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Re: Repeal of the National Speed Limit Law
In article <3s9ndl$dq1@news.service.uci.edu>,
Balaji Ramanathan <raman@ganymede.its.uci.edu> wrote:
>Hi all,
> So, the senate has repealed the 55mph law and the house
>is expected to follow. However, I haven't read anything positive
>about it in any newspaper. Every newspaper has paragraph after
>paragraph of lies and damn lies from "consumer safety" advocates
>who bitch and moan about the "carnage that will result".
>
> As a transportation engineer, I know that there have been
>no credible studies that actually link speed limits to highway
>fatalities (actually speed does not kill, it is speed differential
>that kills). And there must be organizations out there like
>the National Motorists Association that know this too. Why aren't they
>being given any air time in the media. Ultmiately, with all this
>brain washing going on, the federal government might decontrol the
>freeways, but state governments may get worse.
>
> Any opinions or comments?
>
If the 55 MPH Speed Limit is repealed, a large number of speeding tickets
would cease to be written. That means less and less revenue for California,
which has several highways known to be cash cows. One that comes
to mind is the infamous stretch of 101 in the King City area.
The 20th of each month also happens to be a target date for lookout
of speeders, from south of Gilroy to the San Luis Obispo/Monterey County line.
A law exists on the books in which counties must raise the same amount
of revenue from tickets every year as was raised in 1992. The legislators
felt that if they did not have such a law, public safety statutes would
not be enforced. That would make traffic cops and CHP lax and lazy,
according to them and thus more people would get hurt or killed on the roads.
If the county did not raise the same amount of money, it would be penalized
by the state for the difference.
That is a quota by any other name, . . . .
28 of CA's 58 counties did not meet their amounts this year, some were off
by close to $1,000,000. The primary reason cited was that drunk driving
arrests and tickets have gone down significantly since 1992.
So my guess is that certain agencies here in California would be strongly
opposed to seeing the speed limit repealed. Otherwise, where else could
they turn to for more money? In the case of Alameda County, some programs
related to education were cut to make up part of their missing balance.
You can only cut so much.
--
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gmandel@netcom.com Questor the Elf lives!
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