Live data from Hacker News

Virginia passes law to enforce maximum vehicle speeds for repeat speeders

fastcompany.com

81–90 of 954 posts

Re: Virginia passes law to enforce maximum vehicle speeds for repeat speeders

#81
post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How can you hope to encourage people to move to tracks if you require them to find a pickup that can tow cars there? If you keep closing down more and more tracks? I doubt most people speeding in the streets do track or street racing as a hobby, so I think track availability is pretty much irrelevant. I think I should have the freedom not to get splattered by dumbasses going 100 in a 50MPH zone. Why don't I get tha…

You are allowed to use the state to restrict the freedom of people who are going 100 in a 50MPH zone. You don't get to use the state to restrict people with a theoretical capacity to go 100 in a 50.

> You don't get to use the state to restrict people with a theoretical capacity to go 100 in a 50.

Says who?

Re: Virginia passes law to enforce maximum vehicle speeds for repeat speeders

#82
post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I don't really consider virginia part of the south, culturally. Maybe it was different in the past but proximity to DC has rotted any of that away.

I can see parts of Virginia not feeling culturally like a lot of the rest of the south but I’m still intrigued by the use of yankee. Like is someone from Wyoming a yankee because they aren’t from the south or is it more cultural to you?

Nope, yankeedom as I see it is Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine.

There is another, semi-derisive, use in which it means any non-southerner. But that is less common and context-dependent.

Re: Virginia passes law to enforce maximum vehicle speeds for repeat speeders

#83
post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are allowed to use the state to restrict the freedom of people who are going 100 in a 50MPH zone. You don't get to use the state to restrict people with a theoretical capacity to go 100 in a 50.

> You don't get to use the state to restrict people with a theoretical capacity to go 100 in a 50. Says who?

This isn't how I believe free societies should be constructed. It's morally wrong and I really don't care to share a society where people who believe otherwise get to vote, because it's an irreconcilable values break that has no place in America. Safetyists fit much better in places like Europe.

Re: Virginia passes law to enforce maximum vehicle speeds for repeat speeders

#84
post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You don't get to use the state to restrict people with a theoretical capacity to go 100 in a 50. Says who?

This isn't how I believe free societies should be constructed. It's morally wrong and I really don't care to share a society where people who believe otherwise get to vote, because it's an irreconcilable values break that has no place in America. Safetyists fit much better in places like Europe.

And can you believe it, they even make you wear a seatbelt when driving! Downright communist.

Re: Virginia passes law to enforce maximum vehicle speeds for repeat speeders

#85
post #47
post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, required liability coverage needs to go way up.

No, draconian punishment of uninsured drivers should go way up. I am already paying a lot of money to compensate for them; I shouldn't pay more. Auto insurance is extremely expensive already.

Serious accidents routinely exceed the minimum coverage. I carry extra insurance for myself for that situation. Why should I have to do that?

Re: Virginia passes law to enforce maximum vehicle speeds for repeat speeders

#86
post #85
post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, draconian punishment of uninsured drivers should go way up. I am already paying a lot of money to compensate for them; I shouldn't pay more. Auto insurance is extremely expensive already.

Serious accidents routinely exceed the minimum coverage. I carry extra insurance for myself for that situation. Why should I have to do that?

My point is the overall cost of any level of insurance is way higher than it should be because of uninsured drivers. Maybe, if we solved that, everybody should be able to afford a higher level of coverage to better account for serious accidents.

Re: Virginia passes law to enforce maximum vehicle speeds for repeat speeders

#87
post #84
post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't how I believe free societies should be constructed. It's morally wrong and I really don't care to share a society where people who believe otherwise get to vote, because it's an irreconcilable values break that has no place in America. Safetyists fit much better in places like Europe.

And can you believe it, they even make you wear a seatbelt when driving! Downright communist.

Not communist but this is basically at odds with how we should run. It's a great shibboleth for where people's values lie. I don't think I've ever driven a car without a seatbelt. It's stupid and has no benefit. But I am deeply opposed to any government that says someone must.

This isn't something on which we can compromise or establish bipartisanship, generally, so the conflict will only continue to escalate. There's just no frame in which I can frame a society which mandates seatbelts as good or just. People like you like to use it to deride my values, purposely picking a trivial example to trivialize what I believe. But that's neither constructive nor respectful nor a rebuttal of my views. Those who wish the state to impose safetyism on them should self-segregate into maybe a few states and spare the rest of us having to group together to counteract their votes.

Ideally, the virtue of a federalist system should be that it offers choice in under what regime one elects to live. Strip every vestige of this from the federal government and ensure safetyists can promulgate their desires only at very local levels, so they can go live as they choose, where they choose, without polluting the rest of America.

Re: Virginia passes law to enforce maximum vehicle speeds for repeat speeders

#88
post #13
post #4

An interesting thing is that I've observed a lot less speeding over the years, as more cars acquire active cruise control. Correlation or causation? Who knows. I don't think enforcement has changed.

I think it's causal. The cruise control on my car is busted and I don't really feel like shelling out four figures to fix it, so I drive without. I also speed probably 10-15 over pretty often when I'm on long stretches of highway. Of course, I'm also in Texas where this is fairly common and poses less of a risk than eg in Virginia. The funny thing is I might actually be safer without it, as it's the old static-speed…

Going from static to adaptive speed control has been night and day. I never really enjoyed driving, but adaptive has made it a lot more pleasant.

Re: Virginia passes law to enforce maximum vehicle speeds for repeat speeders

#89
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The yankees' roads are all really bad. Old, narrow, sharp turns, and often crowded. I hate driving up there. By comparison, Texas we have long open stretches and up to eight lanes each way, so obviously it's less of an issue. I'd actually assume it's due to proximity to DC, which would tend to massively increase the population of "but the data say"-type technocrats.

We're talking about interstates though. And from my New Englander perspective traffic mostly self regulates without draconian speed limit enforcement, it's the slow end of the distribution that is far more scattered and worse for road safety. For surface roads, I'll take our bespoke road layout over a grid any day. Although I do share the sentiment that driving in the Northeast Megalopolis is much more suffocating th…

I really like the grids for cities. Say what you want about traffic in Houston or Dallas but, though they move tons of people, driving their is way, way better than e.g. Boston.

I don't object to bespoke layouts out in the country so much as that the "through roads" in the northeast are extremely un-fun to drive on if you have distance to cover. Probably bias from how I grew up, but when I have hundreds of miles to go, I like hopping on a nice, wide FM and opening the throttle.

Re: Virginia passes law to enforce maximum vehicle speeds for repeat speeders

#90
post #86
post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Serious accidents routinely exceed the minimum coverage. I carry extra insurance for myself for that situation. Why should I have to do that?

My point is the overall cost of any level of insurance is way higher than it should be because of uninsured drivers. Maybe, if we solved that, everybody should be able to afford a higher level of coverage to better account for serious accidents.

You could require new cars to take some kind of electric proof of insurance (and license) to operate :)
Post reply on HN