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Virginia passes law to enforce maximum vehicle speeds for repeat speeders

fastcompany.com

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

#141

Post by cormorant »

mensetmanusman wrote: post #7

Just remember to disable the features when nukes land. https://www.theautopian.com/if-you-ever-see-this-speed-sign-...

The full relevant book was: "A guide for highway traffic regulation in an emergency". https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=ien.35556021306899&se...

The Maintain Top Safe Speed thing was envisioned for transiting across fallout-contaminated areas in the weeks and months afterwards. It prescribes there would be cops stationed at the ends of such routes, limiting the flow of cars entering so that those within the stretch would not be congested and could go fast.

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

#142

Post by barbazoo »

2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #109
knowitnone wrote: post #96

while this is not a bad idea, why not prevent them from driving at all and massive punishments

Because if you don't have a car in most of the US then you're fucked.

Then move somewhere they don’t need a car is what I would tell them. I’d rather live in the sky but I can’t fly so I have to live on the ground. They can’t drive so they have to live somewhere where they don’t need a car.

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

#143

Post by aftbit »

Xylakant wrote: post #132
BriggyDwiggs42 wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By speeding, and nothing else? This shit is so silly man.

Speeding is widely accepted, because it seems such a low level offense. 50km/h instead of 30, it’s only 20 more. But the physics are against you - the energy of the vehicle grows quadratic with the speed. At 30, you need about 18 meters to come to a stop. So you can prevent an accident if a person appears about 20 meters from your hood. At 50, you’ll run them over with a remaining speed of more than 30km/h. Speeding…

If a person appears 20 meters from my hood while I'm on the interstate, they're toast, whether I'm going 100 km/h or 150. Surely the unpredictable can happen at any moment with other cars, but I find follow distance more important than speed. If you're bumper to bumper at 100 km/h, you're going to have a worse time than if you give 10 cars space at 150 km/h.

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

#144

Post by vkou »

mjevans wrote: post #116
vkou wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A clear outlier case. Everyone speeds a little when they think it's safe, but some people speed excessively . This is about making a remedy available to judges, as an alternative to other, less effective, or more draconic (or both less effective and more draconic), forms of punishment. And judges deal with outlier cases every single day . They job is to look at and weigh all the special cases and considerations, pr…

At least in WA State there's not-reckless speeding, which is something like 1-14 mph over the posted limit (I argue it should be more like a _percent_ E.G. going 40 mph in a 25 is WAY worse than going 75 on a 60 mph freeway). Then there's 'reckless endangerment' tier which is +15 over the limit. The example of that guy going 100 in a 40 is beyond even that. It's SO far outside of the range of permissible I don't even…

> My argument is that tracking, inhibitors, etc should be too far for the other cases,

I'm sure the judge is more qualified than you are to make this determination.

But if you disagree, let me pose a simple question:

In a situation when a judge would suspend someone's license.

Why are you opposed to giving them this as an alternative? (If they refuse to comply with this, the judge would happily offer them the suspension instead.)

How is it any of your business to prevent someone from choosing this as a lesser punishment? All the harms you've listed are harms to the defendant, but for most defendants, they pale in comparison to the harm of a suspension.

Ankle bracelet monitors have all the same concerns that you've listed, yet you'd be hard pressed to find someone who would prefer sitting in prison over being ordered by a court to wear one. If the lesser punishment serves the desires of the prosecution and the courts, and the defendant agrees to it, why do either of them need your consent?

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

#145

Post by cormorant »

knowitnone wrote: post #96

while this is not a bad idea, why not prevent them from driving at all and massive punishments

I mean, they already sentence people to jail for speeding, as in this amusing case of an automotive journalist. https://www.jalopnik.com/never-speed-in-virginia-lessons-fro...

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

#146

Post by aftbit »

usefulcat wrote: post #125
dataflow wrote: post #44

But... so many people are practically forced to exceed the limit just to keep up with the rest of the traffic that's already blowing past the limit. If you force a few people to go at the limit, that's frustrating for everyone behind them in the best case at best... and I imagine possibly even more dangerous in the worst case, no? If they're going to enforce then shouldn't they try to enforce it as widely as they can…

No. No one is 'forced' to exceed the limit, not remotely, and there are plenty of drivers who, for a variety of reasons, drive at or under the speed limit (many large trucks, for example). On a highway, driving slow in the left lane is not good, but doing 65 in a 70 in the right lane is perfectly fine.

You need to be glued to the right lane though, or be willing to speed while passing even slower traffic, or you will definitely mess up the flow.

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

#147

Post by [deleted] »

barbazoo wrote: post #142
2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because if you don't have a car in most of the US then you're fucked.

Then move somewhere they don’t need a car is what I would tell them. I’d rather live in the sky but I can’t fly so I have to live on the ground. They can’t drive so they have to live somewhere where they don’t need a car.

[deleted]

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

#149

Post by AnthonyMouse »

zo1 wrote: post #126
usefulcat wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because you can always count on people to have sufficient self awareness to rationally evaluate the pros and cons of their decisions before the fact, especially those who have demonstrated a repeated willingness to drive recklessly.

How is this different from actual criminals that we lock up behind bars? Sometimes till the remainder of their lives. These aren't children, and the quicker we start treating them as adults, the quicker they'll learn to obey the laws before the real and life-changing consequences kick in.

Speed limits in the US have a particular problem. The speed limits are set too close to the speed people are expected to drive.

If the typical traffic speed on some highway is 65 MPH and someone is driving 76 MPH, that... isn't much different. It's not some night and day distinction where you can objectively say that 65 is perfectly safe and 76 is recklessly dangerous. The variation in stopping distance between those speeds is less than it is between one car and another from the same speed.

The normal way you resolve this sort of thing in the law is by setting a legal limit which is objectively reckless, e.g. by setting the speed limit to 125 MPH. Then you aren't actually expected to drive 124 MPH, you're still expected to drive around 65 MPH, but we can reasonably say that if you're caught doing 130 there you're deserving of some penalties.

However, that doesn't generate fine revenue because then hardly anyone actually drives that fast. What generates fine revenue is setting the speed limit there to 55 MPH even while the median traffic speed is still 65 MPH, and then doing only enough enforcement to make sure people don't follow the law. You maximize revenue when everyone is "speeding" all the time and all you have to do is post a patrol car there once in a while and rake in the dough. But that also makes it unjust to impose harsh penalties for it because then receiving a citation is a matter of bad luck rather than doing something outside the bounds of reasonable and expected behavior.

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

#150

Post by sokoloff »

esseph wrote: post #119
bradleybuda wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which gives you a really strong incentive to not put other people’s lives at risk by driving recklessly.

Ah yes, the person that makes the mistake of conflating random laws and arbitrary numbers for political reasons with some sort of lack of risk awareness / mitigation. The 85% rule is and has always been bullshit.

Yet we’d be better off if we at least adhered to the 85th percentile speed limit process rather than having the 85th percentile speed be 75mph and the posted limit be 55mph.
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