By Eric Peters, Automotive Columnist

It was a small incident but it revealed something interesting. Not just the hypocrisy of Those Who Rule Us when it comes to the issue of “speeding” — and much else besides. But more deeply, we are afforded a glimpse into the unconscious sense of privilege and entitlement that operates the wheels and cogs inside the minds of these people.

South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford — he of the love junkets to South America on the taxpayer’s dime — recently got pulled over on SC Interstate 385 because a state trooper clocked his car at 85 mph. The posted maximum is 70. In many states, over 80 mph is an automatic reckless driving charge — which will cost you your license as well as affordable insurance for the next several years if you’re convicted.

At minimum, 85 mph means a big ticket for… well, anyone except one of Those Who Rule us.

But Sanford’s driver (and Sanford himself) was let go with no ticket at all. The perks of being one of Those Who Rule Us, you see.

In fact, he was barely inconvenienced. The stop itself lasted less than two minutes. Once the cop found out who was in the car, he backed off — and the governor’s car rolled away scott-free.

Here’s the video of the actual stop for your delectation:

When news of this leaked, guess who got nailed to the wall? Not Governor Sanford. Initially, the trooper who failed to write the ticket was to be “cited,” according to State Department of Public Safety DIrector Mark Keel. Eventually, the driver did, in fact, get a ticket. But only after a massive public outcry. The fact we should fix on is that the state cop immediately backed off once the governor made himself known. He, you see, may drive with impunity at high speeds on public roads. It is only “unsafe” (and ticketable) for the little people to do so.

As not One of Those Who Us, my sympathies are with the cop. A lowly functionary doesn’t ticket the state’s jefe anymore than a sergeant tells a general to drop and give him twenty. The poor cop no doubt feared for his job and whatever other dread repercussions the governor might decide to rain down upon him.

So, he let him (and his driver) go.

That’s not what aggravates here. What does aggravate is the Herman Goring-esque sense of importance and entitlement these poo-bahs radiate. Not since the Bourbons of 18th century France has a political class become so grating, unctuously arrogant. You or me or any other non-person doing 85 on the highways of South Carolina would in all likelihood be subjected to a gun-drawn felony stop and very likely, a roadside cuffing and stuffing. Probably our car would be searched for drugs. And then, impounded. We would have eventually been brought before a Torquemada-style judge and raked over the coals. After investing in a lawyer to defend us and hundred of dollars in fines and a suspended/revoked license later, we’d be “free to go.”

Free, that is, to pay jacked-up insurance premiums based on our “reckless driving” for the next three-to-five years, or however long the record remained active.

But kissy-face Sanford Man? Nothing. He hasn’t got an SCCA license and probably can’t drive as well as many of us “speeders.” But he is, after all, the governor.

Apparently, speed only kills when you’re not that.

Oh, and it bears mentioning that back in 2006, when the lieutenant governor of the state was stopped — and let go –twice for speeding, Sanford went on and on about the horror of it all. He felt “…very strongly that preferential treatment should never be a factor when enforcing the law.”

Just like those “family values,” you see.

These people are beneath contempt.

Unfortunately, they also have their boots on our necks — which means there is nothing we can do about it except take it or begin to resolve not to take it anymore.

And then, to do something about it.

What that something ought to be I cannot say. But clearly, it is time to do something. Everything is out of whack. Average people are held to one standard; the politically connected elite to another.

Those Who Rule Us need to go. Either that, or we can expect to be on the receiving end of more of the same.

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The Highway Patrol predictably denied having a ticket quota.

They said that the officer was fired for not meeting “performance standards.”  This is a common response anytime a ticket quota is mentioned in the press.

However, since the number of citations given out by an officer are at the heart of most department’s performance standards, it’s hard to tell the difference between the two.

Here’s an excerpt from the article describing the ticket quota allegations:

Christopher Maul, who spent 12 years with the FHP, says he was fired in June for not writing enough tickets.

“The only reason I can see why I was fired was I didn’t write enough tickets,” said Maul, 38, who lives in Largo.

The FHP disputes that, saying Maul was fired for failing to meet performance standards. [...]

But the number of tickets Maul wrote was frequently cited in a lengthy June memo laying out the case for his dismissal. Maul was four months short of completing a mandatory probation after leaving briefly for the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office and returning to the FHP.

Maul received a positive review earlier in June from his immediate supervisor. Later, an FHP major told Maul he was rescinding the evaluation because it did not “accurately reflect” his performance.

Maj. Ryan Burchnell noted that Maul wrote “only 63 citations, 22 warnings and eight faulty equipment notices while working 56 traffic crashes.” And he wrote only 16 citations in December, Burchnell noted.

Maul, who said he didn’t have radar in his police car for part of that period, improved his numbers as the months wore on, from 33 in January to 53 in April. Not good enough, Burchnell concluded: “Trooper Maul’s citation-issuance has been substandard.”

A captain for the area Maul patrolled sent Burchnell an e-mail saying that Maul’s supervisors believe he has “a good work ethic.” Burchnell was not swayed and demanded a new evaluation.

The head of the union representing troopers said the FHP is using Maul to set an example for other troopers.

From the way the article describes the situation, it seems clear that the head of the troopers’ union was right:

During his probation, Maul’s immediate supervisor, Sgt. Raymond Ada, concluded that Maul was meeting or exceeding expectations.

Capt. Robert French scrawled “keep up the good work” on a February review that read: “Trooper Maul is a good trooper with a lot of experience. I do not foresee him having any difficulty in completing his probationary period.”

Burchnell disagreed and set about to change Maul’s evaluations.

In an e-mail exchange, Burchnell told Capt. Urana Harris: “I am going to hold the supervisors accountable, which means you.” He added that Maul “is not cutting it.”

Unfortunately, ticket quotas — and denials of their existence — are nothing new.

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By Eric Peters, Automotive Columnist

Do you think it is ever a good idea to tie a money incentive to law enforcement of any kind? Not me. It is a guarantee of corruption and abuse. (See also: The War on Drugs.)

Let’s consider just one specific example — the use of cameras to catch (and “process”) red light violators. It’s all about “safety,” right?

Not so much. Here’s the truth:

Automated enforcement began as a completely, openly “privatized” operation, run by a private company — which explicitly, brazenly, promised local governments huge windfalls from the system.

And delivered on that promise.

The “profits” were gleefully split between the two. When this fact became common knowledge, they rejiggered it a bit to make it appear less of an obvious scam. But money is still the main motive. If that were not so, these systems would not be so focused on “revenue enhancement,” to use the favored term of the smarmy little bureaucrats who rule us.

Ask yourself how eager these state/local governments would be to turn over a law enforcement function to automation if there were no profit involved. Why are red light cameras never set up on a budget neutral, “pay as you go” basis — to cover operating costs and no more?

It is a known fact most red light running can be dealt with by properly adjusting signal timing — making sure the yellow is long enough to give people approaching the intersection time to slow and stop safely. And to allow those who can’t to clear the intersection safely before the yellow turns to red. Multiple studies have born this out. (See http://thenewspaper.com/news/02/243.asp and http://thenewspaper.com/news/26/2650.asp.)

The National Motorists Association also has a wealth of material on this subject available.

Yes, of course — a few people deliberately run red lights — and no amount of signal timing adjustment will deter them. As a motorcyclist and a motorist too, I hate these people a lot. They should be dealt with harshly. Fine and good.

However, it is equally true that most people do not deliberately run red lights — because most people are not deliberately reckless and neither want to risk being killed nor killing someone else.

Most people, in a word, are not sociopathic.

Just as most people do not drive excessively fast/beyond their skill/comfort level, either. (Though they may be “speeding” — but that doesn’t tell us anything other than the person was driving faster than a number on a sign).

And: Cameras will not stop all deliberate red light runners, either. But they will and do entrap more people who get caught in the shortened yellow intervals that are typical with camera enforcement. Yes, it’s true. When red light cameras go up, very often the yellow goes down. Signals are retimed — deliberately shortened yellows — to increase the number of violators, and thus, the amount of money the system generates. Not my opinion — an established fact. See the documents referenced above — and specifically, the court decisions where RLCs have been thrown out because of the obvious flim-flam, including deliberately cut-down yellow signal intervals.

You have to have your head up your hind quarters not to see that, to a very great extent, traffic enforcement in this country — and the laws/regulations underpinning it — are set up to extract money from people on the basis of trumped-up “violations” administered by rapacious officials whose bottom line is the bottom line …. money.

It’s not about “safety” — or “the children.” It’s about cold cash, dollars and cents. The sooner you come to grips with this fact of life, the better your mental filter will be at properly sorting whatever new law comes down the pike.

And the sooner you will begin to understand the true nature nature of The Beast.

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By Eric Peters, Automotive Columnist

It’s more likely than it’s probably ever been that you’ll get pulled over by a cop at some point in the near future.

Not only are there more penny-ante laws and violations on the books than ever, state and local governments are dealing with major cash flow problems, just like the rest of us. They can’t raise taxes directly; that would spark a revolt of the masses at this point. But they can turn loose the cops — whose ticket books and radar guns serve as a very effective means of indirect taxation.

So, first, be on the alert.

Second, be prepared. Do you know how to handle yourself during a traffic stop? How you behave can be the key factor that determines whether you can successfully beat the ticket later on — or maybe (if you’re really lucky) get off with a warning right now.

* Pull over the right way.

Yes, there is a definite right way to pull over during a traffic stop.

When the cop turns on his lights, you should immediately slow the vehicle and put your turn signal on. Then pull off the road — to a shoulder or side street — as quickly as possible. Do not stop in the middle of the road. The idea is to park your car so it’s out of the way of traffic — which makes the stop safer for the cop. Which makes him happy. Which is good policy, because aggravating the cop — or conveying the impression that you’re an addled idiot — will not help you.

Next, put the car in Park, shut down the engine, turn on the hazard blinkers and turn on the interior light (if it’s dark outside). Put both hands on the top of the steering wheel and sit quietly. Do not root around for stuff.

Again, the idea here is to make the cop feel safe by conveying the impression that you’re an Honest Joe or Jane — and not some thug.

Important: If you have a concealed handgun permit, keep it with your driver’s license (a paper clip works well). Do not reach for or produce your weapon.

When the cop comes to your window, hand him your license and your permit and tell him, “Officer, I have a concealed carry permit.” If you are carrying a weapon or have one in the vehicle, tell him exactly where it is but do not reach for it.

Usually, cops relax around CWP holders because CWP holders are by definition not criminals (having undergone state and federal background checks) and rarely cause trouble. But it’s very important to let the cop know you have the CWP before he discovers you have a gun on you.

* Be polite and cooperative but not talkative.

The cop is not your friend. Remember this. He is there to give you a ticket and anything you say can and will be used against you in court.

The cop is taking notes and trained to ask you leading and entrapping questions, such as “Do you know how fast you were going”? To which, you should reply along the lines of “I’m sure you have an opinion, officer.” Never incriminate yourself — unless you feel you did do something wrong and want to pay the fine. It’s best to keep the conversation as short, sweet — and forgettable — as possible.

If you are confrontational or sarcastic, not only will the cop remember you, he is much more motivated to see you’re convicted. If, on the other hand, you’re remembered as a nice, polite, cooperative person, the cop is more likely to not object come court time when the judge considers a reduced charge or “driving school” to nix the ticket.

* Take notes yourself.

If you are going to contest the ticket, you should be prepared to present facts in court — or have facts to give your attorney.

For example, was the speed limit sign clearly posted? If it was obscured by a leafy tree, and you can show this in court (keeping a small disposable camera with you in the car for this purpose is a smart idea) that is an objective fact that may just get you out of the ticket.

You want to record and keep track of any fact that either puts into question the offense you’ve been charged with or which serves as what they call in legal lingo a mitigating circumstance — such as the fact that you were rushing your pregnant wife to the emergency room.

At court, unless you have a driving record peppered with previous violations, you can almost always get the judge/commonwealth’s attorney to agree to a lesser charge, or even a reduced charge — or to drop the moving violation in return for agreeing to attend one of those day-long DMV driving schools many states offer.

The main thing they want is your money; the main thing you want to avoid is “points” on your driver’s record, because they can lead to hiked insurance costs for several years vs. the one-time hit of a fine.

Comments? www.ericpetersautos.com (click on “Forum”).

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By Eric Peters, Automotive Columnist

Now they’ll be fingerprinting us for jaywalking. Or “speeding.” Just about any (formerly minor) traffic violation.

Beginning in the once-fine state of Tennessee. Southerners, it appears, are becoming just as statist as the Yankee carpetbaggers they used to (rightly) despise.

Two bills have made their way through the rancid colon of the TN House and Senate, HB2220 and SB2153, respectively, that would “… authorize(s) use of fingerprints as (a) form of acknowledgement, in lieu of, or in addition to, a person’s signature for citations and certain other notices and documents.” (See http://www.capitol.tn.gov and type in the bill numbers.)

In plain language, when you get pulled over or stopped by a cop for some trivial reason such as doing 5 mph over the limit in a Radar Trap Zone, the cop — at his discretion — may compel you, the offender, to submit to being fingerprinted “in lieu of, or in addition to” your signature on the summons.

Tennessee’s tyranny is the first such action of its kind in these forcibly united States — and has aroused a popular groundswell of resentment and resistance. Understandably.

Fingerprinting starts with an “F” — because generally, the accepted practice has been that only felons, or those accused of committing felonies, get inked. Fingerprints go into a national criminal database, so that in the future it will be easier and simpler to track and identify the activities of felons.

But jaywalkers, U-turn bandits and speeders?

Hell, under TN’s new cornpone jackbootery, a person could be fingerprinted merely for spitting on the sidewalk, in violation of town ordinance Barney Fife 5, Section 3a.

It would be humorous, maybe a little bit, if it weren’t so obnoxious to common sense and civil liberties.

Comments?
www.ericpetersautos.com (click on “Forum”)

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By James Baxter, NMA President

In this land where reality and fiction are indistinguishable there is a dead legal principle that says judges and courts should not personally benefit from the results of their rulings. Obviously, there is a conflict of interest anytime a judge’s well being would be affected by his or her decision. On occasion, a judge is found guilty of taking bribes for deciding in favor of his benefactors.

But, when the conflict of interest is systemic, universal, and worth billions of dollars it is also invisible!

I’m talking about the adjudication of traffic tickets. Traffic tickets are the mother’s milk of the court system. Thousands of judges rule on traffic cases knowing full well that guilty verdicts pay their salary, fund their retirement systems, and build their courthouses.

But nobody seems to see a conflict of interest in this system? The noble judges are apparently above the temptations the rest of humanity experiences?

Here’s how a typical speeding ticket (in this case a ticket from Indiana that we paid though our Traffic Justice Program) is divvied up:

State Courts: $49.00
County Courts: $18.90
City Courts: $2.10
Law Enforcement Fee: $4.00
Jury Fee: $2.00
Highway Work Zone: $0.50 (??)
Auto Record Keeping Fee: $7.00
Document Storage Fee: $2.00
Infractional Judgments: $99.50  The fine!
Public Defense Administration Fee: $3.00
Judicial Insurance Adjustment: $1.00
Judicial Salaries Fee: $18.00:  Do you think murderers and rapists pay this fee too?
DNA Sample Processing Fee: $2.00  Very common service for traffic tickets.
Court Administration Fee: $5.00

Total Cost Of Ticket: $214.00

This should help explain why average traffic ticket recipients start out with two strikes against them when they enter traffic court. The court system just can’t afford to offer real justice. If it did it would drown in its own workload and go broke in the process.

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By Eric Peters, Automotive Columnist

Governments all over the country are looking for creative ways to increase their cashflow — without a formal tax raise. Instead of filching through everyone’s pockets via a new sales tax or jacking up the real estate assessment — actions that generate outrage among the peasantry, especially as the economy implodes — pols have figured out that they can generate a tsunami of cash simply by imposing and then enforcing traffic laws virtually all of us routinely flout, such as “speeding.”

Of course, this is an old method — but the means are entirely modern. Instead of using one Enos Straight with a radar gun — an individualized process that only allows a single cop to issue one ticket at a time — a “Terminator” like grid of automated enforcement is being erected all across the country. In theory, it could catch every speeder every time.

Huge sums are involved. For example, in the Washington, D.C. suburb of Chevy Chase, MD — a community of 2,000 people with a town budget of $4.6 million — photo enforcement has goosed ticket revenue from $8,000 a month to a quarter-million, according to Chevy Chase Village Manager Geoffrey Biddle.

In Scottsdale, AZ — one of the earliest and most aggressive deployers of automated enforcement technology — the get is close to $18 million annually.

This is serious money — and at a time when overt tax increases have become politically unthinkable in most areas, camera money is a godsend for the local (and state) politicos.

The genius of it, though, is not the money it brings in. It’s the way the public’s own good intentions are mercilessly used against it.

Everyone’s for “safe driving.” And, ipso facto, every traffic law that’s passed is naturally the very essence of “safety.” Thus, anyone who complains is — just as ipso facto — obviously in favor “unsafe driving.”

But we all know this is not so. Few of us, for example, look at a friend/family member issued a ticket for speeding in the same way we look at someone who kited a check or boosted a stereo. Yet both are against the law. True, the former is typically just a civil offense whereas the latter involve criminal charges. Nonetheless, few of us consider a person who gets caught in a radar trap a moral defective. Most of us know, deep down, that such a person has done absolutely nothing wrong at all.

Despite the “safety” hard sell, we know that when virtually everyone ignores or routinely violates a law, the law itself is probably not quite right. Just as most of us don’t steal, rape or kill — or even shoplift — so few of us drive in a manner that is genuinely dangerous. We’re neither homicidal — nor suicidal. The same common sense that keeps most of us from sticking our hands into a running blender or operating a circular saw without eye protection also keeps us behaving reasonably when behind the wheel.

That means we drive at “reasonable and prudent” speeds — most of us, most of the time. Yes, there are exceptions (and it’s these guys who need to be ticketed) but traffic surveys show, consistently, that most drivers (85 percent of us) drive within 5-10 mph of a “natural” speed on any given road. This “natural” speed is what’s conversationally referred to as  the “flow” of traffic; in traffic safety engineering circles, it’s called the 85th percentile speed.

This is the speed that is supposed to correspond to posted maximum speed limits — not in my opinion, but in the carefully calculated reasoning of traffic safety engineers. State and local governments are supposed to adhere to the 85th percentile rule (it is even mandated by law in some cases) yet in practice, posted limits are routinely set 5-10 mph below what they ought to be. What this dirty little trick does is transform the 85 percent of us who drive reasonably and prudently into “speeders” ripe for a piece of payin’ paper — and a fat fine.

If things weren’t so corrupt — that is, set up specifically and deliberately to turn almost all of us into offenders every single time we get behind the wheel — only about 10-15 percent of the drivers out there (those who drive considerably faster than the 85th percentile speed) would ever have to worry about tickets, photo-enforced or not.

Instead, it’s all of us who are in the gunsights — or rather, the camera’s sights.

And, for the most part, it’s become impossible to protest — let alone escape the fleecing. The PR organ grinds out its saccharine message of “safety, safety safety!” — with the full cooperation of the media, which dances around to the tune like monkeys at their master’s feet. The reporters know it’s BS. Even the cop who pulled you over knows it’s BS (follow him a while and just see how rigorously he obeys the posted limit). The judges recite the same old mantra; we pretend to agree — if it means dodging the “points” that come with a ticket for “speeding.”

It’s all a gigantic farce; always has been. But thanks to the efficiency of modern technology, it’s become a lot more lucrative.

The net’s closing fast, too.

It’s still possible to at least try to slip through. One web site, www.photoenforced.com posts a continuously updated list of known photo-enforcement locations. But a public cowed into submission by its own support for anything with “safety” in the tag line — and a government ravenous for “revenue” — bodes for an unhappy future, indeed.

We’re gonna miss old Enos and his radar gun. The odds were much more even back then… .

Comments?
www.ericpetersautos.com (click on “Forum”).

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• How To Fight A Michigan Speeding Ticket
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A new study to be published in next month’s Journal of Law and Economics finds statistical evidence that local governments use traffic citations to make up for revenue shortfalls. So as the economy tanks, motorists may be more likely to see red and blue in the rearview.

Study authors Thomas Garrett, assistant vice president at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, and Gary Wagner from the University of Arkansas Little Rock, examined 14 years of revenue and traffic citation data from counties in North Carolina. They found that the number of traffic citations issued goes up the year following a revenue drop.

“Specifically, a one percentage point decrease in last year’s local government revenue results in roughly a 0.32 percentage point increase in the number of traffic tickets in the following year,” Garrett and Wagner write.

That number may sound small, but it’s a statistically significant correlation, the authors say.

The study controlled for demographic and economic differences in the sample, which contained data from 96 North Carolina counties collected from 1990 to 2003.

You can read the rest of the article here.

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But motorists often lose their cases because they aren’t aware of a recently enacted state law that opens the door for challenges of many speeding tickets, [NMA Michigan Activist Steve] Purdy said.

Michigan Public Act 85, which took effect in November 2006, changed the way municipalities may set speed limits. It gave them three choices:

• Communities may set speed limits based on the frequency of driveways and cross streets on a particular stretch of road.
• If a community conducts an engineering and traffic study, it may post a speed limit by using the 85th percentile of free-flowing traffic, meaning the speed at which 85 percent of drivers are traveling during the traffic study.
• If communities don’t use either of those two methods, a 55 mph limit applies by default, except in platted subdivisions and in business districts, said Lt. Gary Megge of the Michigan State Police Traffic Service Section.

“There are many roads in Michigan where the speed limit isn’t in compliance with the law,” said Megge, who travels the state helping communities set proper speed limits. “A lot of speed limits are set artificially low.”

And if the speed limit isn’t in compliance with the state regulations, any ticket written for violating it is invalid.

For help with fighting speeding tickets in other states, check out the resources available to National Motorists Association members by clicking here.

A few of the other articles in the Detroit News series are linked below:

Cops’ jobs tied to ticket totals

Traffic fines help fill city coffers

Image Credit

• How Should Speed Limits Be Set?
• Ohio Cashes In On Freeway With Artificially Low Speed Limit
• Do Speeding Tickets Deter Drivers From Speeding?
• Brand New Speed Trap Exchange Website Launched!
• 7 Ways To Shut Down A Speed Trap

By Eric Peters, Automotive Columnist

For years I have been arguing that the most objective — and perhaps, definitive — measure of a driver’s ability to drive safely is whether he or she has been involved in an at-fault accident.

Speeding tickets, for example, don’t really tell us whether a person is a safe/competent driver. They just tell us that person was caught driving faster than a number posted on a sign — which may be illegal, but by no means necessarily unsafe.

For example, it’s today perfectly legal to drive 65 or 70 mph on most highways. But during the “Drive 55″ era, such speeds were illegal. Did it suddenly become safe to drive at 65 or 70 on those same roads? Of course not. The law changed, that’s all.

Also: Skill varies. Some drivers are perfectly able to handle a car at 80 or 90 mph as well or better than some drivers can handle the same car at 60 mph. But the system considers the former as an “unsafe driver” simply by dint of his faster driving.

The point being, faster drivers aren’t necessarily unsafe drivers.

Insurance industry stats bear this out, incidentally. Faster drivers actually tend to have fewer accidents than slow-pokes. Also, while it’s true that driving faster can increase the amount of damage/severity of injury if there’s a crash, it does not follow that the risk of having a crash increases simply because “x” is traveling faster than “y.”

Unfortunately, our dumbed down speed limits force everyone to drive at the level of the least competent. We also do nothing meaningful to deal with those marginal/iffy drivers. They can have multiple at-fault accidents — and their license will be in less peril than the driver who has never had an at-fault accident but who has a couple “reckless driving” tickets — which in many states are issued as a matter of course for merely driving faster than 20 mph over the posted limit. (During the “Drive 55″ era, one could get a “reckless driving” cite for doing 76 mph on the freeway. Today the exact same speed is either legal — or a minor ticket.)

It’s nonsense.

Rather than fixate on all these “technical fouls” such as driving faster than a number posted on a sign, why not focus on those drivers who have actually given definitive proof their judgment or skill (or both) is lacking? Driving 80-something mph in a modern car on a modern Interstate highway is only “reckless” in the BS language of  the insurance cartels and state/local authorities who make money on this scam.

However, if a driver blows through a red light and strikes another vehicle that had the right of way, that is incontrovertible evidence of “reckless driving.”

Yet our system focus to an overbearing extent on statutory “speeding” enforcement, with driving faster than a number on a sign the main thing the safety lobby drones on about endlessly about — and the primary offense traffic cops spend their time dealing with.

Objectively dangerous conduct behind the wheel — the driver who wanders across the double yellow while gabbling away on her cell; the guy riding inches off the bumper of the car ahead of him — is routinely ignored by traffic cops.

Until it causes an accident.

And even then, the consequences are generally less serious than they would be if the driver had been nabbed for doing 80-something — even if no metal was crunched and no one was hurt. A minor ticket might be issued as a result of one car plowing into the rear end of another that was stopped at a light. It is by no means certain. But have the misfortune to drive by a radar trap and it’s a sure bet you’ll be going home with a piece of payin’ paper in your pocket.

Are the roads any safer as a result? Or have the coffers of the state just gotten a little fatter?

The sensible alternative ought to be this:

Whenever a driver is involved in an at-fault accident, he should be issued a ticket for unsafe driving (specifics to be defined based on the particulars of each case) and required to undergo a DMV evaluation that includes a re-test of basic skills and knowledge. And that means real test — not the sad little pro forma drill they do in most states today. In other words, a test that is actually possible to fail — and which requires the person to demonstrate higher than Forrest Gumpian levels of knowledge and skill. An actual road test on actual roads should be part of the deal, too — along with a physical check-up of vision and so on.

I’m not talking race car driver skill levels — or insisting upon visual acuity good enough to make it as an airline pilot. But enough skill — and good enough vision — to be a competent driver and less of a risk to others out there, as well as oneself.

We need to weed out the barely marginal (and sub-marginal) drivers out there; often, these are people who never speed — and so fly under the radar.

Until they cause an accident, of course. At that point, red flags should be hoisted.

If a driver who has already been involved in one at-fault accident has another at-fault accident within a 5 year period, their driving privileges should be suspended until they have taken and passed (at their expense) a comprehensive driver training course that intensively focuses on basic skills/competence.

If they cannot pass, they cannot drive.

A third at fault accident in any five year period should result in permanent revocation of driving privileges for at least five years.

Some people should just take the bus.

But it’ll never happen because of the money and power derived from the current system — and because this country is afflicted with an entitlement mentality and poisoned by the notion that everyone’s “equal.”

Which of course, they’re not.

Comments?
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