Posted on 07/26/2021 5:59:03 AM PDT by karpov
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While vehicular deaths began to decrease in the 1970s with more use of seat belts, improved safety features and air bags, lower speed limits and stricter law enforcement, the death rate has been increasing since 2016. In 2020, despite lockdowns across the country, traffic fatalities spiked to their highest levels since 2007, with 38,680 deaths nationwide, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Texting, drug use and drinking are contributing factors.
But today something else is happening. If you’ve ventured out over the past year, especially in New York, you will see cars running stoplights, speed limits ignored, motor scooters barreling down sidewalks and dodging pedestrians, and stop signs treated as a mere suggestion.
Another new phenomenon New Yorkers now see almost nightly: packs of between 50 to 100 motorcyclists charging down avenues, doing wheelies and sending pedestrians scurrying out of their way, while subjecting everyone to noise levels that are extreme even by city standards.
My daughter calls me a curmudgeon, but I tell her there are obvious and logical reasons why traffic laws were developed and enforced over the past century. But after Covid and the unrest over the George Floyd killing, traffic laws, of all things, have become political. This isn’t merely stupid; it’s dangerous.
Last year New York’s Attorney General Letitia James suggested the city’s police department no longer make traffic stops for minor infractions because they can lead to police shootings. Cops on the street tell me these messages filtered down and their bosses have told them to back off. So even with fewer cars on the roads during the 2020 lockdown, 243 people were killed in traffic accidents in New York City, the deadliest year since Mayor Bill de Blasio introduced his grand plan for safer streets in 2014.
(Excerpt) Read more at wsj.com ...
I'm teaching my eldest son to drive. To state the obvious, there's a reason to license drivers and suspend licenses of unsafe drivers.
Some nutballs in my neighborhood convinced our village board to erect stop signs to slow people down. No public hearing, no traffic study, not actual usefulness other than satisfying their safetyism.
I don’t stop for those signs. Sometimes I don’t even brake. And I drive faster than the posted limits pretty much all the time.
So I can personally attest to this article’s accuracy.
In this dystopian America, suspending driver licenses is no deterrent. The lawless need no license.
Folks are running red lights like crazy and getting worse in NC...and I don’t mean like questionable running - I mean like the other way has been green for 5+ seconds and still running.
The social breakdown didn’t start with stop signs. In some sectors the thin veneer of civilization that covered barbarism is mostly gone. That would be in the inner cities of Portland, Seattle, Minneapolis, Newark, and others.
Last year’s “riots” were a total breakdown of the civil order in areas ruled by democrats. Civilization was not present in those areas. Civilization didn’t return after the riots were over - no one was prosecuted.
It can happen again at the drop of a hat, or when the race-industry leaders give the word.
I saw exactly that just last night in downtown Philadelphia.
Drivers on highways last year were routinely driving at speeds 90 and above with records set in California for citations driving over 100MPH.
Demonicrats are using illegal aliens, those with low impulse control, and the teachers unions to enhance social breakdown and its effects.
Saturday I was repeatedly seeing cars running red lights from a dead stop making LEFT turns into on coming traffic.
4 or 5 incidents of this.
1. Governments at all levels have embarked on this idiotic crusade to increase pedestrian travel even in places where vehicle-pedestrian safety is compromised.
2. Same goes for bicyclists. I am a licensed professional engineer, and I will never sign off on a roadway design with a marked bicycle lane that has no barrier or other physical separation between the vehicular travel lane and the bicycle lane. Putting both of these users on the same road is a disaster waiting to happen.
3. Traffic volumes were definitely down in 2020, but traffic fatalities were up because average speeds increased with less congestion on the roads.
Social breakdown didn’t start with violating traffic laws. It just manifests itself continuing. We were a nation of laws, part of a social contract to voluntarily obey common sense laws intended to maintain social order. But this concept has been under severe assault for many years now since lawbreakers have been treated differently depending on party affiliation, skin color, location, illegal or legal residency, wealth, and other factors. Disparate law enforcement leads to disrespect of laws generally and the traffic issues are simply evidence that the fish has already rotted at the head and is headed to the tail.
I see the same in Minnesotastan. It is rampant and it is everywhere I have driven to/from. people going 30mph in parking lots, blowing through stop signs, regularly driving well over the posted speed limit, not using turn signals, weaving in and out of traffic, etc.
Malarkey. Where there is no punishment, there is no law. And if your leaders are not punishment . . . not a single indictment . . .
My first exposure to widespread red light running was in Columbus, OH in the early ‘90s. I grew up in central PA and went to college in Columbus. I quickly learned that you better wait a few seconds when the light turned green and really look both ways before taking off because there was always a few not abiding.
I am back in central PA and near as I can tell a whole bunch moved here from Columbus. But I will say the number of red lights is 10 fold around my area compared to 30 years ago. Some lights are smart and well timed while others are just dreadful. Years ago most lights would go into flash mode late at night when traffic was sparse. Now you can hit a red light in the middle of the night with no other vehicles around that may take +90 seconds to change. I do slow roll those; just doing my part to conserve energy and lessen my carbon footprint ;)
We aren’t a nation of laws.
We’re a nation of lawyers.
“Social Breakdown Starts With Skipping a Stop Sign...”
Hah! I’ve said that for decades.
A Mom rolls thru stop signs at 5mph on a regular basis. Junior is in the back seat and he observes Mom doing this. Junior grows up and proceeds to blow thru stop signs at 20mph because...after all...Mom showed him traffic laws weren’t important. Junior is eventually t-boned & killed by a semi after Junior runs one stop sign too many. Mom can’t understand it and starts a campaign to have flashing red lights installed at every stop sign in the state. After all...if only one child’s life is saved...it will be worth it she says.
I once thought a rolling stop at a stop sign was sufficient.
It is not. If you do not know why a full stop is required for safety, please find out before you get killed, or your grandchild riding as your passenger gets killed.
“But today something else is happening. If you’ve ventured out over the past year, especially in New York, you will see cars running stoplights, speed limits ignored, motor scooters barreling down sidewalks and dodging pedestrians, and stop signs treated as a mere suggestion.”
That’s exactly what I’m seeing in my once quiet town since the Californians and New Yorkers moved in.
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