Stupid, stupid, stupid

[Tom]

Being 17, I hear of classmates causing accidents left and right.  Most of the time they are not ticketed.  It doesn't make sense to me that tickets are issued to speeders who are most of the time causing no harm, while someone who does EXACTLY WHAT TICKETS ARE SUPPOSED TO PREVENT-- the cause of an accident--are not punished!

[footoflead]

Being 17, I hear of classmates causing accidents left and right.  Most of the time they are not ticketed.  It doesn't make sense to me that tickets are issued to speeders who are most of the time causing no harm, while someone who does EXACTLY WHAT TICKETS ARE SUPPOSED TO PREVENT-- the cause of an accident--are not punished!

You dont have to be smart to get a license  

[ifcar]

My guess is that there is a general assumption that the accident itself is enough of a lesson without a fine.  

[Catman]

If they cause a wreck they will be paying hefty surcharges for years.  And, depending on the state, civil infractions can't always be cited for after the fact.

[Tom]

If they cause a wreck they will be paying hefty surcharges for years.  And, depending on the state, civil infractions can't always be cited for after the fact.

In PA, if you are under 18 and recieve two speeding tickets in one year, your liscense is suspended for 6 months.  This happened to my brother.  One ticket he deserved, but the other was BS.  If you cause two accidents in one year and neither are ticketed, nothing happens.  The wrekage is insured and your premiums go up.  The latter is bad for some and not so bad for others.  The bottom line is that frequent accident causers should not go unpunished.  The accident itself is not always a lesson in itself.  On the same token, if you prove year after year that you are a competent speeder, yet get heavily nailed, you are being treated unfairly.  What I'm trying to say is that more of an emphasis should be put on punishing accidents, which are the very thing tickets are supposed to prevent.

[cozmik]

I have a friend, and he's had several accidents. I want to say 4, but it may be more. He insists none of them were his fault. His latest one, he was going to fast, the road was wet. Rounding a corner the car slid into what he called a "log" (aka a tree.). It cause about 4 grand worth of damage. Instead of admitting he was going to fast, he instead blames it on his tires, stating that if he had BFGoodrich KDW2 (the tire he wants) that he wouldn't have slid. It's like dude, you were going to damn fast, the roads were slick, you are too overconfident about you oversized Eclipse (he has a 2002 Dodge Stratus coupe   ) and you just can't drive.

He was ticketed for crossing the double yellow line (when he slid over it, LOL) and for speeding.

Oh, he has now decided he needs a GTO, so is going to sell his Stratus. Apparently he think he is going to be better able to control a 400 HP RWD muscle car than his 200 HP FWD Stratus.  :blink:  

[Tom]

I have a friend, and he's had several accidents. I want to say 4, but it may be more. He insists none of them were his fault. His latest one, he was going to fast, the road was wet. Rounding a corner the car slid into what he called a "log" (aka a tree.). It cause about 4 grand worth of damage. Instead of admitting he was going to fast, he instead blames it on his tires, stating that if he had BFGoodrich KDW2 (the tire he wants) that he wouldn't have slid. It's like dude, you were going to damn fast, the roads were slick, you are too overconfident about you oversized Eclipse (he has a 2002 Dodge Stratus coupe   ) and you just can't drive.

He was ticketed for crossing the double yellow line (when he slid over it, LOL) and for speeding.

Oh, he has now decided he needs a GTO, so is going to sell his Stratus. Apparently he think he is going to be better able to control a 400 HP RWD muscle car than his 200 HP FWD Stratus.  :blink:

Sounds like a bad driver.  Atleast he got what was coming to him in the form of tickets.

Btw, who puts BFGoodrich KDW2s on a Stratus?    

[dazzleman]

I have a friend, and he's had several accidents. I want to say 4, but it may be more. He insists none of them were his fault. His latest one, he was going to fast, the road was wet. Rounding a corner the car slid into what he called a "log" (aka a tree.). It cause about 4 grand worth of damage. Instead of admitting he was going to fast, he instead blames it on his tires, stating that if he had BFGoodrich KDW2 (the tire he wants) that he wouldn't have slid. It's like dude, you were going to damn fast, the roads were slick, you are too overconfident about you oversized Eclipse (he has a 2002 Dodge Stratus coupe   ) and you just can't drive.

He was ticketed for crossing the double yellow line (when he slid over it, LOL) and for speeding.

Oh, he has now decided he needs a GTO, so is going to sell his Stratus. Apparently he think he is going to be better able to control a 400 HP RWD muscle car than his 200 HP FWD Stratus.  :blink:

He sounds like a very slow learner.  I hope he learns before he's killed.

[footoflead]

I have a friend, and he's had several accidents. I want to say 4, but it may be more. He insists none of them were his fault. His latest one, he was going to fast, the road was wet. Rounding a corner the car slid into what he called a "log" (aka a tree.). It cause about 4 grand worth of damage. Instead of admitting he was going to fast, he instead blames it on his tires, stating that if he had BFGoodrich KDW2 (the tire he wants) that he wouldn't have slid. It's like dude, you were going to damn fast, the roads were slick, you are too overconfident about you oversized Eclipse (he has a 2002 Dodge Stratus coupe   ) and you just can't drive.

He was ticketed for crossing the double yellow line (when he slid over it, LOL) and for speeding.

Oh, he has now decided he needs a GTO, so is going to sell his Stratus. Apparently he think he is going to be better able to control a 400 HP RWD muscle car than his 200 HP FWD Stratus.  :blink:

Sounds like a darwin award waiting to happen ( :D )

[Andrewsky]

I know a lot of kids who get into the weirdest accidents.  For example, my friend was going too fast around a corner in his '83 Cressida and he hit a curb and bent the suspension.  

I bet half of the kids I know have been in accidents.  My first accident is going to be nightmarish.

[TurboDan]

'83 Cressida?  I'm surprised the whole damn car didn't fall apart!  

Why do you feel your first accident will be bad?

[Andrewsky]

Any accident is bad in my opinion.  I take a lot of pride in my driving and I hate spending money on stuff that doesn't make me happy.

The Cressida was actually in good shape, because it was owned by a senior citizen.  I liked it a lot.

He just got rid of the car after the accident, though, because I think the wheel was bent or something, too.

[ifcar]

Accidents aren't inevitable. The closest I've had would be someone backing into me in a parking lot and spinning out on an icy hill (didn't hit anyone though, and didn't damage the car).  

[Why?]

The problem is Unless a Cop sees an accident, they have no idea who was at fault.

I almost had a  cop ticket me for being in the middle of a 3 car accident that was totally caused by the vehicle that hit me.

Unless it is a one car accident, a LEO simply cannot tell who is at fault.

That is what Accident Reports, Insurance Agencies, and Lawyers are for.

The other thing is unless it is a fairly significant accident thers is NO reason for a LEO to be present at all. It is a waste of their time.

[SaltyDog]

Sometimes it's clear cut as to who is at fault.

[Why?]

It is almost always impossible to figure out what happened in an accident if you show up 5 - 10 minutes after it occurs.

That is why everyone writes a report to tell their side of the story.

[dazzleman]

It is almost always impossible to figure out what happened in an accident if you show up 5 - 10 minutes after it occurs.

That is why everyone writes a report to tell their side of the story.

That's not actually true in all cases.  There is a good amount of forensic work the police can do in certain cases to reconstruct an accident.

[Raza]

It is almost always impossible to figure out what happened in an accident if you show up 5 - 10 minutes after it occurs.

That is why everyone writes a report to tell their side of the story.

That's not actually true in all cases.  There is a good amount of forensic work the police can do in certain cases to reconstruct an accident.

I always thought they just embellished that stuff for CSI.

:P  

[dazzleman]

It is almost always impossible to figure out what happened in an accident if you show up 5 - 10 minutes after it occurs.

That is why everyone writes a report to tell their side of the story.

That's not actually true in all cases.  There is a good amount of forensic work the police can do in certain cases to reconstruct an accident.

I always thought they just embellished that stuff for CSI.

:P

Actually, no.  I took a class that talked about how police reconstruct accidents as one of its topics.  It is possible to do things like estimate speed based upon the length of tire tracks, and stuff like that.  It is basically physics.

Not that officers will take the time to painstakingly reconstruct every accident.  But they do reconstruct the more serious ones, and physical evidence can tell a lot about what happened.

[L. ed foote]

WRT tickets, remember that the law does not ask you to act reasonably, or intelligently, it asks you to act in compliance.

[dazzleman]

WRT tickets, remember that the law does not ask you to act reasonably, or intelligently, it asks you to act in compliance.

Actually Foote, some states have a "reasonableness" standard to their speed laws.  

At below-highway speeds, Connecticut's speed limits are based on a "reasonable and prudent" standard rather than a fixed number.  This technically means that you can be considered legally justified in exceeding the posted speed limit if you can prove that conditions justified it.  In practice, this defense would probably rarely work, but it might work if you got busted for going 40 mph in a 35 mph zone under perfect conditions, or something like that.

This is reflected in the name of the offense.  On the tickets I have gotten for highway level speeds, the offense was listed as "speeding."  The section of the vehicle and traffic law cited allows no defense for driving at a reasonable speed.  However, I also got a ticket for going 52 mph in a 35 mph zone, and this ticket cited me for "traveling unreasonably fast," not speeding.  The section of the vehicle and traffic law on which this ticket was based does allow for a reasonableness defense, though I was probably going too fast for that.