Classical Values :: Cracking down on cowards who avoid having their lives saved

December 02, 2009

Cracking down on cowards who avoid having their lives saved

One of the things I most like about Michigan is that it's a relatively car-friendly state. The speed limit is 70, which means that you can comfortably do 75 without having to worry about the cops.

This touches on one of my pet annoyances about life on the East Coast -- and I recently saw it again during my trip to the speed trap state of Illinois. You go 75 (which nearly everyone does, and which you have to do to keep up with traffic), and you're vulnerable, because sooner or later, some damnable uniformed revenue agent (euphemistically called a "Highway Patrol Officer") will pull you over and ticket you. Often the bastards use unmarked cars, so there's no way to rely on the rear view mirror to avoid them.

It is beyond dispute that the primary purpose of these unmarked cars in speed traps is purely to raise revenue, but what really fries me (and what insults my intelligence) is the claim that they are protecting the public. As if it's "dangerous" to go 75 when everyone else is going 75 on highways designed to be safe at much greater speeds. They are preying on ordinary people whose only crime is trying to get from point A to point B. Maybe they're going to work, or maybe they're going to visit relatives. Traveling is stressful, and IMHO, preying on travelers (by lying in wait so you can extort money under threat of official force) is about as low as you can get. I don't know how these revenue officers can live with themselves. I could not do that for a living. I would rank them even lower than trial lawyers, and I consider the IRS more honest, for at least the latter don't make the dishonest claim that they're protecting the public.

Anyway, I saw a typical example of this dishonest mentality in a news item about harried drivers attempting to use iPhone technology to inform each other of the location of speed traps and traffic cameras. Washington DC's Chief of Police argues that predatory tactics by police are "saving lives," and that it is "cowardly" to attempt to avoid them:

Area drivers looking to outwit police speed traps and traffic cameras are using an iPhone application and other global positioning system devices that pinpoint the location of the cameras.

That has irked D.C. police chief Cathy Lanier, who promised her officers would pick up their game to counteract the devices, which can also help drivers dodge sobriety checkpoints.

"I think that's the whole point of this program," she told The Examiner. "It's designed to circumvent law enforcement -- law enforcement that is designed specifically to save lives."

The new technology streams to iPhones and global positioning system devices, sounding off an alarm as drivers approach speed or red-light cameras.

Lanier said the technology is a "cowardly tactic" and "people who overly rely on those and break the law anyway are going to get caught" in one way or another.

The greater D.C. area has 290 red-light and speed cameras -- comprising nearly 10 percent of all traffic cameras in the U.S., according to estimates by a camera-tracking database called the POI Factory.

Far from being "cowardly," these motorists are only trying to get to where they want to go under very stressful conditions, and the state is doing everything it can to make it more difficult. If anyone is being cowardly, it is those who set up and run speed traps and traffic cameras that lie in wait and operate through stealth to catch unsuspecting travelers for the sole purpose of taking their money -- with the power of the state behind them. And on top of that, not only do they lie about the purpose of their cowardly activities, but they have the unmitigated gall to suggest that people trying to protect themselves against such villainy are the cowards. (It's about as logical as calling someone a coward for avoiding a bad neighborhood at 2:00 a.m.)

And lest anyone doubt that revenue is what it's all about, look at the numbers:

Photo radar tickets generated nearly $1 billion in revenues for D.C. during fiscal years 2005 to 2008.

In the current fiscal year, Montgomery County expects to make $29 million from its red light and speed cameras.

Forgive my skepticism, but I just don't think that sounds like "law enforcement that is designed specifically to save lives." (Unless the money is going directly to fund emergency care hospitals or medical research, which I doubt.)

I think all that money could have been put to better use by leaving it with the citizens it was stolen from. Instead, it will most likely be spent to figure out new ways to "sen[d] hither more swarms of Officers to harass our People, and eat out their substance."

posted by Eric on 12.02.09 at 12:04 PM

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Comments

Avoid Mass like the plague then.

I was pulled over once on Route 90 doing 68 in a 55 with NH tags.
I was in the right lane being passed by Mass drivers when he nailed me.

They also sit at NH fireworks places and pull over out of state drivers going home through Mass and fine them for fireworks and take them. You see news stories in NH about it ever 4th of July.
Not Mass drivers, but Connecticut, NY and Rhode Island drivers. The news stories are kinda funny if you like to see people bleeped out while talking about Taxachussetts.

They nail out of staters for the privilege of going through their overtaxed state.

Veeshir · December 2, 2009 12:11 PM

Yes, and the Pennsylvania state police stake out borders to arrest Pennsylvanians who buy alcohol and cigarettes in nearby states to avoid the taxes. I'm sure they claim that they're making PA safer, too!

Eric Scheie · December 2, 2009 12:15 PM

I go to the Chicago area many times a year. Every other trip I get pulled over within minutes of entering Illinois but have yet to get a ticket.

The only difference between me and the other drivers are these two things... I am going slower than they are, and I have out of state plates.

Patrick in Des Moines · December 2, 2009 02:07 PM

And that is the odd part. If the goal was safety they would love that people are getting warnings via the iPhone. After all the goal is slow people down, right?

The only time I've gotten nailed, so far, is in Montgomery County, MD. The light definitely had a shorter yellow. Now in TN, the "safety" officials are protesting plans to mandate an additional second on the yellow. All in the name of preventing accident, of course. But a longer yellow does reduce accidents but it also reduces revenue. A few cities have been found to programming a shorter than legal yellow. Oddly, only on lights with cameras.

JKB · December 2, 2009 08:32 PM

Another frequent I-94 traveler here-- your post is so very true. For me, it was being pulled over in Porter County, Indiana for going 70 in a ten mile stretch of road marked 55 for no good reason.

As you mentioned it wouldn't be so bad if I didn't get the condescending talking-to by the cop about how "it's not safe to go 55" on this particular random stretch of road.

I suppose they say things like that to sleep at night; I'm not sure whether they believe it themselves, but I'll be damned if I'm going to help them feel good about what they do.

Phil T. B. · December 2, 2009 09:25 PM

Ah, the Mass Pike, where someone passed me on the shoulder when there was plenty of space to do it legally. The Mass Pike has had the rep for generations of most driving over the limit. Years ago a neighbor got a ticket on the Pike. The reaction of her brothers: "You got a ticket? On the Mass Pike?"

Discriminating against out of state drivers- not a surprise.

From my driving experience, from Boston to LA to Florida and places in between, the worst drivers in the country are to be found inside Route 128, the ring road around Boston.

Gringo · December 3, 2009 02:45 PM

That reminded me of a buddy who got a ticket for either 56 or 57 in a 55MPH zone.
He was on 95 in Georgia driving a car with NY tags in the 80s. "Wayen we sayuh fiddy five, we me-uhn fiddy five"
I was happy when I moved to VA.
Nobody hates VA, everybody hates NY.

Even though driving a NY car in the South is liberating. People expect you to drive like an icehole, it's rude not to do so.

Veeshir · December 3, 2009 02:58 PM

I drive from FL to DC every couple of months. I tend to do 10% over the limit, when traffic permits, and don't have any problem with cops, whether I'm passing them, they're passing me, or they're off on the side of the road.

John Burgess · December 4, 2009 09:57 AM

Actually, if the cops were truly interested in the public safety, they would welcome the use of this app. It has the salutary effect of slowing people down at the locations where said devices are located.

Jardinero1 · December 4, 2009 11:55 AM