, when pulled over for speeding tell the cop, "You know what, Copper, you got me. I was breaking the law and I'll accept and pay the ticket." Do people actually own up to breaking the law accept the consequences?
(Probably not, it's easier to post on Slashdot!)
But if you have an x% police tax on your income instead of a tax on alcohol etc. then the rich would be paying more for the police than the poor. Can't have that! ;)
Some of my favourite people are from th US; Vonnegut, Chomsky, Bill Hicks.
We in Europe have the German Autobahn. It's a real-life test what happens when, in low-population areas and on low-traffic roads, you remove the speed limits altogether. They have comparable accident rates to most nearby countries that enforce a 50mph limit when you enter the country.
It's a fun race track too - my personal top is 130mph downhill. In a car that's so small they won't consider selling it in the US (Seat Ibiza). And, it runs on the fuel of demons (Diesel).
Maybe we'll just let you stick with the idiotic limits, petrol powered guzzling SUVs. We'll drive the quick nimble and fuel efficient small diesels on roads without speed limits. You'll even get to keep the name "Land of the Free".
And then his lawyer has has his blood tested, his clothing, the rest of his car, the police car involved in the pull-over, the officers involved, and lo-and-behold, the cops are dirty and he's clean... And the town's money made with the camera now all belongs to him--well, mostly to his laywer, but a good chunk to him too.
The only time I've ever even heard of somebody being pulled over for that was my ex-girlfriend. She was going 10mph over, passing people, but a statey was annoyed because his private lane was only going 74 while he liked driving 80.
Suffice it to say, I am thoroughly unconvinced that those laws have any beneficial effect on safety or traffic fow.
Try not to take me more seriously than I take myself.
Lies, damn lies and statistics.
Quoting from the page you linked to:
> In NSW speeding is a factor in about 40 per cent of road deaths.
They fail to disclose how it is a factor, correlation not being causation and all that.
Also, is "speeding" defined as going over the posted speed limit or driving faster than is safe according to current conditions?
In particular, consider the following hypothetical situation:
Take a road with a posted speed limit of 100Km/h. Assume everybody obeys the limit and drives at 95Km/h. Let's say there are 50 fatal accidents per year. Now, the municipality improves the road but leaves the speed limit in place. Due to the better road conditions, the number of fatal accidents drops to 30 per year, however, at the same time people begin to drive faster. Let's say 50% go over the posted limit. So now the fatal accidents "in which speeding is a factor" grew from 0 to 15 (or more, due to accidents between "speeders" and "non-speeders"). Did you see what I did here?
Now, you could say that I pulled this example from my back orifice. So let's look at actual reports where speed limits were changed and how it affected the accident rates.
Report No. FHWA-RD-92-084 by the U.S. Department of Transportation. From the summary:
Accidents at the 58 experimental sites where speed limits were lowered increased by 5.4 percent.
Accidents at the 41 experimental sites where speed limits were raised decreased by 6.7 percent.
Lowering speed limits more than 5 mi/h (8 km/h) below the 85th percentile speed of traffic did not reduce accidents.
http://www.th.gov.bc.ca/publications/eng_publications/speed_review taken from the British Columbia Ministry of Transportation site. From the summary:
Based on the analysis, it appears that raising the limit from 90 km/h to 100 km/h resulted in a 12.9 percent reduction in crashes at the sites where speed limits were raised. The Phase II sites experienced an 8.6 percent reduction in total crashes. Both reductions are statistically significant.
For another interesting read see http://www.ibiblio.org/rdu/a-facdec.html
Still, two cars crashing at 20 are at less risk of having fatalities than two cars at 100.
I get that, but it is a trade off then. If I never want to get hurt, I should get in my nuclear bunker and never move.
I think they have many accidents a year in car racing at speeds far exceeding 50 MPH where the driver walks away.
Stop! Dremel time!
Yup...used to live in Long Beach.
Doing 56 mph in a 45 mph zone eh? That's quite a bit over the speed limit.
No sympathy at all for the guy. If the speed limit is artificially low, then fight it in other ways. Obey the speed limits because it could be there for a valid reason. Maybe a FOI request as to why the speed limit is set at that speed there, if it is 50/55/60/65/70 elsewhere on the same stretch of road.
Until he does that, this guy is a whiny pussy.
Indeed... There would be no traffic accidents if there were no traffic.
Read what I mean, not what I wrote.
A good test of the purpose for the cameras being installed is this: "Are the cameras clearly sign posted?"
Here in NSW, AU most speed cameras in high traffic areas are clearly sign posted, generally with 3 sets of big, can't miss them warning signs, especially on the motorways. This is about to change a little with our red light cameras being upgraded to digital "safety" cameras that do both speed and red light runners although they are still signposted. We are also about to get the mobile semi covert car based cameras again, but even they used to have to place a sign on the road to warn you.
Don't tailgate - the end is near!
Average call to shock time in Milwaukee is 8.6 minutes. That is call until paramedics are at the door. Police times aren't tracked in Milwaukee, but Cleveland, Atlanta, Detroit, Baltimore, and St. Louis, which aren't exactly known for their police response all average well under 20. I sincerely doubt that Milwaukee takes more than four times as long as any of those cities. When you compare the number of tickets issued with overall crimes rates there isn't any relationship. http://research.stlouisfed.org/wp/2006/2006-048.pdf shows tickets increasing, during a time when crime rates fell. It doesn't seem that those two are all that closely related.
Xavier Rabourdin for president 2012
Two summers ago I worked for a courthouse near a large Texas city. One of my jobs was data entry, and I had to enter a lot of tickets. Quite a fair number of the speeding tickets were for going 5 mph over the speed limit.
We have the technology right now to enforce the speed limit almost 100% of the time. Just tie an in car GPS receiver to the accelerator. Of course the law is broken and people will complain about it being unsafe for overtaking, so you'd need to put in a delay so that speeding is permitted for anything from half a minute to a minute. And its not perfect. People will try to disable it, it won't work where GPS doesn't (tunnels etc), but it would be a lot more effective than having cops waste their time trying to catch speeders. The reason this would never be implemented is that there's not revenue in it.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
That's the Border Patrol and has absolutely zero to do with Arizona. Blame the Federal Government for that. Those aren't cops. In fact, they don't patrol traffic for speed. But nice try.
You'd think that on /., pointing out the truth (AKA verifiable facts) wouldn't get you modded flamebait. Yes, I know: "Are you new here?"
We have a whole shitload of stupid laws on the books that are rarely enforced (not necessarily saying current speed limits are or aren't one of them), and this just leads to a situation where the cops can easily grab you for something or other if they happen to feel like it.
Most of those motor vehicle laws exist to provide "probable cause" for police to stop "suspicious" motor vehicles and question their drivers when no valid reason exists.
About 400 people die every year in bathtub accidents. If we could only save one life by banning bathtubs, wouldn't that be worth it?
try driving on a military base. 51 in a 50 can get you a ticket.
And jumping off a cliff isn't dangerous until you hit the ground.
Flawed analogy. You are confused by the "jump off a cliff" cliche. Please stay after class to clean the erasers.
Jumping off a cliff carries a high certainty of death, speeding does not. The overwhelming majority of people who exceed the posted speed limit do not die nor do they kill someone else. The majority of people who jump off a cliff will die. So they're not examples of the same thing.
This is Slashdot; use a car analogy next time.
Just because it's not immediately damaging to exceed the speed limit doesn't mean the consequences aren't much greater if and when you do hit someone (or ram a guardrail) at that greatly increased speed.
That's a good argument for making the speed limit ZERO, which is much, much safer.
"I believe in Karma. That means I can do bad things to people all day long and I assume they deserve it." : Dogbert
I didn't have 1hr 40 min to watch the video, but I checked the science article that the speaker wrote. It's an interesting hypothesis, but really could use some more evidence to back its claims. I could just as easily hypothesis that it's BPA or some of the other dirty dozen / toxic 21 that's causing the effect. Moreover, if carbs are so bad, than you would see profound effects in Italians or, would have seen them previously in Irish or Asians that sustained them selves on mainly potatoes / rice. While I'm not arguing that carbs are good for you, I am arguing caution befpre subscribing to Gary Taubes hypothesis.
None of what you've said has anything to do with Arizona.
Read the bill. The OP made an ignorant comment implying that Arizona SB-1070h (House Engrossed) has something to do with looking Latino. You've furthered that ignorance by giving out misinformation in regard to identity. To be honest, it took me a while to figure out why everyone was so riled up about this. As it turns out, the people inciting the masses were pointing to a draft bill, Arizona SB-1070s (Senate Engrossed). Further evidence of that is given by simply googling SB-1070. You won't find the actual bill -- you'll just find the draft bill. The draft bill was an egregious violation of anything anyone, other than perhaps a Latino dictator, might want to think of as civil liberties. I would tag it "POS". As such, it wasn't passed into law. The House version of the bill did pass. It had extension revisions to ensure that Gestapo tactics weren't being passed into law. Since then, it has had additional revisions to clarify "legal contact" because people weren't satisfied that the Supreme Court's decisions regarding "Terry Stops" were being spelled out. Well, that's probably not true: in all likelihood, they hadn't read the correct bill, but I digress. The main point is that any ambiguity was (hopefully) clarified.
Again. Read the bill. ANY government issued identification is proof of citizenship in the eyes of Arizona. Don't mix the US Federal Government in with this -- they're the ones with the onerous requirements. If you want to criticize, put it where it belongs: the Federal Government. Attacking Arizona for having a more lenient law than the Feds is silly.
Finally, if after having read the actual bill, you're still not convinced, consider this: the Obama administration is fighting Arizona on two fronts.
Now, where in the Obama Administration's attacks does the Bill of Rights appear? Answer: nowhere. That's pretty much the proof in the pudding. If the law had any conflict with the Bill of Rights, they'd be all over it. It would be the easy path. Instead, they "acted stupidly" by reacting to this without any facts and, in the light of day, are finding any path they can to attack, regardless of how thin that path may be.
People do not need to slow down, evolution will take care of this. Traffic accidents is one of the perfect culling mechanism that can weed out the reckless as well as the reflex impaired. While we are at it, take off all the safety labels.
Where is the "Ignorant" mod tag?
Lowering speed limits more than 5 mi/h (8 km/h) below the 85th percentile speed of traffic did not reduce accidents.
It is also important to note that many municipalities have a law that states when roads are audited, the speed must be set to some % below the speed of traffic. Given this, if everyone obeyed the speed limit, it would become illegal to drive.
If you have somewhere to be, then maybe you should have left earlier.
Lazy fucks. Always waiting until the last minute for everything.
Sure, except that's not always how it plays out. Dirty cops win quite often.
And even if you're found not guilty, it doesn't matter, the mere fact that you were charged with a crime in some people's minds is enough to convict you. Try getting a job requiring a background check and see how that works out for you.
Trust me, I know from personal experience.
The next step is to put speed monitoring machines in cars. To start your car you swipe your credit card through the machine. Then, every time you exceed the speed limit the machine beeps and spits out a reciept for your already paid ticket. Happy motoring!
When the only tool you have is a claw hammer every problem starts to look like the back of someone's skull.
I never see any rape traps setup, although I think "Jail Bait" might qualify.
Hi, I'm Chris Hansen. Why don't you take a seat over there?
For a site about things like basic rights, Slashdot users sure do like to censor "dissent".
There is no central database of US citizens. Most US citizens got their citizenship when they were born in the US. These people need a birth certificate to prove citizenship. Many, many birth certificates are still kept in paper files stored away in county records rooms. Some of those records have been misfiled, lost, destroyed in a fire, etc.
Other US citizens got their citizenship because one of their parents was a US citizen. Their mother may have been traveling/living abroad when she gave birth. So these people can't use a birth certificate. Instead, they need to prove one of their parents is a US citizen, then prove they are actually the child of that person.
I imagine there are a few US citizens born to women in foreign nations who were impregnated by US men traveling abroad.
Persons born in Hawaii, Alaska, Guam, etc before they joined the US were granted US citizenship. Some of these people are still alive.
People can immigrate to the United States and become naturalized citizens. Granted, recent cases would be easy to look up.
Finally, citizenship is not the only restriction on legally residing in the US. There are numerous channels through which someone may legally enter the US such as traveling on vacation, getting a work visa, student visa, etc.
The point is, there is no way for immigration officials to definitively conclude that someone is not legally in the US. Even if they can prove someone is a citizen of another nation and entered several months earlier without a visa, the person may still hold dual citizenship.
I can safely say that you'll never get a ticket for going 55 in a 50 zone.
I remember riding in a car when the driver was pulled over for going 58 in a 55. Under "speed", the officer wrote "over 55".
Yes, I was interested in those cars. I read a couple of articles about them. It's true that they're exceptions.
Apparently they reinforce the frame to an extent that would be impractical in a commercial car (they have room for only one driver), they use a 4-point seat belt, and they use helmets.
The front end and seat belt are much more rigid than in commercial cars. They decelerate through that 50 inches of crush space at higher G force. One of the tradeoffs is you're more likely to have a minor injury at lower speed, but more likely to survive at higher speed.
There were some safety advocates who felt that commercial cars should use more of those design principles, but the auto manufacturers said it would be too expensive.
Some people do survive high-speed accidents. Some people even survive getting thrown out of a car at 50mph (but not if they hit their head). It's a probability, not a certainty. The probability of dying in an accident goes up sharply above 55mph, and even more sharply at 70mph.
Heh; yeah, I know. But in the political discussions, what you hear is 25%. I think the distinction is beyond the math abilities of the people in such arenas. Either that, or they just cynically use the smallest of the two numbers as the denominator, to get the biggest percentage.
As political abuse of statistics goes, this is a minor error.
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
and they'd have to be willing to have points put on their license and have their insurance rates raised.
Not exactly the same, but I found it amusing that in the lastest road speed survey around here almost all the speed limits were raised by 5MPH.
It is, of course, because no one gets stopped for going 5MPH over. All this means is that in 5 years or so when they do this again, the limits will get raised another 5MPH.
How would you know the person lacked insurance or was here illegally if they fled the scene? I have no doubt there are countless prejudiced people who blame every hit and run on "an illegal person that does not have insurance". Regardless, what does a person being in the US illegally have to do with an auto accident? I can certainly understand how making it illegal for that person to be in the US will encourage them to flee the scene before the authorities arrive.
When you go to the emergency room a triage nurse performs triage. The nurse will put you ahead of the "many illegals there for exaggerated minor care".
Again, how do you know these people are 'illegals'? Can you just look at them and magically tell they are illegal immigrants? Even if they are, would your emergency room have a higher doctor/patient ratio if all the illegal immigrants were kicked out? The emergency room is staffed based on demand, not based on the number of local legal residents.
The economy is not a zero-sum game. Total wealth increases as more people contribute to the economy. The economy is global and complex. It is doubtful you have done the math to support your claim, even at the most basic level. Supposing your claim were true, local businesses do not operate in a vacuum. You can be quite certain that the moment the cost of operating locally exceeds the cost of moving operations to another country those businesses will shut down their local operations and move the jobs elsewhere.
I don't necessarily have an opinion one way or the other on immigration but your comments demanded a response. It looks like your opinion is driven, not by evidence, but by prejudice.
"Traffic cameras are a slap in the face of freedom."
Why?
Because you are innocent until proven guilty. All the traffic cameras and red light cameras treat you as guilty until proven innocent. If a traffic camera captures my car speeding, how can it tell if I was driving, I let a friend drive, or it was stolen? Here in Missouri, all red light cameras where ruled to be against the constitution and banned from use.
Speeding is the one crime that continuously goes unpunished in this country, and it needs to be taken seriously. I support quadrupling fines for speeding, and also adding a minimum one-month license suspension for speeding offences. It's really ridiculous, people in this country seem to think it's not even a crime any more. I have had friends actually yell at me for driving the speed limit! It's absurd...
Take a road with a posted speed limit of 100Km/h. Assume everybody obeys the limit and drives at 95Km/h. Let's say there are 50 fatal accidents per year. Now, the municipality improves the road but leaves the speed limit in place. Due to the better road conditions, the number of fatal accidents drops to 30 per year, however, at the same time people begin to drive faster. Let's say 50% go over the posted limit. So now the fatal accidents "in which speeding is a factor" grew from 0 to 15 (or more, due to accidents between "speeders" and "non-speeders"). Did you see what I did here?
I saw what you did. You proved nothing. You had 30 accidents per year when 50% of drivers exceeded the speed limit. Maybe it would have been only 10 accidents if everyone kept to the limit after the road was improved.
But your hypothetical is not as interesting as your links. Your first link is to a government report, but if you ask the government to see it they "won't be able to find it". Did it ever exist or was it just invented by the NMA?
Next you took a quote from the second report that shows increasing the speed limit results in a decrease in accidents, but you stopped quoting just before this:
The reduction in total crashes at the test sites in British Columbia did not follow the same trends found in most other crash investigations. As a means of comparison, shown in Table 10 is a summary of the effects of lowering speed limits on crashes. The effects of raising speed limits are shown in Table 11. In general in other countries, studies of the effects of raising speed limits generally indicate that vehicle speeds and crashes increase, but much of the data is for fatal crashes. Due to the relative low number of fatal crashes in British Columbia during the study periods, only total crashes were considered in the analysis.
It then refers to 13 other studies showing the opposite effect and 3 studies showing no changes. You earlier spoke of lies, damn lies and statistics. You might also like to add selective quoting to that list.
Speed limits are set not only to prevent accidents, but also to reduce the severity of the accidents that occur in an attempt to reduce serious injuries and deaths. By countering research showing a reduction in fatalities with other research showing an increase in accidents, you have ignored the main aim of having speed limits: saving lives.
Up here in Dallas, they seem to set speed limits based on driving revenue. Central Expressway, I-35(E/W), and 635 are all 60 MPH. Dallas North Tollway, 121, and PGBT are 70.
Well, it might be worth noting that Central and I-35E flow through downtown Dallas (as well as I-30), and 635 flows through the traffic-heavy interchanges north of downtown. Most of the North Tollway, 121, and PGBT are further out north from downtown -- also, particularly PGBT was designed more recently with better interchanges.
All I'm saying is that the original reasons speed limits were dropped around Dallas about a decade ago (if I recall correctly) were (1) to improve air quality by decreasing the higher emissions produced by cars going faster, and (2) to assist traffic flow through downtown. (Slower traffic overall can increase traffic throughput during hours of dense traffic by avoiding sudden breaking and stop-and-go situations; hence variable speed limits in some cities.)
The recent limit increases may have to do with revenue, but the original reasons for the decreases weren't actually for safety in the first place -- they were for environmental reasons and traffic flow.
gressive driving, and weaving in and out of traffic which is what happens when artificially low speed limits are applied on perfectly safe roads?
I hypothesize that more accidents are caused by said aggressive, distracted, impaired, or unskilled driving outnumber accidents genuinely caused by speed way more by several orders of magnitude. But such a study will never be conducted on the fear that police will lose justification for bullshit speed traps.
You are entirely correct. Speed does NOT kill, it's stopping too quickly that kills (normally by coming into contact with something with a reasonably high speed differential). Obviously, speed does tend to exacerbate the significance of an accident, and may increase the probability under some circumstances (but not always).
However if you have the vast majority of road users traveling at reasonably similar speeds that are suitable for the conditions, keeping safe distances, being observant etc, the probability of an accident is quite low. As you indicated it's those who don't do those things that are likely to cause an accident.
I also agree that there are too many vested interests for sanity to actually prevail. That being said, in a recent news article here in Queensland, a Police union representative stated that there was absolutely no evidence that hidden (unmarked) speed cameras did anything to reduce the road toll. Although the 'powers that be' immediately dismissed the comment.
Ever stop to think
So you want to make the roadways in an attempt to improve the behavior of drivers who are already paying attention to the road (read: good drivers) but not give poorer drivers a larger safety net so they get in more accidents and slow down "next time" after they learn? ...don't run for public office anytime soon. Although your ideas may not be wrong, you will never be able to convince people that you aren't a heartless monster.
wait until you or one of your family members gets shot and your opinion [on gun control] will change
Liberalized that for you.
Keyword here being 'cities,' because you have obviously not worked in rural areas or the bible belt. There are strings of counties/towns in which going just 1mph over the speed limit will result in getting pulled over by swarms of cops with absolutely nothing better to do. I know of whole towns that could be labeled as 'speed traps' and their residents can attest to this. So don't spew that horseshit when it is not true. It's all relative to your location and not common sense.
You're either too partisan about this issue to bother to do any amount of basic research, such as reading your own link, or else you're just flat out lying. I suppose you could just be trolling.
The person cited in the linked story told police in Colorado that he was a Russian and not an American when they arrested him. Yeah, after the Colorado police told the Feds that they had a foreigner in custody and the Feds transferred him to their facility, the Feds were bureaucratically slow in validating the verification that he was a citizen after all. Blame Obama's immigration department for that.
Also, at no point in the story were Arizona cops involved, nor is the recently passed AZ law that is a little weaker than Federal law, but has some better enforcement provisions against cities in it part of the story. Since, obviously, it hasn't even taken affect yet....
The party of stupid and the party of evil get together and do something both stupid and evil, then call it bipartisan.
"Traffic cameras are a slap in the face of freedom."
Why?
If the speed limit itself is not the problem, how does the technology of the enforcement mechanism make any difference? I don't understand why having a human issuing tickets protects freedom. It just seems more expensive and potentially less impartial.
That's why
Of course every hypothesis must be approached with caution (be it regarding lowering or raising speed limits or otherwise), but one day when you do have a chance to watch the hour and 40 minutes, or to read his 600+ page book "Good Calories, Bad Calories", I think you'll find his hypothesis well founded and a good fit for existing observations, both in animal models and in human populations (profoundly obese italian mothers with their pasta, portly irish folk with their potatoes, and of course, sumo wrestlers in japan). The interesting part about his hypothesis is that it is actually one based on fairly uncontested principles -> the insulin increase in response to increased blood sugar levels, the break down of the kreb's cycle of insulin resistant fat tissues, and the blood sugar raising effects of carbohydrates are fundamental, basic principles that aren't seriously debated. But even though we know very clearly the basic science here, doctors who should theoretically know better tell diabetics to eat 6-8 servings of grains and cereals a day.
Now, whether or not I can lay every chronic disease at the feet of carbohydrates, like cancer, heart disease, diabetes, obesity, alzheimer's, etc, etc, may be an open question (it seems to me a very strong possibility, hitting upwards of 90-95% confidence), but what should really disturb us is the unfounded dietary advice we started giving in 1973 based on a "dietary fat is evil" and "dietary cholesterol is evil" hypothesis. On the basis of absolutely zero controlled or repeatable studies, and in fact by willfully ignoring evidence contrary to this "fat/cholesterol is evil" hypothesis, we embarked on the largest medical experiment ever perpetrated upon mankind.
I'll tell you what, though, you could lock a fat man in a room for 3 months, expose him to all sorts of BPA or toxic 21, and feed him a low carb diet, and I'll bet you they'd improve their health and lose weight. In order for the trace effects of any toxic substance to match the evil of carbs, you'd probably have to take a lethal dose of the toxins in question.
I pity the fool that doesn't obey the speed limit in built up areas and then suffers the consequences when someone steps out in front of him. Why assume that the other party is in another car?
- At a greater speed your thinking distance is longer.
- At a greater speed your braking distance is longer.
- Hit at 30mph 80% of people live http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FS5f73EHRhA
- Your chances of living if hit at over 30mph drop away very rapidly for every 1mph the car's speed increases.
To quote a well known UK Road Safety Campaign - Kill your speed, not a child!
I did not set out to prove anything, merely to demonstrate that "statistics" are meaningless at best (and misleading at worst) without carefully defining the terms and supplying context.
Try http://www.google.com/search?q=FHWA-RD-92-084+site%3Adot.gov
Google finds 25 citations of the report on various DOT sites, proving it is legit. If the US government declines to provide the full text on a publicly accessible web site, I cannot force them to.
I did not set out to prove that raising speed limits reduces accidents in all cases, merely that the issue is not as clear cut as some would like you to believe. To that effect I quoted supporting studies, being careful to select the sources that should not be biased toward this conclusion.
In an ideal world, where the speed limits are based on scientific data, you would be correct. Unfortunately, while studies overwhelmingly show that the safest speed is near the 85th percentile of traffic speed (look it up), most speed limits are set way below that figure, even taking variable conditions into effect. You choose to ignore several other reasons for setting speed limits, namely: political and revenue generating.
Lastly, I'd like to offer a personal anecdote. In the winter, I take the kids skiing on weekends. We drive north on Hwy 400, which has 3 to 4 lanes in each direction and the posted speed limit is 100Km/h. The police here usually don't bother enforcing speeding less than 15Km/h over (probably because the fines are small) so I usually drive about 110-115Km/h in the rightmost lane because, at this speed, I am SLOWER than >80% of the cars on the road while still technically "speeding" (mind you, that's Canadian winter, not optimal road conditions). My point is that a law that >90% of the population routinely breaks is a bad law.
I've lived in Houston for over a decade now. While I agree the speed limits are obnoxiously low in some cases, and profiteering is usually the reason that comes to mind, I must disagree with the "intelligently designed merging sections". Seriously, what is this "zipper effect" merging lane crap they have where 59 and 527 come together? It seems like there's another one of those somewhere - it's a very very bad design. What's with all of the sudden lane drops? "Oh traffic flows too smooth here so we're going to drop a couple of lanes". Again, think where 59 and 45 come together. Don't get me started on how horrible the 290, 10 and 610 area used to be, it's better than it was but it still isn't great now. If you're on I-45 and you want to stay on I-45 and you drive straight through Houston there's all sorts of zig-zagging to be done, due to obnoxiously stupid exit/merging setups. If you don't zig-zag you wind up on the wrong rode, or in a concrete barricade.
No, the freeway design around here was drawn up by a couple of drunk chimps. Improvements are happening, it's a lot better than it was when I moved here in 98, and what do you know, that section of Beltway 8 I used to drive all the time when I first moved her, well, it's still incomplete, but now at least the road construction equipment isn't sitting idle. They're actually putting up a bunch of orange cones and the bridges that used to be a 1/4 complete pile of dirt in 98 are now 3/4 complete structure with a little concrete on them.
The preceding post was not a Slashvertisement.
"So, is "reckless driving" related for driving too fast for reaction/stop times or is it related to tailgating, aggressive driving, and weaving in and out of traffic"
Both.
"I hypothesize that more accidents are caused by said aggressive, distracted, impaired, or unskilled driving outnumber accidents genuinely caused by speed way more by several orders of magnitude. But such a study will never be conducted on the fear that police will lose justification for bullshit speed traps."
I grew up in 1960's Australia. There were few cars, no seatbelts, few speed limits and nobody cared about drunk drivers until after the accident had occured. In my state of Victoria the highest ever road toll was in 1969, 1500+ people.
In 1970 madatory seatbelts were introduced, and during the 70's there were a lot more cars and speed limits. By the end of the decade the roll toll was hovering around 1000.
During the 80's speed cameras and booze busses were added and society in general became less tollerant of drunk drivers. The road toll at the end of the 80's was down to ~600.
In 1990 they started a "shock value" advertising campaign (search for "TAC advertisments" on youtube) that shows people the most common ways of killing themself and others with a car, 2 years later the road toll had dropped to where it is now 300-400. In that first 2yrs the TAC* also saved $2B in payouts for deaths and injuries. The ad campaign is still running today.
Of course this is based on deaths but injuries have also seen seen similar drops.
The evolution of regulations over the last 40yrs here has seen deaths drop by 70-80% while at the same time the total number of cars must be at least 10X what it was 40yrs ago. Sure, getting a ticket is annoying, but to say they are ineffective in cutting the road toll is complete bullshit.
* TAC = Transport accident commission, basically a state run insurance company that imposes mandatory third party insurance for death and injury as part of the car's registration fee.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
I've arrived at the track 6 hours prior to the green flag and have parked 2+ miles away and walked,
Your complaining about walking 2 miles ?
You must be American
Truly liberalized that for you.
you'll never get a ticket for going 55 in a 50 zone. Yeah, I know there are exceptions
Eh? I'm sorry, this doesn't make sense. If you'll never get a ticket for it, there can't be any exceptions, by definition. If there are exceptions, then by definition, you'll not "never" get a ticket for it.
So? Replace the speed cameras with a tripod mounted machine gun and a free-fire zone for any vehicles travelling faster than the posted speed limit. Leave the burned wreckage and mangled bodies to rot in the middle of the road. Other would-be speeders will soon get the message. Or become extinct.
There is a solution. Whether it is a politically acceptable one is a separate question.
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
FYI, The standard procudure in Arizona (where I live) when you find an illegal is to process them, give them a court date, and then let them go. They only get deported if they show up for the court date and cant argue cause to remain in the country.
I think he meant,
(Disclaimer - If you're in UK [the above applies], [otherwise] of course reverse the above to avoid mass confusion and panic).
It doesn’t quite say the same thing without those words, though.
Alexander Peter Kristopeit bought his basement from his mommy for one dollar.
Your average journalist thinks that if there were 25% more fatalities last year than this year, that means the same as saying there were 25% fewer fatalities this year than last. Your average journalist is wrong, obviously.
Alexander Peter Kristopeit bought his basement from his mommy for one dollar.
The highway may be built for speed, but the cars are not. Standard cars can survive a front-end collision at about 50mph, and much above that they start to fall apart.
Cars are absolutely designed for speed, and if the highway in question was too, your argument falls apart. In order to have a 50 MPH front end colision in 70 MPH traffic, you'd have to have one rogue car either going 20 MPH or 120MPH. You're arguing against a scenario that simply does not happen with any kind of regularity.
Deadly collisions have to do with difference in speeds, the actual speeds are irrelevent.
"It doesn't take a rocket scientist" -I guess I should leave then
You seem to think that rich people don’t drink... in fact, their choice in alcoholic beverages tend to be expensive, so they probably do pay more...
Alexander Peter Kristopeit bought his basement from his mommy for one dollar.
I used to read the Stapp Car Crash Proceedings and the technical papers of the Society of Automotive Engineers.
NHTSA compiled extensive data on real-world collisions, and so did foreign governments, such as Australia and Sweden.
Some of the groups that do crash testing are the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, Calspan, and Wayne State University.
The crash tests are modeled on real-world collisions in which people are injured. One of the most common collisions is a head-on collision against either a barrier or another car. But there are lots of single-car collisions.
Off of major highways, you have lots of solid barrier collisions. For example, one accident involved a car hitting a stone overpass at high speed, the front end collapsed and the driver died. Under 50mph, wearing seat belts, the driver probably would have lived.
Volvo investigated every fatal accident in Sweden, modeled them in crash labs, and published their results. People in front-end crashes up to 50mph usually lived, and over 60mph usually died. The forces they measured in the crash labs were consistent with this.
The other class of fatal accidents is rollover accidents. In a crash, kinetic energy is converted into rotational energy, and a car starting at 60mph has a lot of rotational energy to disperse. It can roll over a lot. The faster it's going, the more it rolls. The roofs are designed to survive a rollover, but there's only so much they can take. The probability of rollover fatality increases dramatically with speed.
The problem with 2-car collisions on a superhighway isn't a billiard-ball collision. The problem is that a steady state with vehicles nicely separated and moving together is turned into an unstable situation with 1 or 2 cars flying across the road out of control. If the wheels stay on the ground and you slow down to a halt, you're OK. But if the car rolls over, the fatality rate goes up pretty high. (And once you disrupt the smooth flow of traffic you can get hit by a third car.)
Basically, the faster you're going, the more energy you have to get rid of in a crash. That's mv^2. The problem increases as a *square* function of velocity. Think that out.
I haven't followed this for a while, but if anybody knows the latest research I'd be interested. Ralph Nader's Unsafe at Any Speed is still a good read.
told police in Colorado that he was a Russian
So say the police. Either way, the dude was stoned, not on sodium pentathol. If a wasted guy tells the cops he's the President should they drop him off at the White House? Or maybe they should look into his story first?
the Feds were bureaucratically slow in validating the verification that he was a citizen after all.
But it'd be totally different once the Arizona cops transferred an American citizen to the same facility.
Blame Obama's immigration department for that
Protip: if you're going to claim I didn't even read the article you could at least check the date. Obama wouldn't take power for a whole year after that article was published (now who's being partisan?).
I linked the article because "in the country illegally" isn't fixing anything for anyone, even though "being latino" isn't the only way to get deported. It also doubles as proof that "this can't happen" is incorrect as it had happened, and required extraordinary effort to correct (a legislative branch member strong-arming the judicial branch? In any other situation people would be screaming, but preventing a serious mistake... well, we'll overlook it this one time)
I do admit that I didn't know that the law calls for accepting an Arizona driver's license.
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
And when your sister is killed in a construction area because a speeding diesel mows over her and the barricades left her perfect reflexes with literally no where to turn, then that's just evolution weeding out those at fault. Right?
The only group that your kind of evolution prefers are those that stay off the road entirely.
Or it may be written for careless or wreckless.
I don’t think it’s possible to get a ticket for being wreck-less. Actually, I think the insurance company gives you a discount for it usually. Perhaps you meant reckless?
Alexander Peter Kristopeit bought his basement from his mommy for one dollar.
If a traffic camera captures a picture of your car speeding that's evidence, not a conviction. Police collect evidence of various crimes by various methods; investigating a possible crime is not treating anyone as guilty.
"If a traffic camera captures my car speeding, how can it tell if I was driving, I let a friend drive, or it was stolen?"
Cameras can't tell anything and don't conclude anything; they are tools. When one took a picture of my car speeding, the police force using it could tell I was driving because the system took a picture of my car, a close-up of the license plate, and another of my smiling face behind the wheel. The form I got in the mail had a simple check-box to let me say I was willing to swear under penalty of perjury that the person in the picture was not me. Under Colorado law, if I did that, I don't owe a fine, and I don't have to tell them who it is.
"Here in Missouri, all red light cameras where ruled to be against the constitution and banned from use."
No, they were not. It was found unconstitutional for local municipalities to handle citations issued for running red lights in local administrative hearings (as they might a parking ticket). Rather the court ruled that state law requires moving violations (such as running a red light) be heard in Circuit or District court. Which really just means citations for running a red light based on evidence gathered by automated cameras aren't any different from those based on any other sort of evidence (such as a cop who witnessed it). So jurisdictions in Missouri are perfectly free to use red-light cameras to gather evidence of violations, and to issue citations based on them. But you can fight the citation in court, which will probably cost them more than the fine even if you lose. So that protects your rights and removes the inappropriate financial incentive for cities to operate the cameras as a revenue generator.
That is ridiculous. That's about the fastest over the speed limit I go (maybe 28 in a 25 from a % view), and I drive 45 in 45, 65 on 65mph freeway. Pretty much as slow as you can go without being below the limit.
Being able to get a speeding ticket for that is not right. If you get a ticket for that, it had better be no point on your license and a total fine of ~$10.
Let's take it slow:
The investigative reporter gets the car dealer to precisely calibrate their speedometer ( or gets an extra-exact after market one), and pays an independent expert to test it and sign a sworn affidavit as to it's accuracy. They drive past the camera at precisely one mph below the speed limit, with video tape rolling, documenting everything. They get a ticket anyway. Maybe they do it a couple times. They suprise-interview the cop responsible for calibrating the thing and get some footage of him mumbling lame excuses. Finally, they air a big splashy expose on the 6 o'clock News.
You don't think they can fight the ticket? You don't think there might be reporters with the daring bravery to risk fighting a ticket with that kind of evidence when the downside is (horror of horrors) points on their license! or insurance charges their employer would presumably cover! (neither of which you get for a photo radar ticket in my state, but I digress).
Yikes! You may be utterly paralyzed by your fear of authority possibly frowning in your direction, but I assure you, some people have the trivially minuscule stones required to risk having to pay a fine worth a whole tenth of a percent of what they'll make while working on their story about fraudulently issued fines.
They cite people for not signaling lane changes? That's awesome! I wish they did that around here. I hate people who don't signal.
To make sure the person driving the car gets the ticket, of course, instead of just the car's registrant getting the fine?
Thanks,
sutekh137
What Would Sutekh Do?
Breaking recklessly would surely be bad. Allowing faster traffic past you in the left lane (which may involve braking, generally safer than breaking) is a good thing. It's neither your job to enforce the law nor to impose your own sense of "proper speed" on others.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
I'm not suggesting that I was braking, or that I was trying to enforce the law. I was passing cars that were going slower than I. The left lane was fairly congested with the slower traffic and it took me some time to get ahead of them all to safely move back over. The still faster car came up behind me, not driving for the conditions of the road, which would be why the trooper followed him. I don't think it's my duty to accommodate them. If they can't problem solve in a way that doesn't infringe on others rights then they are the ones that should not be on the road. They had plenty of time to slow down, and following as closely as they did endangered more than just their own lives. Now I know that nobody has even brought this up in this forum, but I am so sick of all this libertarian bullshit. There is no such thing as privacy, our actions affect others, and not everyone is a god damn nihilist so come back to reality and join society.
Some people are just assholes - that's life. Freedom is still realy important, even if a few will abuse it by being assholes.
Sounds like you followed proper protocol, yielding the left lane when you could reasonably do so. Whether the guy behind you was endangering you depends on his skills - since most people overestimate their driving skills it seems likely, but then it's you telling the story here. What gets bad is when someone pulls into the left lane to pass, and then moves at effectively the same speed as the person they are passing, blocking traffic for many minutes. Of course here in Silly Valley traffic moves in lockstep 8 lanes across, so the whole thing is moot.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
The only way he would not have been endangering anyone is if he were prescient, he was maybe 10 feet behind me at 75mph.
Sounds like every car on a California freeway (not that I'm necessarily disagreeing with you). I thought "bumper to bumper at 70" was a joke until I moved here.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Silly rabbit, get a ham license! No problem having a mobile beacon. The receivers on radar guns are as wide as well, barn doors.
Can you say Gunnplexer?
After speeding one is standing still or driving safe speeds. So you're right, one way or the other!
Garbage. American citzens have not just been threatened with deportation on the suspicion that they look mexican, but that it's actually happened. And if this Arizona law isn't struck down, this will be a regular occurrence.
But nice try at hand waving.
So, a law that is far more lenient than Federal Immigration Law, which not only requires that there be an initial contact based upon probable cause (as defined by the Supreme Court in Terry v. Ohio), but then requires additional reasonable suspicion to even inquire about immigration status (which specifically states that it can't be based solely on country of origin AND that it has to be constitutional), and which can be handled with any form of government issued ID (i.e. driver's license, state ID, passport, etc.), is a bigger threat than current Federal Immigration Law. Sure. That all makes sense.
I think it's laughable that I bring facts to the table -- you bring conjecture to the table -- and you accuse me of hand waving. Project much?
It's her stupidity to get into such a position in the first place. In this case, it is more of weeding out the stupid than weeding out those with slow reflexes. This is the perfect example of why we should take off of safety labels.
Where is the "Ignorant" mod tag?
I was being silly. :p