Aug 20, 2004
Speeding
I got a speeding ticket two weeks ago. Heading home to Alabama from Ohio, a Tennessee state trooper got me on radar six miles from the Alabama border going 87 in a 70. The cost of the ticket: $172. Ten bucks per mile over the speed limit!
Now, maybe going 87 sounds fast to you, but consider: it was a clear day, a big highway (I–65), and there was little traffic; moreover, just about every car made in the last ten years, including mine, can cruise at 80 or 90 (or more) in comfort and ease. So I wasn’t endangering anyone, wasn’t a menace, and wasn’t driving recklessly or under the influence.
So why should I pay $172 to the courthouse in podunk Tennessee? The trooper who got me was hiding on the back side of an overpass, just over a hill. So there was no way to see him until you had passed him--by which time he already got you on radar. I asked him why he had been sitting there like that. “Just to catch speeders?” I asked. “Yep,” he replied. After giving me the ticket, he added the obligatory, “We’re here to keep the highways safe. Now you drive safely.” His grin while uttering that last sentence conveyed his real meaning: thanks for the money, sucker, and come back real soon.
To me it is all but self-evident that speeding tickets issued on highways are for one purpose only: income. They don’t make the highways safer, and they are not issued in the hopes of “making highways safer.” There are lots of ways to prove this, but perhaps these two considertions will suffice. First, there have been numerous studies showing that lower posted speed limits do not, in fact, lead to fewer driver fatalities. (These studies are easy to find; here’s one; here’s an interesting site discussing Canadian data.) Second, if the troopers really wanted drivers to slow down, why not announce that speeding tickets will cost, say, $10,000? Then no one would speed. But then, of course, the states would not get their revenue—which explains why they don’t do that.
It’s the same mentality with the sinisterly symbiotic relationship between states and smoking. They all officially want everyone to stop smoking, but they are far too dependent on the revenue generated by taxes on sales of tobacco to want it to actually stop. Otherwise, again, why not put, say, a $500 tax on every pack of cigarettes? Cigarette sales would plummet to virtually nil, which means states would get virtually no revenue from their sales—which, again, explains why they don’t do that.
Most people drive 10–15 miles over the speed limit. Police know this, and that’s part of the reason they want speed limits where they are and not higher: to protect their profits, in other words. It strikes me as an extortion racket like any other. State troopers across the nation are constantly buying state-of-the-art speed-detection devices, photo cameras, even using traffic helicopters and other aerial means of checking your speed—all to issue more tickets. By all means, stop reckless drivers, people driving under the influence, and so on. But if revenue is what you want, do the honest thing and lobby to get taxes raised. At least that way we citizens might have some say. I for one would tell the cops to go back to fighting actual crime. That might not be as fun (or easy) as getting those dastardly speeders, but it is, after all, what cops are supposed to be doing.
Now, maybe going 87 sounds fast to you, but consider: it was a clear day, a big highway (I–65), and there was little traffic; moreover, just about every car made in the last ten years, including mine, can cruise at 80 or 90 (or more) in comfort and ease. So I wasn’t endangering anyone, wasn’t a menace, and wasn’t driving recklessly or under the influence.
So why should I pay $172 to the courthouse in podunk Tennessee? The trooper who got me was hiding on the back side of an overpass, just over a hill. So there was no way to see him until you had passed him--by which time he already got you on radar. I asked him why he had been sitting there like that. “Just to catch speeders?” I asked. “Yep,” he replied. After giving me the ticket, he added the obligatory, “We’re here to keep the highways safe. Now you drive safely.” His grin while uttering that last sentence conveyed his real meaning: thanks for the money, sucker, and come back real soon.
To me it is all but self-evident that speeding tickets issued on highways are for one purpose only: income. They don’t make the highways safer, and they are not issued in the hopes of “making highways safer.” There are lots of ways to prove this, but perhaps these two considertions will suffice. First, there have been numerous studies showing that lower posted speed limits do not, in fact, lead to fewer driver fatalities. (These studies are easy to find; here’s one; here’s an interesting site discussing Canadian data.) Second, if the troopers really wanted drivers to slow down, why not announce that speeding tickets will cost, say, $10,000? Then no one would speed. But then, of course, the states would not get their revenue—which explains why they don’t do that.
It’s the same mentality with the sinisterly symbiotic relationship between states and smoking. They all officially want everyone to stop smoking, but they are far too dependent on the revenue generated by taxes on sales of tobacco to want it to actually stop. Otherwise, again, why not put, say, a $500 tax on every pack of cigarettes? Cigarette sales would plummet to virtually nil, which means states would get virtually no revenue from their sales—which, again, explains why they don’t do that.
Most people drive 10–15 miles over the speed limit. Police know this, and that’s part of the reason they want speed limits where they are and not higher: to protect their profits, in other words. It strikes me as an extortion racket like any other. State troopers across the nation are constantly buying state-of-the-art speed-detection devices, photo cameras, even using traffic helicopters and other aerial means of checking your speed—all to issue more tickets. By all means, stop reckless drivers, people driving under the influence, and so on. But if revenue is what you want, do the honest thing and lobby to get taxes raised. At least that way we citizens might have some say. I for one would tell the cops to go back to fighting actual crime. That might not be as fun (or easy) as getting those dastardly speeders, but it is, after all, what cops are supposed to be doing.