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The New Gotcha Game of Variable Speed Limits
American Spectator ^ | 9/18/17 | Eric Peters

Posted on 09/18/2017 1:46:52 PM PDT by LibWhacker

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To: Army Air Corps

21 posted on 09/18/2017 2:11:09 PM PDT by Red Badger (Road Rage lasts 5 minutes. Road Rash lasts 5 months!.....................)
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To: OttawaFreeper

It was called “wasting a finite resource” and no points on your record.


22 posted on 09/18/2017 2:11:34 PM PDT by \/\/ayne (I regret that I have but one subscription cancellation notice to give to my local newspaper.)
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To: LibWhacker

But if it saves one child’s life....


23 posted on 09/18/2017 2:11:34 PM PDT by RonnG ( v)
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To: LibWhacker

I would strongly recommend that these ‘variable’ signs be yanked out of the ground with a chain every time they are erected.


24 posted on 09/18/2017 2:12:40 PM PDT by zeugma (I live in the present due to the constraints of the Space-Time Continuum. —Hank Green)
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To: central_va

I have left hard earned dollars in small speed trap towns in Georgia, Florida, North Carolina and South Carolina.

They don’t need no electronic signs or even a radar.

All they need is an out-of-state tag on your car.................


25 posted on 09/18/2017 2:14:05 PM PDT by Red Badger (Road Rage lasts 5 minutes. Road Rash lasts 5 months!.....................)
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To: Red Badger

Yep, the License Plate Lottery.


26 posted on 09/18/2017 2:17:37 PM PDT by Army Air Corps (Four Fried Chickens and a Coke)
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To: LibWhacker
Unless such signs are shown to be changed in response to bad weather (ice...strong thunderstorm) I think these signs can be easily challenged.Probably not in state courts but in Federal.
27 posted on 09/18/2017 2:18:01 PM PDT by Gay State Conservative (ObamaCare Works For Those Who Don't.)
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To: LibWhacker

Between the exit off I-95 and my house, there are at least four different speed limits. The whole distance is maybe five miles. Maybe.


28 posted on 09/18/2017 2:18:01 PM PDT by TBP (Progressives lack compassion and tolerance. Only their self-aggrandizement matters.)
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To: LibWhacker

Just don’t speed.

I did the math once. In mos of your daily trips you will never go more than a half hour. Even in a half hour trip you stop and go.

So driving like a maniac your AVERAGE speed rarely increases by few MPH.

Even in the BEST CASE where you have a straight shot with no stops, you can only increase your speed by enough to ride safely in traffic.

So... in the best possible case, you drive 60 MPH instead of 40 for a straight line of 20 miles.

When you drive at 40 you get there in a half hour. If you drive 60 you get there in 20 minutes. In the absolute best possible case you only save 10 minutes.

And every short drive scenario plays out worse than that.

With stops ans starts and turns and everything you rarely save more than 5 minutes.

Just leave 5 minutes earlier for everything and you save gas, don’t cause traffic problems, don’t get a ticket EVER and don’t risk your life.


29 posted on 09/18/2017 2:21:57 PM PDT by Mr. K (***THERE IS NO CONSEQUENCE OF REPEALING OBAMACARE THAT IS WORSE THAN OBAMACARE ITSELF***)
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To: Dr. Sivana

That’s why you can never eliminate poverty as long as poverty is defined as the lowest quintile of income.


30 posted on 09/18/2017 2:28:50 PM PDT by reg45 (Barack 0bama: Gone but not forgiven.)
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To: Mr. K

The same logic applied to long trips would have you doing 10 or 20 mph over the limit.


31 posted on 09/18/2017 2:30:16 PM PDT by E.Allen
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To: LibWhacker

“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.”

This is worse than the mere “variable speed limit” issue. Worse because (using federal purse strings on “federal transportation funds”) it interjects FEDERAL LAW into areas of transportation where any federal ruling is not just unnecessary but an unwarranted extension of federal power.

The “variable speed limit” issue can tested in the courts, but getting the federal government OUT of the business of “setting standards” where no “national standard” is needed will require a Congress elected to deconstruct the Liberal/Progressive deep state and its tentacles into EVERYTHING.


32 posted on 09/18/2017 2:31:50 PM PDT by Wuli
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To: LibWhacker

Jerry Brown and his Merry Band of Latino Communists will love it.


33 posted on 09/18/2017 2:44:50 PM PDT by Pelham (Liberate California. Deport Mexico Now)
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To: LibWhacker; All

Dash-cam cameras...video streamed/stored in as many places as possible.


34 posted on 09/18/2017 2:52:00 PM PDT by i_robot73 ("A man chooses. A slave obeys." - Andrew Ryan)
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To: LibWhacker
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.

They have variable speed limits on the autobahn in Germany - works fine there. But all kinds of things work there that don't work here - people there cruise in the right lane and use the left to pass slower traffic, no one passes on the right, trucks stay in the right lane - every good driving habit you can forget about seeing on American roads, where some guy driving 60 will be in the left lane, pacing the guy doing 60 in the right lane.
35 posted on 09/18/2017 2:56:07 PM PDT by AnotherUnixGeek
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To: LibWhacker
As a licensed professional engineer who deals with roadway design and operations in my work, this subject is near and dear to my heart. The author raises some good points, but I think he may be stretching a bit here when he focuses on the revenue-enhancing aspect of variable speed limits.

For one thing, every jurisdiction where I've worked that has considered adopting these variable speed limits was dealing with a problem of high-speed crashes on stretches of roadway where the roadway geometry could safely accommodate a vehicle traveling at 100 mph, but where the road was heavily congested during peak travel periods in the daytime.

The author doesn't even see the contradiction right there in his own narrative:

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.

The whole point of a variable speed limit is that on major roads in most metropolitan areas, the 85th percentile speed changes by time of day. It might be safe to drive 75 mph in the middle of the day or in the dead of night, but reckless and dangerous to drive at that speed during rush hour.

36 posted on 09/18/2017 2:57:29 PM PDT by Alberta's Child ("I was elected to represent the citizens of Pittsburgh, not Paris." -- President Trump, 6/1/2017)
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To: Wuli

You can’t have it both ways. If the Federal government has no legitimate constitutional authority to regulate interstate highways, then states have no business holding their hands out, begging for Federal matching funds for major highway projects on the grounds that they are assets of national importance.


37 posted on 09/18/2017 3:06:29 PM PDT by Alberta's Child ("I was elected to represent the citizens of Pittsburgh, not Paris." -- President Trump, 6/1/2017)
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To: zeugma

>I would strongly recommend that these ‘variable’ signs be yanked out of the ground with a chain every time they are erected.

Accidental fire damage might be more effective.


38 posted on 09/18/2017 3:10:39 PM PDT by JohnyBoy (We should forgive communists, but not before they are hanged.)
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To: Alberta's Child

I am not asking to have it both ways and nothing I said implied I was.

On the other hand, there is no such as “federal” dollars and EVERY federal fuel tax dollar that federal agencies have was dragged, by taxation, from every local village, town, city, county state and region, so other than some equitable apportion of it, why should it have any other federal strings to it. It shouldn’t. Either get rid of the unnecessary strings (as well as the non-transportation expenditures from the federal “transportation ‘trust fund’ “), or qet rid of the federal fuel taxes completely and leave the money in the states.

It is only state corruption and lack of state spending priorities that creates the fiction that federal transportation funds are a “gift” from the federal government. Every dime came from legalized theft FROM THE STATES & the sole purpose of it IS federal meddling.


39 posted on 09/18/2017 3:17:06 PM PDT by Wuli
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To: Mr. K

Drive from El Paso to Texarkana averaging 80 miles an hour, and it will take you just over 10 hours. Drive it at your 40 miles an hour, and it will take over 20 hours. And you will be so tired after 20 hours of driving, you’ll probably have a wreck.


40 posted on 09/18/2017 3:22:39 PM PDT by PAR35
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