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Gubernatorial Candidate Wants to Sell Speeding Passes for $25
If Nevada gubernatorial candidate Eugene "Gino" DiSimone gets his way, $25 will buy you the right to drive up to 90mph for a day. DiSimone estimates his "free limit plan" will raise $1 billion a year for Nevada. From the article: "First, vehicles would have to pass a safety inspection. Then vehicle information would be loaded into a database, and motorists would purchase a transponder. After setting up an account, anyone in a hurry could dial in, and for $25 charged to a credit card, be free to speed for 24 hours."
I have no doubt this will make them money, but it will also make them look much worse on traffic accident statistics vs. other states.
That brings me to an interesting point, / . is just "the ramblings of socially-inept, technology-literate news-mongers".
Only way I'd be okay with this is if they give the driver some sort of competency exam. Cars don't normally fall apart and cause accidents...it is usually driver error.
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apart from the state sharing in liability for accidents while speeding with permission...
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
This will never work. Who would pay 25 to speed for one day. When they can speed all week and if they are caught once pay a attorney 75 dollars. Do the math people.
There are going to be arguments both ways on this. I'd like to see the statistics if/when this goes into effect. It's definitely an interesting concept. My only qualm is those that are "in a hurry" may have other things on their mind and might not be the best drivers at any speed. Then again, if every state had this system, or even if there was a national level system and you had a trip to go cross country. Could be an interesting idea. Although, then there is the problem of "Ya, I know the highway was crowded, but I _paid_ to speed, so I weaved in and out of traffic to keep up at 90mph." So I guess we'd really need a couple "speeding only" lanes. Still, I'd like to see the statistics after this has been in effect for a while.
But if we exceed the speed limit, even a little, we die. Speed kills! Speed is the most important factor in car crashes! Incompetence? Distraction? Tiredness? They don't matter! Only speed matters! One car travelling faster than the other, law-abiding, drivers will cause untold carnage instantly!!
At least, that is what authority has been telling me these last several decades.
They whose government reduces their essential liberties for temporary security, receive neither liberty nor security.
You take the average joe, and he goes above the limit, and gets caught, and gets punished. After all he violated the law of the land. Worse if he was speeding when he caused an accident.
Take the one who pre-purchased the right to violate the law, and speeds, and gets caught, but flashes his permit, and gets off free.
You know, in many other countries you call this kind of thing a bribe. Just because you institutionalize the whole thing does not make it much different.
Every day it's proven in Germany that high speed on a properly laid put highway is not an invitation to a high rate of accidents.
I am a german and have been driving in the U.S. and Germany. If i would be given a choice, i would prefer to drive in the U.S. Here in germany, driving is a martial art with daily katas on the street. We have no right to bear arms, but cars make a good substitute. If you have ever seen a car accident with more than 150 mph relative speed, you can fully apreciate this statement (e.g. frontal hit between a minivan and a bus, engine of the van traveling completely through the bus, exiting at its rear).
A further similarity between right to bear arms and the right to speed is, that both claim a bloody price tag. Maladjusted speed (which may not exceed the legaly allowed one) is a major cause of accidents here.
I always apreciated the much lower speed limits in the U.S. I felt safer on worse roads than i did here on better ones...
CU, Martin
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Consider the source on this: Breitbart.com, purveyor of phony news http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2010/07/29/shirley-sherrod-to-sue-andrew-breitbart/ Briebart.com has no more credibility than The Onion.
The argument for most laws is public safety. That is the reason for speed limits.
If this gets passed then speeding is purely a money grabbing effort by the government and a differentiation between those with money and those without. A good lawyer should be able to defeat any traffic ticket if this gets passed, doubly so if the argument is in front of a jury.
Because yelling "[citation needed]" adds nothing to the discussion, annoys people, and has been said on other stories (and wikipedia itself) ad nauseum times.
Great Intellect...
Speeding is travelling to quickly for the prevailing conditions. That speed may or may not be above the speed limit, whatever it is set to.
The speed limit is not "the safe speed". It is the legal limit of speed. Just because you are legally permitted to travel at up to 30mph on a street, doesn't mean it's safe to do so.
Deleted
The real reason for low speed limits is that when all the cars are speeding, police are free to use speeding as an excuse to stop any car they want. In that way, it provides cover for stopping drivers or cars that simply look suspicious for any reason to a particular cop.
Stricter license requirements (and more expensive ones) in Germany than the USA; thus there is a much smaller percentage of Germans driving than Americans driving. Further, commutes in the US are twice as long as in Germany. This total-distance-traveled difference accounts for most of the difference in the number of accidents.
There are differences in the severity of accidents, too; the higher speeds in Germany would tend to cause much more severe accidents, but the higher mandatory safety standards of the vehicles compensates somewhat. But from another angle, there are also a lot of low-speed accidents in the US (due to it being much easier to get a license, and much harder to lose it); these lesser accidents still get counted in the total accident statistics.
I didn't read TFA, but this is brilliant. A major cause of accidents on highways is inconsistent speeds among nearby vehicles. Slow moving vehicles such as loaded trucks in the way of fast moving smaller vehicles are a recipe for disaster. A variance in speeds results in increased lane changes, slow downs, speed ups and a cascade of other changes to driving patterns, all of which contribute to accidents. 90mph is only a safe highway speed if all vehicles maintain a comparable average speed, not if only some do. As others have already said, accident rates will rise significantly, and the knee-jerk reaction will be to lower speed limits as many legislators believe speed kills, not variance in speed.
I'm not an expert, but I play one on slashdot.