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More Americans are using fake license plates

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Re: More Americans are using fake license plates

#131

Post by hackeraccount »

anonymousiam wrote: post #64
andrewmcwatters wrote: post #2

I’m not an old person, but I know I’m going to sound like a curmudgeon saying this. I think it’s just moral decay. I can’t think of any other meaningful reason. In Phoenix, which I consider the national capitol of bad drivers, in the span of less than 10 years, I’ve noticed a staggering number of people in the metro area who just blatantly run red lights now. Sometimes seconds after they’ve turned. It’s straight up r…

Looking both ways even when the light is green has become a habit of mine. Over forty years ago my lead foot saved my life. I was first off the line and I punched it when the light turned green. Just as I crossed the intersection I saw a car in my rear-view mirror whiz past through the red light at ~80MPH. If I had been slower, I would be dead.

You might be right but I wouldn't take it as certain. My uncle once told me it takes two people to cause an accident by which I mean it's at least possible the red light runner saw you - if you had been slower maybe they would have done 120MPH and gotten ahead of your or maybe 60MPH and still ended up behind you.

Who knows though - it's certainly true the road is filled with idiots. I almost got hit by a car a few weeks ago because I stopped in the middle of intersection two avoid a bunch of knuckleheads on dirt bikes running a red light.

Re: More Americans are using fake license plates

#132

Post by trgn »

midoridensha wrote: post #114
trgn wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've noticed the same shift. Drivers are worse now than 10-15 years ago. Drivers are more aggressive (tailgating, rolling stops, speeding, ...), more sociopathic (tinted windows, louder pipes, larger vehicles, fake license plates,...), more negligent (bald tires, texting-and-driving, bumpers ripped off jagged metal sticking out, ...). Another data point. Dashcams are on the rise, and they are truly the indicator tech…

>In City of God, St Augustine blames the fall of Rome on the christians in the city ignoring the depravity of the pagans. Christians for centuries were the people that burned people at the stake for believing the wrong religion, or even the wrong version of Christianity. They're far from "righteous". What did the pagans do wrong? They seemed to be pretty decent overall, by the standards of the time: they even had a h…

My comment was not about christians=good, pagans=bad. It's that St Augustine, somewhat counter-intuitively puts the blame of the collapse of the roman empire, not on the barbarian hordes, but on the upstanding romans being too timid to confront the moral decay amongst their neighbors.

Re: More Americans are using fake license plates

#133

Post by devilbunny »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #122
StillBored wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was taught to always assure that the drivers on the cross street are stopping, and its saved me a couple times, particularly in the rain when people think their car will continue to brake in 10' despite the roads now being covered with a mixture of oil, tire sludge and water which is almost as slick as ice. But, yes I find myself not having a lot of respect for much of traffic control these days, when the cities ca…

>when the cities can't be bothered to even make the lights flash at 3 AM, and instead are stopping me at every single light down a road for exactly zero cross traffic. On the east and west coast, I feel like car sensing traffic lights are the norm.

They're pretty common elsewhere, but many intersections have fixed cycles before they actually pay attention to the sensors - they're only polled when another cross-traffic cycle is about to come up.

But this is about the situation in which the main road should be flashing yellow at low-traffic times, and the cross streets flashing red. Or, all flashing red if it's a limited-visibilty intersection. There's one of the latter near me, and it really only needs full cycles during morning and evening rush. The rest of the time, it would be faster for all involved as a four-way stop.

Re: More Americans are using fake license plates

#134

Post by trgn »

mjevans wrote: post #88
trgn wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't get this line of reasoning. A police officer doesn't need to be present for code enforcement (ie. property inspections etc..). A police officer doesn't need to be present for parking enforcement. A police officer doesn't need to be present for toll fee collection enforcement. Why should police then be present when violating traffic rules? What makes speeding or running a red light so meaningfully special that…

Cameras are treated as revenue streams, not safety improvement devices. That's the cover story that's sold to the public, and then it's not unheard of for the light timings to be adjusted to increase revenues rather than promote safety at the intersection. If an office is stated at an intersection it is an important issue. Similar in spirit to warrants as an important step in violating people's privacy.

> Cameras are treated as revenue streams

But that's just like your opinion man.

> not safety improvement devices.

But they are. Speed and red light cameras reduce injury and death. I want myself and my family to live in a city where we won't get randomly murdered or maimed. The carrot isn't working on drivers, it's time for the stick.

> Similar to warrants

It's not at all. A warrant is invasion of somebody's home because executive power has reason to belief crime is going on. A speed camera invades no-ones privacy, and just registers violations of traffic rules.

Re: More Americans are using fake license plates

#135

Post by cafard »

KingMachiavelli wrote: post #103
prawn wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you meant to have a smaller registration plate (same registration as your car) on the bike rack? That's how it works in Australia.

I've never seen a separate plate for bike racks. Technically in many US states, a bike rack could get you pulled over for having a blocked plate but in practice police don't enforce that. The assumption is the front plant is enough but then not all states require a front plate. The license plate and registration laws in the US are very fragmented. Some states out the registration on the license plate, some on the fro…

Cars registered in Pennsylvania have only a rear license plate.

Re: More Americans are using fake license plates

#136

Post by Pet_Ant »

jjtheblunt wrote: post #79
kragen wrote: post #71

until about 20 years ago license plates were a reasonable compromise between privacy and accountability: they didn't have your name on them, and looking you up from the number could only be done by the police, who would only do it when it seemed important, and then only if someone made a note of the plate they couldn't, for example, make a list of everyone who was parked near a protest, and then search a database to…

You made me realize the painful difficulty in defining a distinction between legit use by police (which is occasionally used catching stolen cars, etc, and which makes the news) and creepy Orwellian surveillance.

Sorry, but do the police actually use these powers to arrest thieves and return stolen vehicles? Or is it like when you can point to the house that your stolen iPhone is in and the police say they can't do anything.

Re: More Americans are using fake license plates

#137

Post by dagw »

midoridensha wrote: post #112
dagw wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, the person you're replying to did specify "some parts" of the US. While you are correct the homicide is clearly down across the US, compared to the peaks in the 90s, there are also places where it is creeping back to 90s levels. Philadelphia and Chicago are two 'random' cities I just checked the statistics for and their murder rates are either at or close to the rates in 90s, and way up from the rates in…

I'm guessing the rates are up in the cities, and down in the rural areas. And there's a good reason for this: there's fewer and fewer people in the rural areas and small towns, and the ones there are getting old. All the younger people are in the cities, and murders aren't normally committed by retired people.

I'm guessing the rates are up in the cities, and down in the rural areas.

It's more complicated than that. New York and Houston, for example, are way down from their peaks, and no one would consider those rural.

Re: More Americans are using fake license plates

#138

Post by 20after4 »

Pet_Ant wrote: post #136
jjtheblunt wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You made me realize the painful difficulty in defining a distinction between legit use by police (which is occasionally used catching stolen cars, etc, and which makes the news) and creepy Orwellian surveillance.

Sorry, but do the police actually use these powers to arrest thieves and return stolen vehicles? Or is it like when you can point to the house that your stolen iPhone is in and the police say they can't do anything.

Exactly. No they do not use these powers to return stolen cars. Stolen cars only get returned very extremely rarely and only if it's convenient for the police. They don't lift an extra finger to recover stolen property.

Re: More Americans are using fake license plates

#139

Post by 20after4 »

unstatusthequo wrote: post #128
bob1029 wrote: post #106

I'm not using fake, but I've got temp tags on my new car that I've not bothered to fix yet. They've been expired for about a year now. Real plates are sitting at the dealership. Urgency level is one of "maybe when I go to get my oil changed". Not sure how exactly I wound up feeling this way about administrative matters, but here we are. Tempting authorities with punitive options over pedantic crap is the extra spice…

Maybe that clerk also grabs a couple and sells them on the corner to some getaway driver. Seems like having your plate floating out there is a bad idea. At best nothing happens. At worst, you get your door knocked in and a mid night beating from the local swat team. Lawyering up, proving it wasn’t you, etc.

That's hardly the worst thing that happens when SWAT teams get involved.

Re: More Americans are using fake license plates

#140

Post by IceyEC »

20after4 wrote: post #139
unstatusthequo wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe that clerk also grabs a couple and sells them on the corner to some getaway driver. Seems like having your plate floating out there is a bad idea. At best nothing happens. At worst, you get your door knocked in and a mid night beating from the local swat team. Lawyering up, proving it wasn’t you, etc.

That's hardly the worst thing that happens when SWAT teams get involved.

Yeah, but how much I care is dramatically reduced if I'm dead (/s)
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