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."

Comments

Cue increase in accidents

[Antisyzygy]

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.

Re:Cue increase in accidents

[Dr. Spork]

That's not necessarily the case. Have you ever driven on Nevada roads? You can go 90, take a brief nap, and still be perfectly safe. I'm exaggerating, but only slightly. Germany has some roads without any speed limit whatsoever, and they're safer than comparable roads elsewhere in Europe.

Re:Cue increase in accidents

[PsychoSlashDot]

CUE INCREASE IN ACCIDENTS - 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.

Interestingly, this isn't a given. Well, not in the dramatic sense you imply. Yes, increased speed means that in the event of a collision there's more energy involved to be disbursed and absorbed, leading to more severe injuries and frequent deaths in the event of a collision. On the other hand, it's not a given that a higher speed limit will result, for a number of reasons.

Traffic tends to flow at rates generally in excess of speed limits. Speed limits are generally set (in the U.S.) 8 to 12 MPH below the speed 85% of traffic typically flows. This is done deliberately as one of the biggest purposes behind speed limits is to set a calibration number that most traffic will aim for. The goal is to have most vehicles going the same general speed. That is to say, it's important to reduce variance in vehicle speed. You set your limit expecting almost all traffic to flow within a few MPH of that limit.

See, the problem is that if a road is well-engineered and conditions are clear, many drivers will push well beyond the speed limit if it's posted "too low". Folks (like me) who are afraid to get pulled over (I drive a tempting and obvious target) stay down very close to the speed limit. The result is that the variance in vehicle speed increases, which is inherently likely to cause more accidents.

You want to reduce the number of accidents, then consider the severity of those accidents. Not the other way around. By setting limits wisely, even erring on the high side sometimes, you may actually make things safer. That's why you see so many different numbers on the roads.

Final note: all of what I just wrote is why this plan is horrible. I'd [i]love[/i] to open up my car and go play. But allowing a small percentage of the traffic to flow potentially 50% faster than the rest is likely to result in more accidents. The will coincidentally involve worse injuries.

Re:Cue increase in accidents

[Austerity Empowers]

I think it's just an admission by governments that speed limits aren't actually there for safety so much as to raise funds. If the road is safe enough to drive on at 90mph for $25, it's safe enough to drive on at 90mph for free. The government isn't AT&T, it doesn't get to impose bullshit laws unless the public good outweighs individual liberty.

Re:Cue increase in accidents

[gmueckl]

Those German highways without speed limits are dangerous and demand the driver's full attention because there's almost always a car nearby that is going much faster or much slower than you are (except when traffic is really dense, of course, in which case this degenerates into a massive stop-and-go where you're constantly changing from standstill to speeds up to 100km/h and back in a constant, rather tight cycle). It's quite stressful to drive on these roads for a couple of hours.

Still, my guess is that the high demands on the drivers keep all of them so much more focused that the end result is a bearable rate of accidents. Actually, I find that I'm much more inclined to doze off on the wheel when I'm abroad on a highway with speed limit where everyone is going in a straight line at the same speed (did I mention that there's barely a highway segment in Germany that's really straight; I've heard that this is actually on purpose, but I'm not certain).

Re:Cue increase in accidents

[Antidamage]

It'd be really sweet if the families of anyone killed by a legally speeding driver got the $25.

Re:Cue increase in accidents

[shadowfaxcrx]

And roads are over-engineered. A road with a speed limit of 65 is not designed to fail or to become undriveable at 70.

Your argument also breaks down when you realize that interstates originally had speed limits at or above 70mph - limits which were then lowered to 55 and have only relatively recently been creeping back up.

The plain fact is that vehicles and roads can both safely support higher speed limits. The "speed kills" BS is there because it's more politically expedient to blame driving problems on an arbitrary number than it is to put the blame where it belongs - in the hands of the crappy driver that caused the wreck.

Re:Cue increase in accidents

[Naturalis Philosopho]

There's a world of difference between maintaining an overall level of carbon emissions and speeding. For your analogy to work, the speeding law would have to average out the speeds on the road by requiring non-paying drivers to lower their speed below the posted maximum. In the real world trading carbon emissions rights works to limit the overall amount of carbon release and rewards those who are most efficient with money from those who aren't as efficient (ie it's like a free market). What the proposed speeding law does is allow people to buy immunity from the laws which are designed to limit the risk of collective use of a public good. Where I live it's flat enough that you can't use rifles during hunting season. This law would be like allowing people to pay for the right to break that regulation because they promise that their bullets won't go through any farm houses.

Re:Cue increase in accidents

[quacking duck]

But I wholeheartedly disagree with the government giving 'special' rights in exchange for money.

Street parking? Licenses to drive, hunt, fish, concealed carry, etc?

I'd say they're carrying on the fine tradition of doing just that.

Re:Cue increase in accidents

[magarity]

Because highways with speed limits are safe and you should feel free to talk, phone, text, eat, put on make-up, etc?
 
You completely missed the important part: because there's always another car going much faster or much slower. That's the problem. Speed doesn't kill - delta in speed kills. And yes, to take your counter argument to the extreme, if all the cars were going exactly the same speed then as long as everyone manages to stay on the road it would be perfectly safe to do all the things you've listed AT THE SAME TIME.

Re:Cue increase in accidents

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, speed does kill. Very few people are going to die in an accident that happens at 5 mph, other than from freak causes. Meanwhile, kinetic energy increases with the square of velocity, so going from 55 mph to 65 mph (an increase in speed of about 18%) increases the energy of the vehicle by almost 40%. Going from 65 to 90 increases speed by about 38%, but almost doubles the kinetic energy (about 92%).

I'm not going to quibble with your opinion on whether or not the speed limits are high enough (that's a matter of debate), but I think it's ridiculous to claim that speed has nothing to do with the severity of accidents.

Re:Cue increase in accidents

[PRMan]

Street parking? Licenses to drive, hunt, fish, concealed carry, etc?

Street parking can be a limited resource and is usually only metered where it is. Charging for it increases the percentage of the population that can use the resource, thereby making it better for society at large. (People that park downtown everyday can usually beat the government rate, which works for them as well.) Hunting and fishing are again limited resources. Typically governments let people hunt and fish overpopulated species as much as they want. It's when they get to the low-population species that seasons and licenses start being talked about.

Licenses to drive try to ensure that everyone has a minimum skill set before getting behind the wheel and potentially killing others. That program takes a lot of manpower and resources. The licenses by comparison are really not that much.

Concealed carry has been abused so many times that people see it as a harm to society, even though it may be an overall good. But it's easy to parade the memory of a shooting victim around and get people to blame the weapon.

But the pay-to-speed law is different than any of these, in that it is not protected a limited resource AND it is not perceived as a good for society. It's downright blood money as speeding DOES increase fatal accidents in Nevada and there are statistics to back that up.

Re:Cue increase in accidents

[Blymie]

"Roads are constructed to engineering specs."

Yes, they are. That's why on older country roads, which had older 'specs', you will sometimes see them 'straighten' a section of road. That is, if there are too many accidents, or the road has shown that an intersection is designed unsafe, it will be redesigned and upgraded to current engineering specs.

However, what are these specs based on? Are they based upon a top of the line car, with $2000 tires, and a braking distance 1/3 the length of a 1990s Ford Escort?

Or, are they designed for the *worst* cars on the roads?

The original article states that a car inspection would be required before permits could be issued. There is logic to this. There is a wide range of differing vehicle types on the road today, and the best are *easily* able to drive 100mph, and stop in 1/3 of the distance than the worst available.

All cars are not equal.

Re:Cue increase in accidents

[DancesWithBlowTorch]

Fully agreed. I'm German too, and I have driven several thousand miles on American roads. I fully agree that 100mph to 110mph (180km/h) is a convenient speed on a German Autobahn, with a decent car. In fact I find driving on the Autobahn relaxing, especially at night, with a good talk radio programme.

Many interstates in the US are of comparable or in fact better standard than the Autobahn. Especially in warmer parts of the States, the climate makes potholes rare, and the wide green strips between the opposing directions are a good safety feature that most Autbahns lack. In many parts of the States, the traffic density is also very low compared to the incredible bustle on Autobahns (Germany is right in the middle of the EU, and it seems everyone needs to get from Poland to France, from Austria to Denmark, and the other way round, every other day).

But the big difference between the States and Germany is the culture of driving. Germans (and everyone else driving on the Autobahn) have learned to live with unrestricted roads, and they started learning, as a society, back when cars had a top speed of 60mph. There are laws requiring everyone to drive in the rightmost lane currently available (the "Rechtsfahrgebot"), and in contrast to the States or Britain where these laws also exist in principle, virtually everyone actually obeys them. Indicating is a reflex rather than a concious gesture: people even indicate at 2am on deserted roads in the middle of a forest, with noone but the moon to watch. And they have acquired an intuition for how fast a car is approaching in the rear view mirror, which is crucial on roads where the relative speed between cars on the right and middle lane can easily exceed 50mph. Americans would have to learn these things for everyone to be able to drive on those roads. In the meantime, there'd be a lot of accidents.

Re:Cue increase in accidents

[eugene ts wong]

I agree with you.

I'd like to add that faster speeds mean less reaction time. The road might be physically capable of handling 100 anything per hour, but the bottom line, is that we might not have fast enough reflexes to deal with various obstacles.

Re:Cue increase in accidents

[sznupi]

Now is also a good time to mention how 80-90% of drivers consider themselves to be above average.

Cars Don't Cause Accidents...

[longacre]

First, vehicles would have to pass a safety inspection.

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.

What could possibly go wrong?

[AliasMarlowe]

apart from the state sharing in liability for accidents while speeding with permission...

Re:What could possibly go wrong?

[TooMuchToDo]

"Speeding" isn't illegal if the state has given you permission. The driver will still be the liable party.

Re:What could possibly go wrong?

[phoenix321]

Are people in the Land of the Free truly thinking "The state could be liable for allowing people to do X?"

Have I drunk the Kool-Aid? What happened?

Is the state liable when people
- die after drinking 10 liters of alcohol bought from the supermarket?
- die after jumping from a bridge that has a guardrail that was lower than 3m?
- die after shooting themselves in the head with an officially-licensed firearm?
- die after shooting themselves in the head with an unlicensed firearm?
- die after being shot in the head by a mugger owning an illegal firearm?

Since when is the state liable for not preventing stupid people from doing stupid things?

If that was even remotely possible, I'd rather sue the state and all state officials and law enforcement officers when anyone gets mugged, beaten or shot anywhere. After all, it was the state's fault for not putting a policeman there.

Unrelated News

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Unrelated News

[retchdog]

Once there's a legitimate way to buy "speeding rights," one would expect enforcement to be stricter for the ones who don't buy indulgences.

Of course it's probably a stupid idea anyway.

Well..

[rotide]

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.

Re:Are Nevada roads that much above US standards?

[mseeger]

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