[geeks] Stuff fo' sale

[Phil Stracchino]

Lionel Peterson wrote:
>> From: Mike Meredith <very at zonky.org>
>> On Fri, 11 Aug 2006 13:54:35 -0500 (CDT), Jonathan C. Patschke wrote:
>> [Missing attribution]
>>>>> I'm sure each "speeder cam" is really a source of revenue,
>>> That's because they were put into place to be a revenue source, rather
>>> than to increase public safety.
>> My instinctive reaction on hearing people complain about speed cameras
>> being used for revenue raising is 'So?'. After all speeding is against
>> the law so motorists who break the law have no leg to stand on when they
>> start complaining.
> 
> Yup.

So, you both think it's perfectly fine to site speed traps at the
bottoms of hills to  catch people who didn't notice they picked up two
or three mph rolling down the hill?  Or to intentionally set
artificially low speed limits to increase speed ticket revenue?

And you don't think it causes a traffic problem when the speed limit
changes four times (over a 20mph range) in 300 yards?  (It's on Route
202 near Paoli, Pennsylvania.  Within a span of about 300 yards, the
speed limit goes from 35, to 45, to 25, and back to 45.)


The biggest problem with speed enforcement is that the speed limits, as
a whole, are not set by traffic engineers with safety in mind.  They are
set by politicians who wouldn't know a traffic engineering survey if it
bit them in the ass, and who largely fail to obey their own speed limits
anyway.

There was a case in one city I lived in (I forget which) where a local
politician spearheaded a "grassroots" campaign to get more police
enforcement of the 25mph speed limit on his street, apparently in an
attempt to buy popularity among the large number of elderly residents in
the area.  Finally, he got his wish.  I'll give you one guess who the
first person cited for violating the new speed limit was.


My problem with far too many speed limits is that they are ostensibly
set for safety reasons, but with no visible rhyme or reason and no
consistency or apparent relation to actual safety factors.  Many times
I've seen the speed limit on a road of unchanging nature change by 20mph
or even 25mph when you cross the jurisdiction of a border.  More than
once I've driven down a two-lane road with buildings on both sides
signed for 45mph, then turned directly from it onto a four-lane divided
road with buildings set well back that's signed for 30mph.

People widely disrespect speed limits for one simple reason:  because a
large proportion of speed limits are assigned in purely arbitrary ways
that inspire no respect.  Most people, left to themselves, will drive at
a speed which they consider safe and reasonable.  Most of the time,
they'll be right.  (The ones who don't care if it's safe or not and just
want to drive fast as hell, typically will not obey any set speed limits
anyway, no matter how reasonable.)  The vast majority of traffic
accidents do not occur because somebody was driving at an unsafe speed;
they occur because somebody wasn't paying attention.  Making drivers
bored and frustrated by requiring them to drive 25mph on a road that
would be perfectly safe at 45mph makes that worse, not better, and the
places where the safe speed REALLY IS 25mph probably would be respected
much more if half the other streets in town weren't signed 25mph as well
for no apparent reason.  It's the "cry wolf" principle.


-- 
 Phil Stracchino                     Landline: 603-886-3518
 phil.stracchino at speakeasy.net         Mobile: 603-216-7037
 Renaissance Man, Unix generalist, Perl hacker, Free Stater