National
Motorists
Association

FCC Conspires To Protect Ticket Camera Corporation

By James Baxter, NMA President The Federal Communications Commission, in the dying days of the Republican administration, has added yet another reason to clear the decks in Washington, D.C. and start all over with a new cast of characters. In a duplicitous, ...

Vengeance, Bad Data Make For Terrible DUI/DWI Policy

By James Baxter, NMA President This editorial by James Baxter is a response to a five part series on drunk driving in Wisconsin that appeared in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel in October. The Journel-Sentinel series on “excessive drinking,” primarily related to drunk driving, ...

Red-Light Cameras Do Not Reduce Right Angle Crashes

By Jim Baxter, NMA President It seems that the most implausible myths are the hardest ones to kill off. Other than within the institutional capital of the Flat Earth Society, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, it is generally accepted that red ...

Daytime Running Lights: No Statistically Significant Effect On Safety

By James Baxter, NMA President You’re not likely to see any bold headlines, and CNN will not be interviewing Bush administration DOT officials, but the seven year long saga of trying to prove that Daytime Running Lights improve highway safety is ...

Funding Our Highways

By James Baxter, NMA President The Bush administration just released another version of their plan to shift responsibility for highway funding to the “users.” This isn’t a bad idea, except that’s exactly the situation that has largely existed for most of ...

The Effect Of A National Speed Limit On Traffic Safety & Fuel Prices

By James Baxter, NMA President In 1982 Congress authorized the National Academy of Science to do a study that documented the “benefits” of the 55 MPH National Maximum Speed Limit (NMSL). I, as the President of the organization most critical of the ...

The Traveling Public Can Go Elsewhere

By James Baxter, NMA President According to public opinion, there are 57,000 speed traps in the United States. That’s how many speed traps have been listed by individuals on SpeedTrap.org, a website sponsored by the NMA. That averages out to 1140 ...

Tired Of High Gas Prices? Don’t Ask The Government For Help

By James Baxter, NMA President I don’t like the idea of $4 gasoline, I doubt that anyone does. However, I like gas lines, closed gas stations, and no gasoline at all, even less. That’s what we are likely to end up ...

Reinstating "55," Are They Crazy?!

By James Baxter, NMA President The same forces that resisted the use of fire many thousands of years ago are still with us, only now they are advocating the return of the national maximum speed limit of 55 miles per hour. Anyone ...

Drinking Improves Highway Safety (Apparently)

By Jim Baxter, NMA President A new federal study from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (part of the US Dept. of Health and Human services) just confirmed that states with the highest levels of self-reported drinking and ...