Speeding Tickets - A big waste of money
I read the Wall Street Journal almost every day. I don't agree with everything they write, but today they were thumping my bible.
Their editorial is titled Safe at Any Speed, and it talks about how highway deaths decreased after speed limits went up. They describe how some ridiculous leftists like Ralph Nader predicted massive increases in traffic fatalities.
Short story - it didn't happen. I'm a Traffic Ticket Lawyer and I handle a lot of speeding ticket cases. Our state and local governments are spending millions, and possibly billions, of dollars on all sorts of efforts to stop people from driving safely at speeds that nanny-state liberals don't like.
Reminds me of an old George Carlin routine that anyone who drives slower than me is an idiot, and anyone who drives faster is a maniac.
I don't care if this seems extreme. I'm going to say it anyway. Speed limits are too low, and even having an arbitrary number for a speed limit is silly on a highway like the Thruway or the Northway, once you get outside populated areas. In the right car, it is perfectly safe to go 100 mph on these roads.
As part of these arbitrary speed limits, our governments are wasting ridiculous money. In the process, an awful lot of regular people have their lives upended. For people like me, a traffic stop is no big deal. I work with police all the time and no longer find the process intimidating. But for most people, a traffic stop is a frightening experience. Add to that the extreme fines we see in New York State, and you get a colossal waste of money.
We've got to stop wasting money, and this is a good place to deal with it. Our laws should encourage police to pull people over for dangerous behavior, not for speed alone. And don't blame the cops for this. They're just doing their jobs. We'd all be a lot better off if we didn't turn our highly trained troopers into trolls under bridges, and set them to work on more serious problems like burglaries and domestic violence.
Their editorial is titled Safe at Any Speed, and it talks about how highway deaths decreased after speed limits went up. They describe how some ridiculous leftists like Ralph Nader predicted massive increases in traffic fatalities.
Short story - it didn't happen. I'm a Traffic Ticket Lawyer and I handle a lot of speeding ticket cases. Our state and local governments are spending millions, and possibly billions, of dollars on all sorts of efforts to stop people from driving safely at speeds that nanny-state liberals don't like.
Reminds me of an old George Carlin routine that anyone who drives slower than me is an idiot, and anyone who drives faster is a maniac.
I don't care if this seems extreme. I'm going to say it anyway. Speed limits are too low, and even having an arbitrary number for a speed limit is silly on a highway like the Thruway or the Northway, once you get outside populated areas. In the right car, it is perfectly safe to go 100 mph on these roads.
As part of these arbitrary speed limits, our governments are wasting ridiculous money. In the process, an awful lot of regular people have their lives upended. For people like me, a traffic stop is no big deal. I work with police all the time and no longer find the process intimidating. But for most people, a traffic stop is a frightening experience. Add to that the extreme fines we see in New York State, and you get a colossal waste of money.
We've got to stop wasting money, and this is a good place to deal with it. Our laws should encourage police to pull people over for dangerous behavior, not for speed alone. And don't blame the cops for this. They're just doing their jobs. We'd all be a lot better off if we didn't turn our highly trained troopers into trolls under bridges, and set them to work on more serious problems like burglaries and domestic violence.
posted by Albany Lawyer at 4:33 PM
1 Comments:
You know, as a young man, I drove a fire engine red Camaro Z28, and would have agreed with you 100%. I rationalized "this car is better suited for high speeds than some middle aged guy in a staion wagon" yet it seemed that it was me on the side of the road getting the ticket, as the Chevy Caprice wagon with the Sears S-Car-Go on top saled by at 75 MPH unaffected.
Actually, I remember that I could feel the aerodynamics of my Z kick in, and the car actually start handling better above 75MPH, as it hugged the road.
However, if I hit a pothole, a discarded retread, a deer, or a dizzy octagenarian who desides to venture into the left lane as I'm approaching at speeds in excess of 75MPH, the results would have been horrific.
Now that I *am* the middle aged guy in the minivan, my thoughts on speeds have changed.
I agree that the 65 MPH limit is much better, especially since I just made it to the Cape in less than 4 hours!
I also agree that too much time and money is spent on police to write unnecessary speeding tickets which mess with the lives and checking accounts of "regular citizens", instead of having them concentrate on catching the "real" criminals in society.
I'd also like to see classic speed traps re-zoned, like the stretch of 9W between Exit 23 and Bethlehem, which is posted as 30 MPH but nobody (including dazed octogenarians) goes less than 40.
But an unlimited auotbahn like speed on the Thruway and Northway would just be asking for higher and more cataclismic mortality rates, giving the nanny liberals the ammunition they desire to put us back into the purgatory of the 55 MPH highway speed limit.
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