How about effective penalties? One side of this discussion repeatedly reports the general and habitual violation of posted speed limits as an argument for ... for what? The status quo? Clearly the current penalties in many if not most places aren't effective.
The same side of the discussion thinks that instead of severe penalties for holding the law in contempt a reasonable solution which respects the varying ages and situations of the different people on the highways is to make laws which work fine for young people driving sports cars, but maybe not so well for people in their mid-70's driving Buicks.
The argument seems to be that most of us at one time or another broke the speed laws, so the laws should not be enforced, and most of us were young once and had cool cars, so the guy in his 50's trailing 1500 lbs of sheep breeding stock from Charlottesville to Marengo IL behind his F250 ought to give way to the clown driving a Nissan Z-something or other 5 feet from his rear bumper. The SOB can wait, Just as soon as I finish passing this lady driving 55, I'll get over to the right, and I sure won't do it any faster because somebody in a two-seater thinks he's one of the Andrettis and I81 is the Brickyard..
Nope. Not impressed and not convinced. I have a right to use the highways my taxes paid for in vehicles legal for those highways and I have a right to do so without fear of some young idiot harming me and my property because he thinks that everyone who isn't like him should get out of his way and that the laws should be rewritten to suit him.
I'm not saying this response is right. But the argument that I should be allowed to ignore the law because so many others do strikes me as weak. And the argument that obeying the limit is morally suspect because it creates a hazard for those who don't obey the limit is downright perverse. Now I have an obligation to break the law because so may others do? Yes, it would be safer if everyone drove the same speed. So why do those who ignore the limit get off setting the speed I drive at? Let them change THEIR speed. The argument just doesn't bear examining.
I understand and share your frustration. I just don’t think that VA’s solution is anything other than an excessive fine and a horrible abuse of authority. Such abuses produce a reaction in response, usually with quite unexpected and unintended consequences.
As far as effective penalties, I’m all for it. How about mild fines for first and second offenses, and then increasing them as the number increase? Ultimately, suspend a license or take it away if someone is proven to be an uncontrollable menace. But these penalties? No, no way, they’re WAY too harsh at too early a point. The fact that one of the people interviewed specifically stated that it was a revenue-raiser was the proof - it isn’t oriented toward safety, and whatever safety benefits there may be will be purely coincidental.