| Author |
Message |
Matt O'Toole
Guest
|
 Posted:
Tue Nov 30, 2004 1:17 pm Post subject:
Re: Orange county, speed limit reduced? |
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Peter Bozz wrote:
| Quote: | California ALWAYS doubles the fines in Construction Zones,
especially on the freeways and other regional routes. They may not
double the fines for work on city streets, but they will for work on
county roads.
|
This is standard practice around the US. CA fines are probably the highest
though.
| Quote: | Just for the fun of it, I'm interested in how much the fines are in
California (or the States for that matter). Here in the Netherlands, I
got fined for going 13 mph over the speed limit. Usual fine is EUR 90,
but since it was a construction zone (something I had failed to
notice, on account of there being no equipment, workers, or any
additional road signs to underscore that fact), the fine was raised
to EUR 145. (It wasn't DOUBLED, I admit. Lucky me.)
How does that reflect the amount you have to pay in the States or the
UK?
|
It's been a long time since I got a speeding ticket, but IIRC it's about twice
that in CA -- maybe $300 -- for a similar ticket. Double that of course in a
construction zone.
| Quote: | Oh, yeah, we don't even have a points system for our licenses. Pay up
and be on your way. Great for the individual offender, useless for
improving safety on the roads.
|
Well, I guess it does nothing to discourage repeat offenders.
We can avoid points on our license by going to traffic school. You can only do
it once every couple of years, though. If you get another ticket within a year,
you're stuck with the point. Most people do it to avoid higher insurance rates
that may (or may not) come with the points. It depends on the insurance
company.
Matt O.
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Peter Bozz
Guest
|
| Posted:
Tue Nov 30, 2004 2:08 pm Post subject:
Re: Orange county, speed limit reduced? |
|
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| Quote: | Just for the fun of it, I'm interested in how much the fines are in
California (or the States for that matter). Here in the Netherlands, I
got fined for going 13 mph over the speed limit. Usual fine is EUR 90,
but since it was a construction zone (something I had failed to
notice, on account of there being no equipment, workers, or any
additional road signs to underscore that fact), the fine was raised
to EUR 145. (It wasn't DOUBLED, I admit. Lucky me.)
How does that reflect the amount you have to pay in the States or the
UK?
It's been a long time since I got a speeding ticket, but IIRC it's about twice
that in CA -- maybe $300 -- for a similar ticket. Double that of course in a
construction zone.
|
Ouch! That's pretty tough. But I guess the chances of getting caught are
lower than here, where it's all fully automated: police place a speed
camera that takes a snapshot of the rear of the speeding vehicle. Those
cameras are capable of several snapshots a minute, maybe 60 per minute.
The film is developed, and a notice is sent to the registered owners of
the offending vehicles. When you own the capability of catching 60
offenders a minute from the comfort of your warm squad car, your overall
costs in terms of time and resources are much, much lower than when
having a police officer flag down and ticket each offender in person.
Make the fines affordable, don't subtract any points from drivers'
licences, and most people won't even bother showing up in court and
wasting theirs, the police's and the judges' time. It's all handled very
quickly and efficiently, and the cash, it doth flow rich and creamy.
| Quote: | Oh, yeah, we don't even have a points system for our licenses. Pay up
and be on your way. Great for the individual offender, useless for
improving safety on the roads.
Well, I guess it does nothing to discourage repeat offenders.
|
No, it doesn't. Which often makes me wonder, does the government
*really* want our roads to be safer, or do they simply lack the capacity
and desire to deal with the hassle of properly prosecuting offenders?
| Quote: | We can avoid points on our license by going to traffic school. You can only do
it once every couple of years, though. If you get another ticket within a year,
you're stuck with the point. Most people do it to avoid higher insurance rates
that may (or may not) come with the points. It depends on the insurance
company.
|
That's even harsher than the fine itself. In the Netherlands, the
insurance rates are not related to the driver's history of traffic
infractions and violations. Again, less hassle for all parties involved
(read, police and courts), so people are very quickly simply inclined to
pay up and get on with their lives. It's the ultimate cash cow. |
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Dori A Schmetterling
Guest
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| Posted:
Tue Nov 30, 2004 5:03 pm Post subject:
Re: Orange county, speed limit reduced? |
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Nothing SoCal about it. UK motorway speed limit is the absurdly low 70 mph.
Traffic usually moves at about 85 mph (bumper-to-bumper in the rush hour)
and I am not aware the police coralls (spelling?) cars en masse.
It is strongly rumoured that the British police favour a rise in the limit
to 80/85 mph.
Most of western Europe has a limit of 120 - 130 kph. In Germany the guide
speed (where no limit imposed) is 130 kph.
DAS
--
For direct contact replace nospam with schmetterling
---
"Matt O'Toole" <matt@deltanet.com> wrote in message
news:312cc2F36jo96U1@uni-berlin.de...
[...]
| Quote: |
Right or wrong, speed laws are widely ignored in southern CA. Late at
night,
the freeways are pretty much a free-for-all. There are enough drunks and
seriously reckless drivers to keep the cops busy, so the average speeder
is
unlikely to suffer consequences.
[..] |
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Peter Bozz
Guest
|
| Posted:
Tue Nov 30, 2004 5:52 pm Post subject:
Re: Orange county, speed limit reduced? |
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|
Dori A Schmetterling wrote:
| Quote: | Nothing SoCal about it. UK motorway speed limit is the absurdly low 70 mph.
Traffic usually moves at about 85 mph (bumper-to-bumper in the rush hour)
and I am not aware the police coralls (spelling?) cars en masse.
It is strongly rumoured that the British police favour a rise in the limit
to 80/85 mph.
|
Why do the police want this? I'm asking, because experiments in Holland
revealed that *lowering* the speed limit from 120kph to 80kph on
freeways during rush hour or on busy sections of roadway, *improves*
overall traffic flow and reduces the number of traffic jams and
congestion situations. Of course, this goes against common sense, which
says that going faster *is* actually faster overall for everybody (which
is why nobody maintains the speed limits on those sections of highway
where the speed limit has been lowered to 100kph). To be fair to Dutch
commuters though, most do keep to the 120kph limit when that is in
effect. I guess 120kph is a "psychologically good" speed that people are
happy and comfortable with.
| Quote: |
Most of western Europe has a limit of 120 - 130 kph. In Germany the guide
speed (where no limit imposed) is 130 kph.
DAS |
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Ramone Cila
Guest
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| Posted:
Tue Nov 30, 2004 8:52 pm Post subject:
Re: Orange county, speed limit reduced? |
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"Matt O'Toole" <matt@deltanet.com> wrote in message
news:312oo1F325guiU1@uni-berlin.de...
| Quote: | We can avoid points on our license by going to traffic school. You can
only do
it once every couple of years, though. If you get another ticket within a
year,
you're stuck with the point. Most people do it to avoid higher insurance
rates
that may (or may not) come with the points. It depends on the insurance
company.
|
In Denver and other surrounding towns you get an immediate 50% reduction in
points if you pay your fine within 30 days. If you have a 6 pointer, which
requires arraignment, you go to court and the judge's first offer is a 50%
reduction in points if you plead guilty and avoid trial.....and of course
pay the fine on your way out the door. After all that you can still get
additional reductions in points by attending driving school.
I got a 6 pointer a couple months ago...85 in a 55...and they sent me to
night court. I was in there with the dregs of society, which I guess is a
comment on what they think of high dollar speeders :^)...but by the time
they called me up it took 2 minutes to record my guilty plea, accept her
offer, pay the fine, and walk out the door. Oh yeah with regard to fine
amounts....mine was $ 245.00 including arraignment free, court costs and
innocent victims fund. I imagine in Cali that same fine might approach $ 500
to $ 600.
But no matter which way you cut it, with the immediate and standing offer to
cut points in half, without ever reviewing your driving record, it is clear
that tickets, at least in Colorado, aren't about making the roads safer but
rather making money for the local municipality. A person who would otherwise
lose their license at 12 points would still be on the road until they
violated laws to the tune of 24 points.
I guess a city ***should*** want to keep the repeat offenders on the roads
though, as it improves revenue :^) |
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Matt O'Toole
Guest
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| Posted:
Tue Nov 30, 2004 11:45 pm Post subject:
Re: Orange county, speed limit reduced? |
|
|
Peter Bozz wrote:
| Quote: | But I guess the chances of getting caught
are lower than here, where it's all fully automated: police place a
speed camera that takes a snapshot of the rear of the speeding
vehicle. Those cameras are capable of several snapshots a minute,
maybe 60 per minute. The film is developed, and a notice is sent to
the registered owners of the offending vehicles. When you own the
capability of catching 60 offenders a minute from the comfort of your
warm squad car, your overall costs in terms of time and resources are
much, much lower than when having a police officer flag down and
ticket each offender in person. Make the fines affordable, don't
subtract any points from drivers' licences, and most people won't
even bother showing up in court and wasting theirs, the police's and
the judges' time. It's all handled very quickly and efficiently, and
the cash, it doth flow rich and creamy.
|
This makes sense. A lot of little slaps on the wrist is probably more effective
in training the driver population than clobbering them on the head once in
awhile, but letting them get away with murder in between.
But the public has fought hard against these cameras in the US, and not without
reason. Frankly I think the privacy issue is a bit of a stretch -- those people
are simply looking for an excuse, or they're paranoid. The big risk is that
cameras will be used as speed traps, merely to generate revenue. This
terrorizes the public and creates resentment for the law, but does little for
safety. CA has good laws to prevent speed traps, but the rest of the country
doesn't necessarily.
The other thing these cameras are great for is stopping people from running red
lights, which in CA is completely out of control. There are two or three of
these cameras operating in all of southern CA. They ought to be standard issue
at all major intersections, but the public won't allow it.
IMO, northern Europe is where the state of the art is in traffic engineering and
management. The US is stuck in the 1950s. In fact, most states are still
catching up to that.
Matt O. |
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Trey
Guest
|
| Posted:
Wed Dec 01, 2004 12:51 am Post subject:
Re: Orange county, speed limit reduced? |
|
|
Matt O'Toole wrote:
| Quote: | Peter Bozz wrote:
But I guess the chances of getting caught
are lower than here, where it's all fully automated: police place a
speed camera that takes a snapshot of the rear of the speeding
vehicle. Those cameras are capable of several snapshots a minute,
maybe 60 per minute. The film is developed, and a notice is sent to
the registered owners of the offending vehicles. When you own the
capability of catching 60 offenders a minute from the comfort of your
warm squad car, your overall costs in terms of time and resources are
much, much lower than when having a police officer flag down and
ticket each offender in person. Make the fines affordable, don't
subtract any points from drivers' licences, and most people won't
even bother showing up in court and wasting theirs, the police's and
the judges' time. It's all handled very quickly and efficiently, and
the cash, it doth flow rich and creamy.
This makes sense. A lot of little slaps on the wrist is probably
more effective in training the driver population than clobbering them
on the head once in awhile, but letting them get away with murder in
between.
But the public has fought hard against these cameras in the US, and
not without reason. Frankly I think the privacy issue is a bit of a
stretch -- those people are simply looking for an excuse, or they're
paranoid. The big risk is that cameras will be used as speed traps,
merely to generate revenue. This terrorizes the public and creates
resentment for the law, but does little for safety. CA has good laws
to prevent speed traps, but the rest of the country doesn't
necessarily.
The other thing these cameras are great for is stopping people from
running red lights, which in CA is completely out of control. There
are two or three of these cameras operating in all of southern CA.
They ought to be standard issue at all major intersections, but the
public won't allow it.
IMO, northern Europe is where the state of the art is in traffic
engineering and management. The US is stuck in the 1950s. In fact,
most states are still catching up to that.
Matt O.
|
I have seen a lot of cars just rolling though a red light like it wasn't
even there. I was almost a "front row seat" whiteness to a Dodge Ram running
a red and clobbering a Honda civic that was making a left turn on a green
arrow. If that Civic was going two MPH faster, I would have been giving a
statement to a traffic officer.
One thing I really don't like about the cop-in-a-box red light traps is my
motorcycle. It is too small to trip the loops in the ground, so I will be
sitting there for three or four cycles of the signal before ether someone in
a care comes up behind me and trips the loop, or I just blow it off and run
it since no one has gone though the signal for the past five minutes. If I
didn't have better things to do. I would get a stopwatch and time how long I
can sit at a red light on my motorcycle before it turns green for me. |
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Somebody
Guest
|
| Posted:
Wed Dec 01, 2004 1:00 am Post subject:
Re: Orange county, speed limit reduced? |
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|
"Trey" <treydog90spam@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:Ya4rd.20$Ew6.1@twister.socal.rr.com...
| Quote: | Matt O'Toole wrote:
One thing I really don't like about the cop-in-a-box red light traps is my
motorcycle. It is too small to trip the loops in the ground, so I will be
sitting there for three or four cycles of the signal before ether someone
in
a care comes up behind me and trips the loop, or I just blow it off and
run
it since no one has gone though the signal for the past five minutes. If
I
didn't have better things to do. I would get a stopwatch and time how long
I
can sit at a red light on my motorcycle before it turns green for me.
|
I know a guy that had that problem on the best route home from his work --
it's a very, very little used light, mostly there for when the nearby
factory lets out, and it happens only sometimes that it won't trigger.
Anyway once it did not trigger, and he waited and waited once and finally
went through, and was seen and ticketed. He fought it, and in court it came
down to the fact that he had been that road before, knew it did this
sometimes, therefore he should have picked another route or waited. The
ticket stood.
-Russ. |
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Trey
Guest
|
| Posted:
Wed Dec 01, 2004 5:40 am Post subject:
Re: Orange county, speed limit reduced? |
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|
Jeff Strickland wrote:
| Quote: | "Peter Bozz" <spam@rama.com> wrote in message
news:41ac26e4$0$42417$e4fe514c@news.xs4all.nl...
What I find appalling is the fact the the police are mainly
interested in writing out tickets and collecting profits from fines,
NOT in public safety on the roads. I can rip at twice the speed
limit in a residential neighborhood, with kids playing nearby and a
school down the road, and there will *never* be a cop there to bust
my ass.
If you drive like that on my residential street, I will make sure the
cops catch you.
|
ohh, I wish a cop would sit out in front of my house with a speed gun!!
double the speed limit would be rather common.
| Quote: |
I agree one should obey the law, but that's hard to justify when the
law has been turned into a mockery of itself by the very people that
are enforcing it.
It is never hard to justify following the law, it is often easy to
rationalize breaking it. |
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Trey
Guest
|
| Posted:
Wed Dec 01, 2004 5:40 am Post subject:
Re: Orange county, speed limit reduced? |
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|
| Quote: | I'm with you, except for the last part about the construction zones.
I drive from Riverside into San Diego, and back, daily. And, I am
here to tell you that if you are doing 80, you are going too damn
slow for the traffic. Too fast for the law, but too slow to survive.
Speeds in CA are very high, 85 or 90 is "normal" on many stretches of
freeway, speed laws be damned! I am not suggesting we throw the laws
out and create a giant free-for-all out there, but there is Traffic
Theory and Traffic Reality. I just told you of the reality.
As for construction zones, it is good and proper to double the fines
for violations in construction zones. Mostly because, if cars CAN do
85, it wouldn't be a construction zone, and since it is a
construction zone, the lanes are narrower, the walls are closer, and
there are pedestrians within 20 feet of the cars speeding by even if
they are separated by a wall. If a car hits the wall and bounces off
back into the traffic lanes, it can take out several other cars, any
one of which could take out the guys trying to make the freeway wider.
|
I know people that drive as much as 90+ miles each way. (Apple Valley to
Disneyland, Lake Ellsinore to Santa Ana, Temecula to Newport) I really don't
know who in their right mind would do that, but its rather popular. However,
with that long of a commute, the speed limit, 55 or 65 would drive me INSANE
of I had to commute 90 miles each way. So what do they do? they pound the
gas! Is it smart? I wont answer that. That's just how it is.
Wow, 180 miles a day, five days a week, 46,800 a year. ave 65, and that's
720 hours a year, at 85 that's 550 hours a year, What would you like to be
doing for that extra 170 hours a year you save?
I think a good solution would be creating jobs closer to people's homes, so
they don't have to drive as far. If I could, I would walk or ride a bicycle
to work. |
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Jeff Strickland
Guest
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| Posted:
Wed Dec 01, 2004 5:40 am Post subject:
Re: Orange county, speed limit reduced? |
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|
"Matt O'Toole" <matt@deltanet.com> wrote in message
news:312cc2F36jo96U1@uni-berlin.de...
| Quote: | Vernon Balbert wrote:
I find it rather appalling that people seem to think that it's okay to
break the law as long as they don't get caught. It's not the police's
responsibility to see that you obey the law. They just clobber you if
they catch you. It's YOUR responsibility to obey it. Sheesh!
I find finger-waggers appalling.
Right or wrong, speed laws are widely ignored in southern CA. Late at
night,
the freeways are pretty much a free-for-all. There are enough drunks and
seriously reckless drivers to keep the cops busy, so the average speeder
is
unlikely to suffer consequences.
I'm not sure the current practice of broad-brush construction zones is
wise, if
it leads to the masses ignoring well-intentioned laws.
Matt O.
|
I'm with you, except for the last part about the construction zones.
I drive from Riverside into San Diego, and back, daily. And, I am here to
tell you that if you are doing 80, you are going too damn slow for the
traffic. Too fast for the law, but too slow to survive. Speeds in CA are
very high, 85 or 90 is "normal" on many stretches of freeway, speed laws be
damned! I am not suggesting we throw the laws out and create a giant
free-for-all out there, but there is Traffic Theory and Traffic Reality. I
just told you of the reality.
As for construction zones, it is good and proper to double the fines for
violations in construction zones. Mostly because, if cars CAN do 85, it
wouldn't be a construction zone, and since it is a construction zone, the
lanes are narrower, the walls are closer, and there are pedestrians within
20 feet of the cars speeding by even if they are separated by a wall. If a
car hits the wall and bounces off back into the traffic lanes, it can take
out several other cars, any one of which could take out the guys trying to
make the freeway wider. |
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Jeff Strickland
Guest
|
| Posted:
Wed Dec 01, 2004 5:40 am Post subject:
Re: Orange county, speed limit reduced? |
|
|
"Peter Bozz" <spam@rama.com> wrote in message
news:41ac26e4$0$42417$e4fe514c@news.xs4all.nl...
| Quote: | What I find appalling is the fact the the police are mainly interested
in writing out tickets and collecting profits from fines, NOT in public
safety on the roads. I can rip at twice the speed limit in a residential
neighborhood, with kids playing nearby and a school down the road, and
there will *never* be a cop there to bust my ass.
|
If you drive like that on my residential street, I will make sure the cops
catch you.
| Quote: | I agree one should obey the law, but that's hard to justify when the law
has been turned into a mockery of itself by the very people that are
enforcing it.
|
It is never hard to justify following the law, it is often easy to
rationalize breaking it. |
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Jeff Strickland
Guest
|
| Posted:
Wed Dec 01, 2004 5:40 am Post subject:
Re: Orange county, speed limit reduced? |
|
|
"Peter Bozz" <spam@rama.com> wrote in message
news:41ac1f45$0$10528$e4fe514c@news.xs4all.nl...
| Quote: | California ALWAYS doubles the fines in Construction Zones, especially on
the
freeways and other regional routes. They may not double the fines for
work
on city streets, but they will for work on county roads.
Just for the fun of it, I'm interested in how much the fines are in
California (or the States for that matter). Here in the Netherlands, I
got fined for going 13 mph over the speed limit. Usual fine is EUR 90,
but since it was a construction zone (something I had failed to notice,
on account of there being no equipment, workers, or any additional road
signs to underscore that fact), the fine was raised to EUR 145. (It
wasn't DOUBLED, I admit. Lucky me.)
|
I recently got tagged at 83 in a 65, and the fine was almost $200.
I am convinced the cop was out for sports cars because I was passed within
the previous two miles by a Ford Explorer that I was pacing after he went by
me. He passed the same cop I passed, but when I went by, the cop hung his
radar in its holster and twisted the grips. As I look back, I think the
Exporer was driving near a slower moving car that was a bigger radar target,
so the cop didn't have an accurate indicator of how fast the Explorer was
going, I was all alone on 4 lanes of concrete, and the only car that could
have been doing 80+ was me. |
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Peter Bozz
Guest
|
| Posted:
Wed Dec 01, 2004 12:08 pm Post subject:
Re: Orange county, speed limit reduced? |
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|
| Quote: | What I find appalling is the fact the the police are mainly interested
in writing out tickets and collecting profits from fines, NOT in public
safety on the roads. I can rip at twice the speed limit in a residential
neighborhood, with kids playing nearby and a school down the road, and
there will *never* be a cop there to bust my ass.
If you drive like that on my residential street, I will make sure the cops
catch you.
|
This merely proves my point.
| Quote: | I agree one should obey the law, but that's hard to justify when the law
has been turned into a mockery of itself by the very people that are
enforcing it.
It is never hard to justify following the law, it is often easy to
rationalize breaking it.
|
That's a very nice statement and all, but is has no direct bearing on my
post, which accused the police of going after cash rather than safety on
the road. |
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Peter Bozz
Guest
|
| Posted:
Wed Dec 01, 2004 12:14 pm Post subject:
Re: Orange county, speed limit reduced? |
|
|
| Quote: | Just for the fun of it, I'm interested in how much the fines are in
California (or the States for that matter). Here in the Netherlands, I
got fined for going 13 mph over the speed limit. Usual fine is EUR 90,
but since it was a construction zone (something I had failed to notice,
on account of there being no equipment, workers, or any additional road
signs to underscore that fact), the fine was raised to EUR 145. (It
wasn't DOUBLED, I admit. Lucky me.)
I recently got tagged at 83 in a 65, and the fine was almost $200.
|
That infraction will fetch you 115EUR here. Even with the dollar being
so cheap nowadays, that's still only $145. I guess we're "lucky" here in
the land of wooden shoes and leaden feet.
| Quote: |
I am convinced the cop was out for sports cars because I was passed within
the previous two miles by a Ford Explorer that I was pacing after he went by
me. He passed the same cop I passed, but when I went by, the cop hung his
radar in its holster and twisted the grips. As I look back, I think the
Exporer was driving near a slower moving car that was a bigger radar target,
so the cop didn't have an accurate indicator of how fast the Explorer was
going, I was all alone on 4 lanes of concrete, and the only car that could
have been doing 80+ was me.
|
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