This Week’s Column
Here’s this week’s column, should you choose to comment:
SPEED KILLS (YOUR WALLET)
The Sneaky War on American Motorists
NEW YORK–It was a beautiful afternoon in early autumn, and for an instant I mistook the brightly colored lights flashing in my rearview mirror for streaks of sunlight filtering through gently turning leaves. But only for an instant. Just past a curve on a steady downgrade a sign announced the end of the 55 mile-per-hour state speed limit and the beginning of the town 40. I hit the brakes but it was too late. That’s the purpose of a speed trap. Sixty-two in a 40, the policeman said.
Speeding tickets have always been a pain in the butt. You pay about $150, and if your insurance company chooses to be mean it uses the three fresh points on your license to justify a rate hike. In a recent legal transformation that has quietly gathered steam across the United States, however, getting caught speeding has become far more traumatic.
A year before the incident related above, a state trooper had plucked me out of a cluster of vehicles on the Long Island Expressway, dinging me for 72 in a 55(heavy volume had slowed traffic from its typical average of 80) That earned me a $185 fine plus six points–a point hike up from the long-standing three. A few months later the Department of Motor Vehicles sent me a letter notifying me that I owed an additional $300–bringing the total fine to $485–for a “driver responsibility assessment.” The 2004 law establishing the additional fees was passed in greater secrecy than the USA Patriot Act; even this devourer of three newspapers a day hadn’t heard of it.
My second ticket brought another letter billing me a second $300 driver responsibility assessment. But if I had plead guilty, New York would suspend my license for hitting the 12-point limit. I hired an attorney.
I spent eight months and more than $2000 fighting the ticket in municipal court. My lawyers–I needed two–kept filing motions to delay my trial date until my cop would be away on vacation. Finally, the judge asked my attorneys what it would take to get my case off her docket. A deal was cut. I paid $850 in fines, plus the state assessment, and performed 25 hours of community service. I was allowed to pick between sorting trash at the recycling center and filing at the zoning board. You can guess which one I chose.
Final tally for two speeding tickets: $3,935. No wonder so many people drive around with suspended licenses! They can’t afford the fines.
It helps to be a drug addict. When the 24-year-old son of President Gore got pulled over doing over 100 mph south of Los Angeles on July 4, cops found pot and controlled pharmaceuticals–Vicodin, Xanax, Valium, Adderall and Soma–aboard his Prius. “He didn’t have a prescription for any of those drugs,” said Orange County Sheriff’s spokesman Jim Amormino. Sentence: 90 days at a Malibu rehab clinic. If Al Gore III finishes the program, his arrest record will vanish–even though he has previous arrests for drugs and a DUI. “He had recently smoked marijuana, but it did not impair him enough that he was driving under the influence,” said Amormino. Gore’s fine: zero.
Michigan charges $1,000 over the fine amount for driving 20 mph over the legal limit. New Jersey raises $130 million a year through supplemental state fines. Texas cashes in to the tune of $300 million. Other states, including Florida, are considering similar laws. The War on Speederists has reached its fastest boil in Virginia, where the extra fines can run over $2,500. Exceeding the posted speed limit by 20 mph, for example, earns motorists a $200 fine plus a $1,050 “civil remedial fee.” In addition, reports the Washington Post, “drivers with points on their licenses–a speeding ticket usually earns four points–will be hit for $75 for every point above eight and $100 for having that many points in the first place.”
State legislators who sponsored Virginia’s stiff new penalties say they’re out to make the roads safer, but admit that their main objective is funding highway repairs. “My job as a delegate is to make people slow down and build some roads,” said David Albo, a Republican state representative.
It isn’t just budget-mad Americans. Even the land of Mad Max and the Tasmanian Devil is getting tough on speeders.
“Many people seem to believe that driving five, 10 or even 15 kilometers per hour [three, six or nine mph] over the limit is acceptable,” says Jim Cox, Infrastructure Minister for the Australian province of Tasmania. “For a pedestrian hit by a car, an additional [three mph] can literally mean the difference between life and death.” Fines for speeding will be raised by 300 percent.
OK, so speed kills. But when zealots like Cox say things like this–“research shows that even a one km/hr [six-tenths of one mile per hour] reduction in speed can result in a three per cent reduction in crashes”–you’ve got to wonder whether he’s been smoking too much eucalyptus.
Virginia courts are bracing for an onslaught of angry drivers forced to fight their tickets. “For someone who’s living near the poverty line, or even making $30,000,” said Fairfax attorney Todd G. Petit, draconian fees of over $1,000 have “a significant impact” that could lead to them losing their license and job. “It’s basically the Lawyer Full Employment Act,” chortled another happy member of the bar.
My friends have learned from my experience. Since every violation brings you a single ticket away from license revocation, challenging them in court is the smart way to go.
No one marches to demand a healthcare system as good as Mexico’s, but sky-high speeding fines have awakened America’s long-dormant spirit of rebellion. Virginia legislators say their offices have been “deluged by angry calls and e-mail from constituents threatening to vote them out of office.” Robert Marshall, a Republican delegate says: “You have no idea how angry people are.” Who knows? Maybe people will begin protesting the Iraq War.
Though the correlation between speeding and highway fatality rates is well established, fining speeders more than drugged drivers is disproportionate to the social impact of the offense. On the other hand, there’s no denying the deterrent effect. I pay a lot more attention to speed limit signs.
27 Comments.
If the a'hole who hit my parents' car had been going slower when he ran the red light, my dad might still be alive. I harbor absolutely no sympathy for speeders.
If you're going at the PREVAILING speed of the other motorists, chances are you won't get ticketed even if that prevailing speed is technically over the limit. That's the trick, to do what others are doing. A lemming-like mentality may not be advisable in politics, but it's mandatory in driving.
Hi Elayne,
My sympathies for the loss of your father. You're right; speeding kills people.
However, if you reread my column you'll see that I was the exception to your rule; police often randomly select one vehicle out of many following the then-prevailing speed to ticket. Where I live, in New York, that almost seems to be the standard approach.
Sorry, I meant to say sorry about your parents, not just your father.
My first reaction here is to think that you're pissed at getting a ticket recently and you're using your private soapbox here to bitch about it when dozens of more important issues go waiting. I noticed a local dj doing the same thing recently about a parking ticket; invoking the epithet "parking nazis", which I thought a tad extreme.
Speeding fines and parking fines aren't really about safety or clearing a loading zone. They are imposed to generate revenue and, we hope, that money goes towards the tremendous cost the automobile exacts from our society (not the least of which is people like elyane and her parents).
I would suggest you avail yourself of your city's extensive mass transit system more often. It's safer and cheaper than your private vehicle, especially in view of the extensive number of tickets you seem to be getting…
Picking one person out at random from a group of speeders isn't going to do anything to stop the overall flow of traffic from speeding, not even if you do it day after day.
I got a speeding ticket a few years ago. Being the poor graduate student that I am, I now set the cruise control a few miles above the limit (67 or 68 in a 65) on my daily commute from Dayton to Cincinnati. I can't begin to tell you how dangerous that is. Nothing infuriates a normal driver more than a car in front of them driving the speed limit, even if they're both in the far right lane. At least once a week, I have an irate driver pass me, only to slam on the brakes, forcing me to almost run into them. I've even had drivers follow me down the highway – the longest was for thirty miles!
Raising the penalty for speeding may cause those ticketed to slow down, but the 99% of drivers who don't get caught are just going to be even more upset about the stupid driver going to slowly in "their" lane.
In my experience, you don't get a ticket if you are going the prevailing speed of other motorists and don't have an out-of-state plate. I learned the hard way after I moved that I was no longer allowed to go 70MPH on the New York State Thruway, but could do so on the Pennsylvania Turnpike with impunity. I never speed in Ohio, as their state troopers pull out the credit-card readers on the spot.
I have no sympathy for speeders. It seems they take not only their lives but the life of everyone on the highway into their own hands. I live in Philadelphia and travel down 95 all the time, there should be no reason why, during a busy day, when I'm doing 60 in a 55 zone someone should be weaving in and out of traffic, passing me like I'm standing still.
I drive an old Honda CRX, which gets well over 40 mpg, and closer to 50 if I drive the speed limit. I'm often nearly run over by assholes in giant, gas guzzling SUVs who sometimes express their rage that I'm obeying the speed limit.
The national 55 mph law (now repealed) was enacted to reduce the nation's oil consumption after the late 70's oil crunch. There are plenty of studies showing that fuel economy drops off sharply when you exceed 60 mph. Given the present geo-political/ecological situation, I think it's time bring back the Federal 55.
And I wish they would start ticketing aggressive drivers who speed AND tailgate those of us trying to drive just a little more responsibly…
People speed on the NJ Turnpike and Garden State Parkway all the time without getting pulled over. Drivers weave in and out, cut you off, honk at you for stupid reasons and talk on their cellphone all the time. Look at Corzine, his driver was going 91 MPH for some silly little meeting with Don Imus the women's Rutgers basketball team. If anything they should give more tickets on these main highways, maybe people would slow down and stop being all stressed out behind the wheel. What's the big deal about going 5MPH slower anyway, are people's lives really gonna change much if they arrive a minute or two later than usual?
Al Gore Jr/III is not a drug addict, but he shows all the signs of being spoiled, and he's heading towards serious trouble, of the not-ever-getting-it-together variety. He was the only son, carrying on the family name, almost killed, etc. and obviously the Gores never pushed him the way they did Kristin, Karenna and Sarah. At his age right now, he's basically got a last chance to straighten out and if he blows it, he'll just be "a Gore" vs. a success in his own right, as Kristin, for instance, very much is.
It'd be nice if he, the black sheep, rebelled all the way and became a little edgy, but I think the best that can be hoped for is something along the lines of where JFK Jr. was at, using James Wolcott, say, as a role model.
Verdict: Young wastrel "Boss" on "Ugly Betty,"
One word Ted: Good.
I'm glad you got reamed, and I only wish every asshole on the freeway that cuts me off going 80MPH would have the same luck. These pricks think they own the highway, and that no one else's life matters. Their "Fuck You! Me First!" attitude makes me so sick, I couldn't care less if they were permanently stopped from driving. It's not a right. Here's an idea: drive the fucking speed limit. No probably, not. Like most assholes that have to cut across 5 lanes to immediately get in the "cool" lane (the far left), you don't give a shit. "Gotta get outta this right lane asap motherfucker. This shit be for grannies! Get me to the left and don't use no signal neither motherfucker!".
Fuck You.
A column I can agree with you on (the first that I know of since your KFI days.) The speeding Nazi's are in full force in Vegas. They couldn't send a patrol unit out to see if my family was ok when a "local" was lurking in my backyard while I was at work. But they can afford to have 5 brown-shirt cops hiding around the next bend to tag drivers going 35 in a 30 zone.
When I was younger, I would speed all the time. In fact, from the age of seventeen, a radar detector was always kept in my vehicle.
However, now that I have kids, I always drive the speed limit (or sometimes, just under), and I get infuriated both with drivers that pass me like I am standing still on the highway and my own hypocrisy for feeling angry with them when I used to be just as bad.
However, it only took an annoying buzzer in my new car to start making me wear my seatbelt. Perhaps that is what is needed in new cars: an annoying buzzer to warn the driver that he is exceeding the posted speed limit. I suppose such a system would have to work in tandem with electronically tagged speed limit signs or some sort of GPS system tracking the vehicle's location.
Unfortunately, that comes a little too close to violating the driver's privacy and could leave itself open to even more governmental abuses, so never mind.
Evil Kumquat
Two things.
1) Either drive the speed limit or
2) carry illegally obtained pharmaceuticals on the dash.
I am astonished at the general contempt so many people here have for speeders. I'm not defending the practice (except when posted limits are ridiculously lower than road conditions allow for), but doesn't anyone think $2500 for a speeding ticket is too high?
Also, here in New York, drivers at or below the speed limit are in serious danger of getting rear-ended.
And: Montana did without speed limits for years. Seems to me that people should be allowed to drive as fast as road conditions allow, subject to their judgement. But maybe that's just my inner libertarian.
Oh, and P.P.S.: Is it possible to drive every day and not get a ticket every now and then? My mom once got a 28 in a 25.
My God, where do I begin with all of this facist, self-righteous bullshit.
1)many of us would not drive if we had a choice. That choice was made for us when public transportation in cali was dismantled by the rubber industry (and, no, I did not get that from Roger Rabbit). So we are all forced to risk our lives, waste our money and kill the environment by driving cars(even if we are not good at driving). The same people who made us have to drive, also failed to plan for predicatable growth, and as a result, we can't even speed if we want to most of the time. The current state of affairs amounts to one of the biggest scandals in human history. Our kids will feel sorry for us and hate us (if they are lucky).
2)No one is speeding. In california, your average speed on a 45mph road is 20mph or less. When the road starts to clear up, you go a little faster to make up for lost time, and that is where the cops are waiting! "Do you know how fast were you going?".
Yeah, for the last hour i've been going 5mph because we are paying YOU to write tickets instead of improving mass transit.
3)Everyone is speeding. Some of you have become very sanctimonious about speeding. Do you remember when the speed limits were lower? It is all relative isn't it? And when they raise the speed limit, are you gonna label the old you a "speeder". Since we all speed cops will choose the one that stands out. A veteran cop who pulled me over on an empty campus for rolling through a stop-sign at 3am one morning told me to wash my car, and get rid of the shit in the back window if I want to get pulled over less. He told me that cops profile vehicles. (more proof that class identifies you more than race.)
Why does everyone have this impulse to say "you got what you deserved", as if "speeding" is a universally defined constant.
Heart disease kills more people than cars do. Our choice to eat crappy food is a little more defined than our choice to "drive safely".
In Teds case, he was nailed in NY, where they don't have good speed-trap laws yet, like we do now in California.
Thanks for the tip Ted. It's true the police have become a fund raiser for the state. You can't find one at night because they are sitting outside the bar waiting for the next drunk. One of the favorite speed traps in my area is a side road into town that has very few residents. It's easy to hide a squad car and the speed limit on that stretch is 25mph. In Michigan speed limits are more of a way to protect your car from damage because of poor roads, than constructive safety measures.
I live in the Mid-West where the only traffic jams we have on any highways are due to either an accident or road construction, and never last more than ten or twenty minutes.
Most of the highways are also four-lane only unless nearing a major city (not that Indiana has too many of those) so the amount of traffic never really exceeds the limits of the road.
Perhaps it is easier to look down on speeders here because there really is no excuse to be going 50 in a 30, or 90 in a 70, except for the whole "I own the road" reasons of the selfish motorist.
I never thought about the larger states like California where speeding may be the only solution to recover all the lost time from poorly planned highways subject to two-hour traffic jams.
Hey! At least I did not tell Ted to fuck himself like one of the other posters here!
Evil Kumquat
Heh… I live in Germany where many stretched of the highway have a recommended speed limit of 130kph (80mph). Of course, you can go as fast as you like (I usually cruise a 110mph) BUT, if you get in an accident going over the recommended speed limit, most insurance companies won't cover it.
Cops in Germany don't pull over speeders (where there are limits), you just get a ticket in the mail after the speed camera gets you.
People here stay in the right lane unless they're passing and semis are limited to 60mpg (100kph). I hate driving in America.
No angelo, you're the sanctimonious ass for thinking you can drive as fast as you want. I'm through trying to explain basic civility to people, such as driving the speed limit so you don't kill me. But you don't give a fuck. As usual, a typical (probably young) American.
Here in Cali recently there was a young gal named Edith Delgado, who was driving 90MPH on the freeway when she broadsided AND KILLED some members of the Tongan royal family. Her punishment? A few years in jail, something around 3-5 years. Their punishment? Dead. Forever. So Fuck You Angelo, and Fuck You Ted! It's basic civic responsibility to share the roads responsibly, but you just don't get that and obviously don't want to lose an argument, no matter how wrong you are. Other than littering, nothing pisses me off more than speeding. Fucking pigs think they live here alone.
Dear pissed off agist,
Next time, please read more than just my name. No one said they want to be able to drive as fast as they want, but you raise an interesting point. If it is 3am, and no one is on the road, why not go 90mph? Another thing to consider might be this:
Only 30% of all road fatalities speeding related.
That means that they are including cases where the person speeding did not even cause the accident. You correctly pointed out that young drivers are more likely to speed, but your assumption that I was young based on my factual blog post was assonine. You can read the NHTSA report on speeding here:
http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/pdf/nrd-30/NCSA/TSF2005/810629.pdf
ps. One time I pulled into a parking space without putting it in park. I looked down to grab my keys and my car was rolling backwards. This was at an elementary school parking lot with kids everywhere. No one died that day, but a few months previous one of my students was crushed against a tree in a similar incident in that same lot.(the woman who did it was a 50-somehting in a mini van.) She is still in counseling. The parents sued the school.
Cars suck. Period. To just look around and try to find blame in a few people for this horrible situation we are all in is childish. Cars are an affront to the notion of free will. you hate driving them most of the time
if you eat right but die early, a car will most likely be the culprit
they cost too much
they stress you out while driving
they stress you out while not driving
they depreciate in value
they kill the environment
they are the cause of the war(s)
someone could key your paint job
you could get crippled in it
traffic
mandatory insurance
gasoline
road taxes
you can't read and drive
you can't drink
you can't talk on the cell phone (worse than drunk driving)
liability insurance is bullshit, no one ever uses it
PARKING TICKETS
speeding tickets
Perhaps people are speeding so they can get out of the car sooner.
Sorry, Ted, but I have to agree that this soapbox is more soap than box.
It's illegal to speed. It's illegal to speed because wide variations in speed are dangerous. Why? Because the laws of physics cannot be repealed. Because people aren't perfect. Because no one should get killed for the "sin" of driving responsibly.
You are breaking the law AND putting other people's lives – not your own, but other people who don't belong to you – at risk just for your convenience. I repeat. Just. For. Your. Own. Personal. Convenience.
The "fuck you" attitude of people to each other, that they can't cooperate, that they can't look out for each other even when it's in their own best interest, that civility is a weakness, that the law of the jungle must rule? Does that sound familiar, Ted? Is it, say, a progressive stance? No? I think not. I think it's a lot meaner and selfish. Oh wait. I know.
Neo-con asshole right-wing capitalist pig.
That said, I think assessing some sort of bogus fine after the fact – in addition to your legal punishment – is unfair and maybe unconstitutional.
So. Cooperate, don't conquer, m'k? Drivers like you are why I moved away from the mid-atlantic region. I don't want my morning commute to be a freaking war zone. Of course the drivers here are an entire other story…
I have sped for over 15 years. In my nature. Never been in an accident that was my fault. (And, the few accidents I was in were jackasses rear-ending me 'cause the BQE ground to a halt and I stopped, but they couldn't.) Still, I am now in a regulated profession, so don't feel like getting any convictions, even for speeding. So, I got a speeding ticket last week (my first in years…I'm lucky). I read this article. And, first heard of this website, http://www.mydeathspace.com/article-list.aspx that shows how often speed = death. I drive the speed limit for now. It's my 2007 self-improvement task.
Angelo has a brilliant idea folks! Listen to his fantastic logic!
"If it is 3am, and no one is on the road, why not go 90mph?"
Wow!! A three year old has more fucking common sense than Angelo. I mean, seriously. How much of an ass are you? You couldn't possibly be this stupid. Let me see if I can explain this to you, although I doubt your tiny brain can follow this logic. It goes something like this:
1. No one on road.
2. Angelo decides to go 90MPH.
3. "Wheeee!!" says Angelo. "I'm so cool!"
4. Angelo goes 90MPH for so long it seems like 25MPH.
5. Angelo reaches to change his favorite Bjork CD in the CD player, thereby taking his eyes off the road for 3 seconds.
6. All of a sudden, there IS someone else on the road at 3AM. Who wudda thunk it!?!
7. Angelo rear ends and kills other driver.
8. Angelo gets 1 year probation.
Fucking idiot.
Driver distraction does figure high in driving deaths. (changing a Bjork cd, or a Kraftwerk 8-track). But speeding simply does not kill.
13,000 due to speeding
-5070 no seatbelt
-5330 alcohol
-1040 were motorcycles
———————————–
total speeding deaths = 1560
Of the 40,000 car deaths that is a mere 3.9%. Twice as many of the fatal accidents were caused by non speeders.
And I would assume that many of those were cases where the speederist was the only one to die (the NHTSA does not even mention this number).
The whole point of the speed limit was to increase gas milage, not to save lives. I guess that explains why california road deaths did not go up after the speed limit was raised to 65. For that purpose, I can really appreciate the speed limit. But please, enough of this self-righteous, holier-than-thou stuff. We all have to drive. Driving blows. Lets be friends.
source:
http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/Pubs/2002ovrfacts.pdf
Wow – maybe anonymous et al really will start protesting the illegal invasions, Patriot Act, expansion of spying on 'Mericans. Gives one hope!
1. Speed TRAPS are not safety related, they're revenue generators.
2. If the point was to keep the driving public SAFE, Staties would spend their entire shifts on the road AT THE SPEED LIMIT in highly visible cruisers (except for when they had real emergencies). Ever notice how effective one is in keeping traffic moving slow? Then why do they spend time instead hiding on the side of the road? Also, they'd actively ticket for tailgaiting, failing to yield, switching lanes excessively, and failing to use directionals, all of which are at least as dangerous as speeding- and I would argue considerabley MORE. Actually, this is what they do in Germany. You can drive pretty fast, but you're screwed if they catch you driving like a Masshole (driver from MA).
3. Anyone who claims that they have obeyed all traffic laws at each moment of every trip they've ever driven is FOS. If you've ever lit a cig, done a CA roll-thru, changed a station/tape/CD, taken a phone call, yelled at the kids, argued with your Sig-O, or been tired, your driving was impared. Let S/he who is without sin & etc.
I am all for anything that discourages using cars – provided that that money goes to supporting viable alternatives. As so many have pointed out, instead, these draconian fine systems take our police away from the jobs of protecting and serving and put them to work shaking the public down for money for the municipality. They also disproportionately affect the poorer of us. I know lots of road-rage type drivers who litterally could care less about the cost of fines and points, cuz they have plenty of money to pay them.
thank you irishup.
Since moving to this campus neighborhood with a large police station up the street, two things have happened:
1)My car has been broken into 3 times
2)I have gotten 4 tickets (2 speeding, a U-turn, and seatbelt).