Posted on 03/13/2013 6:43:26 AM PDT by Michael.SF.
A Maryland woman has gotten a very unusual speeding ticket for driving a mere two miles under the speed limit on Interstate 95.
Local NBC affiliate News4 reports that the woman, who asked to keep her name anonymous, was driving 63 miles per hour in a 65-mph zone.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
And the relatives of the family of four that was killed will just have to get over it.
That approach won’t work at all once you get West of the Mormon Temple ~ and in Virginia it’s just so wrong.......... we have a saying when we see somebody doing something totally bizarre ‘look, he has a Maryland plate’ ~
Worst sin you can commit on Washington area highways is to make them clog up more than normal.
We are talking about a multi-lane interstate highway ~ not a country lane.
Just as they have to when you are driving 55 and cause an accident.
Or, they could sue. Or, if the accident is clearly negligent driving, and not simply an accident, you could be charged with manslaughter, just as you could be if you negligently cause an accident and kill someone driving 55.
My point was that we could change the ticketing process so that tickets wouldn’t be issued for driving fast itself, but for actual issues with your driving, like if you actually lose control (which you can do at any speed, and you should always drive at a speed you can handle).
You could still charge people with reckless driving, if they are driving faster than conditions would allow to be safe, or if you are weaving in and out of traffic, or following too close, or cutting people off.
And yes, in my America, more people would likely be killed or injured. But the people who were punished would be the people who caused the deaths and injuries. We wouldn’t punish 20 million people for “driving too fast” because 20,000 of them if they drove that fast would injure or kill someone.
Freedom means risk. And it’s not like people aren’t already driving these high speeds. The speed limit is rarely enforced en masse, and what happens instead is highly selective enforcement, treating different people in far different ways based on whim or circumstance.
You can drive the speed limit and be passed by every car on the road, you can drive 9mph over and hope that the cops are all following that rule, you can drive the speed of every other car and hope the cops aren’t waiting for the out-of-state license plate, or the car with the NRA bumper sticker.
Or, you can set the speed limits based on what a reasonably trained driver could manage, and tell people who aren’t good drivers to drive slower and stay to the right.
You know, the Europeans seem to do OK with occasional stretches of road where they all can drive at the speed they are comfortable with.
I love that section of the beltway, all twisty and turny, it’s like real driving; so long as there aren’t a lot of idiots on the road drifting out of their lanes all the time.
As for bizarre driving, I haven’t been everywhere, but I’ll say the strangest drivers I’ve seen were in florida. I can’t tell you how many times in my brief trips there I’ve seen people make right turns or left turns across 3 lanes of traffic. It’s like they are oblivious to the world, drive in any lane they want, and then when they reach their turn, they just wing it.
I happen to like Virginia drivers more than Maryland (I grew up in Maryland, and live in Virginia now). But I do tend to avoid the rush-hour nightmare that is DC and it’s outskirts. I hate mindless traffic jambs.
And of course, more and more of Virginia is just like that; I-95 south to Richmond is nearly impassable until exit 143 for several important hours every day. (I drive south a lot — in the fall, I have to drive down every friday for a job at Kings Dominion, and now my daughter is at VCU so we drive there a lot as well).
My last ticket was actually for “following too closely”.
I was driving back from a business trip at night, and there wasn’t much traffic, and I was in no hurry, so I set my cruise control right at the speed limit, and drove mostly in the right lane.
We were passing some truck, and we moved to the left lane, including another truck. I kept getting closer and closer, but he didn’t move back over to the right. I almost went right to go around, but then two other cars flew past us all on the right. I eventually hit my brakes, and slowly decelerated, and then he moved over and I passed him and kept driving.
A couple miles later, a cop pulled me over, and I couldn’t figure out why, and he accused me of drafting the truck. I wanted to complain that he should have gone after the guys who passed on the right, but this was near Williamsburg, and there’s no fighting tickets, it’s a money thing for them.
If you did that in Oregon they could give you a ticket (thank God!)
The left lane if for passing, once you’ve passed, get over to the right lane.
To sit there going slower than the flow of traffic is selfish, and dangerous, causing dozens of cars to have to go around you.
Ed
They’re selfish thugs...oblivious, or in-your-face, ignoring the people behind them and forcing everyone to dangerously drive around them on the slow lane.
The law in Oregon says to let faster cars go by, and move to the right.
Ed
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