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Re: Repeal of the National Speed Limit Law



In article <3t0ofj$m4s@newsbf02.news.aol.com> aaprrb@aol.com (AAPR RB) writes:
>>So it's time for
>>the traffic engineers, and not the insurance industry or any other
>>vested interest, to set the speed limits.
>
>> -- Chuck Fry, member, National Motorists Association
>
>The National Motorists Association sounds like a vested interest to me. 
>Nice contradiction, but I won't hold that against you. 
>
>Just to clear a few things up since some people (mostly NMA members by
>chance) have been wildly misinterpriting my statements.
>
[snip, snip]
>
>
>The California Department of Motor Vehicals conducted a study to determine
>the effects of suspending the licenses of habitual speeders. They stopped
>the suspension of licenses to a control group of people, while continued
>the enforcement with the rest of the habitual speeders for a number of
>months. The study was discontinued after public outrage that the
>non-suspended speeders were shown to be killing themselves and innocent
                        ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ 
>people (motorists, passengers and pedestrians) at a greater than normal
>rate. (Orange County Register)
>

An a resident of Orange County,  I figure I'd shed some light on this:

Some kid who had accumulated a ton of speeding tickets got in a high speed 
accident and killed someone here in Orange County in one hell of an accident.

When the papers got wind of his driving record and the
conditions under which he kept driving (the aforementioned experiment)
they went _NUTS_ (this was pre OJ trial, you understand...) and trumpeted
this CRAZY EXPERIMENT all over the papers and news.  Subsequently, the
DMV was forced by "public opinion" (ie: media frenzy) to cancel it.
In no way did the experiment results support the statement underlined above.


>A published journal article showed that owners of radar detectors were
>MORE likely to get speeding tickets than non-owners. This is primarily due
>to the effect of radar detector owners are a self selected group of people
>who habitually speed.
>

Maybe this is because we're up to here with selective enforcement and 
financial coercion by corrupt politican and perhaps radar detector 
owners are more likely to be free thinkers who don't give a shit about
some jack ass (oh boy...) politican telling them how to run their lives.  
Of course, this has nothing to do with speed vs. accidents.

>
>That should give you some quick items to disprove as opinions of bored
>scientists.
>

Hey, I'm a scientist too!  A prostituted one, 'cause phyziks don't pay
the mortgage.  And I speed.  ("Officer, I was doing research....")

>I haven't mentioned this before but will now. I am not oppsed to a raised
>speed limit being passed by the govt. In fact I am slightly for it.
>However, I'm also pretty sure that many states won't change their speed
>limits even if they were given control of them. If they did, only in
>select (probably rural) areas.
>

And in Orange County, I hope the assinine Board of Supervisors, (the ones 
that crafted our recent financial debacle) don't get the idea of 
_lowering_ the speed limit to 45 for non residents so they can bilk mo'
money....

Ay,Ay, Ay!  watch your wallet.

tony





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