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Virginia police routinely use secret GPS pings to track people’s cell phones

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Re: Virginia police routinely use secret GPS pings to track people’s cell phones

#211

Post by casion »

woodruffw wrote: post #88
casion wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This kind of absolute thinking is not helpful. The US is a HUGE place. Each location has different driving conditions, types of roads, driving habits etc... Affluence also factors in significantly both on a community level and personal level. Driving 80mph through a small town with significant environmental debris on the roads where everyone is driving trucks from the 60s? That should be a felony. Driving 80mph on a…

> but my car going 10mph over is SIGNIFICANTLY less dangerous to the public than that hoopty going the speed limit To the driving public, specifically. Pedestrians and cyclists will still be goop on your windshield 50 feet into your 100 foot braking.

That was my point. There's A LOT less distance covered by one car than the other, and the speed in that time as well.

An old pickup trick will still be going 35mph at 100ft. I will be completely stopped.

The severity of injury at 80ft for the two is quite different as well.

Of course... I'd never be driving at 60mph if there was a chance of pedestrians. However, the 30-0 difference is even more staggering between older mass market vehicles and modern sportscars.

Re: Virginia police routinely use secret GPS pings to track people’s cell phones

#212

Post by Wistar »

cryptonector wrote: post #107
eganist wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Virginia as a whole has some pretty absurdly pro police laws, at least re: driving. The lesser of either 20 over the speed limit or any speed over ~80~ 85 miles an hour (thanks jmisavage) in Virginia is a misdemeanor, and at least one auto journalist has been jailed in Virginia. https://jalopnik.com/never-speed-in-virginia-lessons-from-my... It's also the only state to prohibit radar detectors.

I thought Connecticut also prohibited radar detectors.

Apparently not.

"• Under federal law, the use of radar or laser speed detectors is illegal in all commercial vehicles over 10,000 pounds.

• Radar detectors are illegal to use in any vehicle in the District of Columbia.

• Radar detectors are illegal to use in any vehicle in the state of Virginia.

• Radar detectors are illegal to use in any vehicle while on any military installation."

https://k40.com/are-radar-detectors-illegal/

Re: Virginia police routinely use secret GPS pings to track people’s cell phones

#213

Post by et-al »

neither_color wrote: post #177
worik wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Eh, I don't think speed limits really should exist in any context. If you want people to go slow, design the roads for slower driving, don't just impose arbitrary limits. In the realm of ego orientated commenting, this one really stands out. I do not want to put my life in your unregulated hands. I want you regulated to hell and back when you operate a tonne of steel at thirty metres per second heading in my genera…

Are you familiar with the autobahn? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autobahn Parts of highway with unrestricted speed are not only possible, they're not particularly dangerous either.

Except in Germany cars need to undergo an roadworthiness inspection every 24 months and the driving test is much more strict there. If you have a pulse, you can get a license in America.

Re: Virginia police routinely use secret GPS pings to track people’s cell phones

#214

Post by casion »

verve_rat wrote: post #103
casion wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This kind of absolute thinking is not helpful. The US is a HUGE place. Each location has different driving conditions, types of roads, driving habits etc... Affluence also factors in significantly both on a community level and personal level. Driving 80mph through a small town with significant environmental debris on the roads where everyone is driving trucks from the 60s? That should be a felony. Driving 80mph on a…

You are making an argument for different places having different speed limits. Yes places should match their limits to the local conditions, but people should still get in trouble for breaking the law.

The person I responded to only talked about punishments for "these speeds", and that is why I responded specifically to begin a discussion about the nuance of speed limits across areas.

There should be punishments for exceeding reasonable limits. There should not be punishments for "these speeds" as they exist in Virgina compared to another location. Heck, even just across virginia it doesn't make sense to have a single set of speed limits.

Re: Virginia police routinely use secret GPS pings to track people’s cell phones

#215

Post by klyrs »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #96
oneplane wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since when is a speed limit not a rule/law but a 'feeling' for a 'natural' speed? That doesn't make a lot of sense to me. That essentially just escalates as everyones 'naturally' speeds up as a herd and then the whole point of having rules is moot.

Your common sense is wrong here. If you replace speed limits with "go a safe speed" then people don't go faster indefinitely, they'll find a speed that depends on road design. It doesn't escalate, and it's only notably faster than the speed limit when something has gone wrong with the road planning.

As we're sitting calmly, reasoning about safety, sure. But when the rubber meets the road, you get problems. People learning how to drive don't know the limits of their vehicles; hope you like dead teenagers. Then, you've got somebody in a hurry to get someplace, and their cost/benefit analysis says going an extra 30mph is totally worth the 2 minutes it will shave off their trip.

Re: Virginia police routinely use secret GPS pings to track people’s cell phones

#216

Post by klyrs »

dictateawayyyee wrote: post #64
mdoms wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I've been dinged exactly twice for speeding Not to be a know-all but why not stick to the speed limit?

Because it is very dangerous to drive at the speed limit on a 55-65mph interstate. You'll get 18-wheelers harassing you, even if you stick to the slow lane and don't mind paying extra attention to the on-ramps every mile. And those semi trucks almost never get pulled over; their job is hard enough.

Funny, I've run that line in front of a judge, challenging a ticket for 45 in a 35 that feels like 50 should be safe. He said "That's the most lethal road in the city. Next time, turn up your radio and ignore the honking." I paid full price.

Re: Virginia police routinely use secret GPS pings to track people’s cell phones

#217

Post by idiotsecant »

throwaway0a5e wrote: post #204
worik wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Eh, I don't think speed limits really should exist in any context. If you want people to go slow, design the roads for slower driving, don't just impose arbitrary limits. In the realm of ego orientated commenting, this one really stands out. I do not want to put my life in your unregulated hands. I want you regulated to hell and back when you operate a tonne of steel at thirty metres per second heading in my genera…

>In the realm of ego orientated commenting, this one really stands out. >I do not want to put my life in your unregulated hands. It takes an impressive amount of cognitive dissonance to insult him and then drivel about "putting your life in unregulated hands" when the regulation in question is speed limits, a type of regulation to which compliance is low to the point of it almost being comical. If the regulation were…

The whole subject of this thread is someone going 93 in a 55. I guarantee 93 is not some kind of everyman median speed on that road. This is actually a pretty good example where someone was doing something unsafe and big bad spooky regulation stopped them.

Re: Virginia police routinely use secret GPS pings to track people’s cell phones

#218

Post by [deleted] »

salawat wrote: post #117
ghaff wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't remember what the exact number was (maybe 75mph) but I had a rental for a business trip out west somewhere--maybe Arizona--and it turned out the car had a governor set to whatever the number was--which at the time was presumably significantly over a lot of speed limits but was right at the speed limit where I was driving. It was very annoying as the car would suddenly drop the throttle and slow down. Only tim…

There is a gentleman's agreement between many manufacturers of street legal cars to produce vehicles that will not accelerate to faster than 120-130mph unless some special conditions or limits are met. Been that way for at least a decade.

[deleted]

Re: Virginia police routinely use secret GPS pings to track people’s cell phones

#219

Post by hobs »

shadowgovt wrote: post #152
xwdv wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I regularly drive at speeds in excess of 100mph when highways are empty and waze shows no police. What would be the fate of a person caught at those speeds in Virginia?

In Virginia? Death. But it will be enforced by the velocity squared proportionality of kinetic energy and chronically underfunded highway maintenance coupled with old highways, not the police.

That's the part I chuckle at - what do you think your braking distance is at 100MPH? Most places do NOT have roads that are conducive to this as a regular practice.

Re: Virginia police routinely use secret GPS pings to track people’s cell phones

#220

Post by Dylan16807 »

jfk13 wrote: post #182
alistairSH wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t think anybody is arguing speed limits should be abolished. At least not in any general sense. But, it’s plain enough to see that speed limits on some roads are wrong. I-495 in VA is a prime example. It’s posted at 55mph and traffic regularly flows faster (or slower, during rush hour). It really needs variable limits based on traffic volume instead of a dumb 55.

Dylan16807's comment about > If you replace speed limits with "go a safe speed"... sounded to me like a suggestion that speed limits could be abolished in favour of a "use your judgement" rule, which I don't think is a sensible idea.

It wasn't.
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