Posted on 09/18/2017 1:46:52 PM PDT by LibWhacker
Since when is the law supposed to be fungible?
Even better — from a certain point-of-view — than a radar trap based on an under-posted speed limit is a radar trap with a changing speed limit. One that can be dumbed-down at random and with no prior notice, at the whim of the same government workers who enforce the limits and profit from that enforcement.
It’s called Variable Speed Limits and the Feds — through the Department of Transportation — are not only encouraging the states to adopt them, they are bribing them to adopt them.
Cue Dr. Evil voice — one billion dollars mulcted from taxpayers has been earmarked to mulct taxpayers a second time via “pilot” VSL programs — and at least nine states (New Jersey — naturally — but also Ohio, Wyoming, Oregon, Utah, Florida, Minnesota, Washington and Georgia) are already deploying VSL.
You may have already seen Variable Limits in action. Instead of the usual metal sign with whatever the number chosen at random happened to be at the time the sign was put up silk-screened permanently on it, an electronic sign — with a display that can be changed, literally, at the touch of a button.
At 4:30 p.m., the sign reads — as an example — 75 MPH. But at 4:33 p.m. (and just after you drove past it) the Oz who controls the sign decides the new speed limit shall be 65 MPH. Blink. Just like that, your moment-ago legal rate of travel has become illegal “speeding” — and not only are you subject to a ticket you are more likely to get a ticket because — as far as you know — you aren’t “speeding” and so why worry about that cop up ahead pointing his radar gun at you?
This gets into interesting turf.
The first is the element of intent, formerly a necessary thing to establish culpability; the idea that a person violated the law on purpose.
But in order for this to be a viable moral concept, the law has to be knowable. A law that is changeable is unknowable. It is — effectively — no law at all. It is the codified whim of whomever has the power to punish people for violating laws that are fundamentally unintelligible.
Kind of like tax law already is. If they want your money, they’ll find some justification to take your money. It’s not about “the law.” It’s about who has power — and is willing to use it.
The second thing has to do with the way speed limits are posted — or rather, are supposed to be posted.
What’s supposed to happen before a speed limit is posted is a traffic study. Monitors set up that observe and record the free-flow speed of traffic on a given stretch of road. The posted limit is supposed to be based on the free-flow speed of 85 percent of the traffic observed — the 85th percentile speed — so that most traffic isn’t ”speeding.”
The idea being that most people naturally drive at reasonable speeds and that speed limits should parallel the organic flow of traffic.
That actually is the law.
It’s called the Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices (“uniform” italicized to emphasize uniformity — that a thing is consistent, the same), issued by the U.S. Department of Transportation to “… establish national standards for all traffic control devices, including road markings, highway signs and traffic signals.”
States and counties and cities and towns are supposed to use the MUTCD to set speed limits in accordance with the 85th percentile rule but that runs counter to the collection of revenue via “speeding” tickets, which is a major racket for states and counties and cities and towns all across the country.
Some towns and counties and even cities — Washington, D.C. is one — notoriously derive a shockingly large percentage of their annual budgets via roving road taxation; they police for profit. Which you’d think would register with people as a problematic conflict of interest, as regards their interests.
It’s remarkable that it — generally — does not.
Laws that are clearly designed to separate them from their money by dint of legislatively putting eight out of ten and usually more like nine out of ten people into the category of “violator” — by dint of limits set purposely below reasonable speeds, let alone the 85th percentile speed.
This Variable Speed Limit thing will net that tenth person. It will open up a whole new revenue stream by making it possible to issue “speeding” tickets at will to any driver — unless we all drive well below whatever the limit-for-the-moment happens to be. If the electronic sign says 65, drive 55 — in order to be within the safe zone (as far as being a target of the road tax) when Oz pushes the button and the limit drops to 55.
Now imagine Variable Speed Limits tied in with automated speed enforcement — the camera systems already in place in many states that don’t even require an armed government worker to do any work to separate you from your cash.
You unknowingly transgress the just-changed limit by 10 MPH and are duly processed by the speed camera a mile past the sign. A week or so later, you get an extortion note in the mail.
Pay up, chump.
Most of these automated ticket spewers are not subject to the once-mandatory rules of evidence, either. That is, it’s no longer the burden of the government to prove you did something but rather your burden to prove — to the satisfaction (usually, not) of an “administrative” bureaucrat that you did not.
All of this is already reality in the UK — the source waters for many of our policing for profit (and police state) woes.
As far as what can be done?
Just as it’s very sound policy to have a really good tax lawyer on retainer to deal with the IRS, you might want to acquire a really good radar detector. With speed limits changing at the whim of Oz, you might want to know where his flying monkeys might be lurking.
Or not. That's why Ohio insisted on the Federal government agreeing to build the road as a condition for them to join the Union. And even if the "east coast bankers" were willing to float bonds with tolls to finance such a project, this would have put Ohio and every other future frontier (at the time) state at a disadvantage against their Atlantic seaboard counterparts. The Federal government had already taken on responsibility for operating and maintaining the roads through the former Thirteen Colonies under its constitutional authority over "post roads" (which had been constructed prior to the American Revolution), so a scenario where commerce could flow on "free" north-south roads between the original thirteen states, but would be subject to tolls on new east-west roads across the Appalachians, didn't make any sense at the time.
Or they wouldn't build the projects at all -- even if they were projects of national significance.
Perfect case in point: the Alameda Corridor initiative in southern California, along a busy rail corridor that connects the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach to the interior of California. Something like 80% of the cargo moving through these two major ports is destined for points in the U.S. that are hundreds and thousands of miles away. The upgrades along this route involved both public and private partners (eliminating grade crossings where public streets crossed the railroads), and were aimed at improving the throughput of the rail system between California and the rest of the U.S.
If it were up to California alone to fund this whole thing, it would never get done. California would simply have plenty of better things to do with their fuel tax revenues than to improve the flow of freight through LA/Long Beach to Midwestern rail hubs like Chicago and Kansas City.
You see variations of this story repeated all over the country ... which is why major transportation projects often meet overlapping local, regional and national needs.
It's not a question of what Jefferson "said" ... it's a question of what he DID. Do you think he completed the Louisiana Purchase and sent Lewis and Clark on their merry way to map that vast territory just so the U.S. could step back and watch the British settle it?
“Or they wouldn’t build the projects at all”
Well OMG that would be their democratic choice, wouldn’t it.
“If it were up to California alone to fund this whole thing, it would never get done. California would simply have plenty of better things to do with their fuel tax revenues than to improve the flow of freight through LA/Long Beach to Midwestern rail hubs like Chicago and Kansas City.”
More B.S. Doing it is 100% in California’s interest, alone because were they not to do it the imports going to their ports would shrink, costing THEM economic benefits and jobs. Everyone else in the country WOULD get their imported goods, just not from California ports. The buyers across the country would care less about protecting California’s ports. California would compete with Texas, which, would, as a state competing with California, fund rails of its own from its ports to the midwest, and hubs for east & west routing from Oklahoma.
That's the whole point of having a national policy on transportation infrastructure ... to avoid that very scenario.
It’s not B.S. at all. California had done some very interesting economic studies over the years, and they determined that the jobs and economic activity at those ports simply weren’t worth the adverse impacts of all the congestion, diesel emissions, etc. In a large city, a major port facility is simply not the highest and best use of waterfront real estate at all.
“Or not. That’s why Ohio insisted on the Federal government agreeing to build the road as a condition for them to join the Union. And even if the “east coast bankers” were willing to float bonds with tolls to finance such a project, this would have put Ohio and every other future frontier (at the time) state at a disadvantage against their Atlantic seaboard counterparts.”
More nonsense. The only reason the politicians step in is (a) not ‘cause something wouldn’t get done, but (b) the politicians want in on the credit, and (c) the bankers and crony-capitalists are flattering the politicians with the myth that “they are needed” to (d) save their own profits and (e) get the taxpayers to take all the risk. Without that whole charade, if it wasn’t done, then most likely it wasn’t needed after all or some real capitalists would see the reward and take all the reward by doing it themselves.
Dude ... that all took place in 1806, not 2006.
“It’s not B.S. at all. California had done some very interesting economic studies over the years, and they determined that the jobs and economic activity at those ports simply weren’t worth the adverse impacts of all the congestion, diesel emissions, etc. In a large city, a major port facility is simply not the highest and best use of waterfront real estate at all.”
So the federal government had no business saving those ports for a state that didn’t want them anyway. Like I said, the post business would have gone to other west coast ports and Texas. Taxpayers all across the country had no stake in doing it FOR California. The imports would have come in, but to California’s benefit.
“That’s fine. Then be prepared for the day when Montana, Wyoming and the Dakotas make a democratic choice to become Canadian provinces”
WOW The myths you weave. Transportation funding and secession are not anywhere on any same page, now or ever. And besides, Wyoming and the Dakotas are even less interested that you are in all the federal funds wasted on transportation projects that benefit them not.
Anecdotal example: an FFL in Idaho Falls had just acquired a new NFA firearm and wanted deliver it to an FFL in Pocatello. The Bannock Tribal police set up a roadblock in highway 19 and I-15 to prevent him from making the trip. They eventually relented and allowed him to pass. No explanation for the cause of that pissing match, but the tribal police did have jurisdiction on I-15 where it passes through the Shoshone-Bannock Reservation.
typical of your federal money is needed for everything projects
http://www.foxandhoundsdaily.com/2017/06/alameda-corridor-ponzi-scheme/
I was in Europe in the late ‘70s. There were places where the more capable cars were allowed to go a lot faster than the beater boxes. The deal in the article seems to be designed to extort money from citizens...
It’s even better than that.
Where I live they put these on a main freeway loop.
Evidently they put them up without checking the laws as the law only allows the speed to change every two miles (IIRC - been a long time since I’ve looked) but I know it’s not the every .25 miles they have the signs...
What’s really stupid about it is that they drop the speed during rush hour and raise it when the freeway is empty. When in reality - during those times, it drops and rises AUTOMATICALLY...
The reality is that studies have shown speed limits will set themselves based on conditions. That’s actually how they are determined. They survey the traffic speeds for a period of time and the limit is set near the 85th percentile - because 15% of drivers will always drive faster than the “limit” set by the other 85%. Which means left alone, traffic would self-regulate.
Speed limits set by government are for one thing: Revenue generation.
Especially in Georgia where the smaller jurisdictions don’t have real courts for traffic.
They have “kangaroo courts” where the arresting officer is the prosecutor.
My first experience with this was hilarious as I asked the judge if the “Prosecuting Officer” (his term when I asked where the prosecutor was) had a law degree and was a member of the Bar. He replied that the officer was an “Officer of the Court”. To which I replied no, your honor, the officer is a member of the Executive Branch - the bailiff is an Officer of the Court.
To which he replied: You can take your case to state court where a judge and prosecutor will hear it.
No thanks. If you do that, they can actually put you in jail for speeding.
I-77 in Virginia. The speed limit changes with conditions like fog.
I was hauled before a “Justice of the Peace” at two AM and fined for 40 mph in a 35 zone in a south Georgia town that had one red light. Luckily I had $50 cash on me..................I swear the Dukes of Hazzard must have been based on this town..............
Does Ludowici ring a bell?
Yep. Right near the Florida border...................
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