The true cost of a speeding ticket.....

[James Young]

I know you're a little left of center, but you sound downright paranoid.

Don't drive like an asshole and you'll generally be OK.

I am proudly liberal on most issues but this has nothing to do with either political orientation or with paranoia.  This has far more to do with institutional behavior, which, by definition, is very conservative in that its primary functions are self-protection and growth.
 
In my over 50 years and 2 million+ miles of driving, I?ve had about a dozen cites, all for speeding and none even close to dangerous behavior.  I?ve never had an at-fault crash.  So, no, I don?t drive like an asshole and, yes, I?m OK.  Further, with a record like that, paranoid is nowhere close to accurate.
 
OTOH, I don?t like being lied to by people and organizations who benefit from those lies and whose behavior is antithetical to individual liberty.  Compounding the situation is that many of those foisting lies and bad policy on the public are the very same people and organizations who tout individual liberty as a hallmark of their conservative political orientation.  John Dean wrote Conservatives  Without Conscience about these authoritarian conservatives, a book and a concept well worth the effort.

[dazzleman]

Hey, I'm just matching your anecdotes with my anecdotes to show that maybe anecdotes aren't the best way to make a point.

I wasn't really trying to make a point.  The part about most cell phone yakkers being women was an aside, put in there mainly to piss you off....

Now you just need to dig up a private picture of me and post it on here in retaliation....

[James Young]

Jimmy's always been a paranoid extremist. . .beyond paranoid into extreme egotism boardering on narcissism.

As already explained, paranoia is not accurate because, no, I don?t believe evil forces are targeting me.  I?m far more concerned about the institutional behavior and continuation of polices that we know do not work but continue just because somebody benefits from them, just not the intended beneficiaries.
 
Since you?re playing psychologist ? keyword:  playing ? why don?t you expand on institutional behavior.  Then you can explain why you dwell on demonizing and diminishing me rather than addressing the facts or issues outlined in my post.  You make a lot of assertions but have no reason to make them and no ability to support them, other than your desire to strike out at me. 
   
I have been confronted by bigger, meaner, smarter, and better informed and connected people than you so in the long-run, your attack is just pathetic rhetoric to protect you from facts and concepts that threaten you.

[Rupert]

I wasn't really trying to make a point.  The part about most cell phone yakkers being women was an aside, put in there mainly to piss you off....

Now you just need to dig up a private picture of me and post it on here in retaliation....

I should have saved that one I saw when we were still FB buddies! Noooo!

Maybe I can draw it from memory...

[James Young]

GoCougs writes:  {1.) I don't think the revenue motive exists en masse. There is simply too much cost eaten up in court and administrative costs to make it a material "profit" center.}
 
Too much empirical evidence exists to cause us to believe otherwise.  Many cities and even entire states now openly admit that they enforce traffic laws for the revenue.  Court costs collected by the courts are revenue, despite the name.  They are a cost only to the defendant.

{2.) It is simply too expensive to tailor speed limits to each and every (stretch of) road to match actual speed driven.}

The remove all limits are have LE watch for other things.  Remember, the posted limit has no effect on any of the key traffic safety rates.    BTW, I-5 through the San Joaquin Valley has variable limits that can be electronically altered instantaneously based on measured traffic flow and impaired visibility because of dust and this can be for 5 miles, 50 miles or 400 miles.
   

[Rupert]

The problem, James, is that you don't seem to satisfy the requirements for empirical evidence. Maybe if you provided some links to such evidence, people would at least have a focus point for the debate.

[Klackamas]

James, in my 60 years and 938 million miles of travel (including 3 trips to the moon and back), I've never had a citation, so I'm right and you're wrong.

You might acquaint yourself with the authoritarian left - the ones who want to force people to buy health insurance, force doctors to cover everyone and everything under the sun for free, force schools to stop serving chocolate milk/french fries/soda and anything THEY dislike, ban circumcisions and other nutty propositions and generally want to tell us what cars we can drive, what light bulbs we can buy and how much water our toilets can flush. You cite conservative authoritarians? You dopes seek to run every facet of our lives.  

James, since you're a self professed liberal, just stay the hell out of my life.


?Barack will never allow you to go back to your lives as usual, uninvolved, uninformed? - Michelle Obama

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0Gl8aMOpcg

[MexicoCityM3]

I just got my first speeding ticket for driving at 81MPH in a 70MPH Texas highway a few miles from the Mexican border while driving back to Mexico. I got ticketed by an idiotic latino cop in the E46 M3 who was clearly happy to target me as a mexican and BMW driver. The idiot pretended not to speak Spanish. I spoke to him in English and then when he went to "interview" my GF separately she refused to answer in English saying "no entiendo" just to pull his leg and the idiot then switched to Spanish.

I hired a lawyer to keep this off my record and he did it but total expense was very high at $500.

[dazzleman]

I just got my first speeding ticket for driving at 81MPH in a 70MPH Texas highway a few miles from the Mexican border while driving back to Mexico. I got ticketed by an idiotic latino cop in the E46 M3 who was clearly happy to target me as a mexican and BMW driver. The idiot pretended not to speak Spanish. I spoke to him in English and then when he went to "interview" my GF separately she refused to answer in English saying "no entiendo" just to pull his leg and the idiot then switched to Spanish.

I hired a lawyer to keep this off my record and he did it but total expense was very high at $500.

Would a US ticket transfer to your record in Mexico?  That's not a very serious ticket -- only 11 mph over the speed limit.  Around here, that won't even get you pulled over.

[MexicoCityM3]

Would a US ticket transfer to your record in Mexico?  That's not a very serious ticket -- only 11 mph over the speed limit.  Around here, that won't even get you pulled over.

I don?t think it would show on my record in Mexico. But I am a bit paranoid about staying on the good side of the U.S. government. You never know if one day they will tighten their visa regulations for Mexico even more, especially with the drug war going on. And I appreciate the liberty of visiting the U.S. very much.

[dazzleman]

I don?t think it would show on my record in Mexico. But I am a bit paranoid about staying on the good side of the U.S. government. You never know if one day they will tighten their visa regulations for Mexico even more, especially with the drug war going on. And I appreciate the liberty of visiting the U.S. very much.

You drive a sweet car!

I understand where you're coming from.

[James Young]

The problem, James, is that you don't seem to satisfy the requirements for empirical evidence. Maybe if you provided some links to such evidence, people would at least have a focus point for the debate.

Fair observation, Rupert.  While the volume of material is much too vast and includes material that is not linkable, I used to provide sources and/or links where possible.  Remember, I have over 50 years worth of stuff and I lost a lot in a flood back in Austin.   This was met with the usual chorus of claims of bias or manipulation with the implication that motorists are a selfish group who desire to spread mayhem with nary a thought about the implications to societal needs.  I always laugh at those who tried to impugn the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) as biased because the primary source of NHTSA data is police reports.
   
BTW, yes, NHTSA is very biased; they are biased against speed and consider speed control a major component of traffic safety.  Read their verbiage or listen to their administrators and you will see this right away.  But their data, their staff  and their reports tell a completely different story that belies their own verbiage.   
   
This discussion is no longer about anybody learning anything but more about protecting their pied-?-terre.  I threaten them because I question their very role in society, so they lash out at me personally rather than try to refute my work.

[James Young]

James, in my 60 years and 938 million miles of travel (including 3 trips to the moon and back), I've never had a citation, so I'm right and you're wrong.

That's pretty clever. 

As to the authoritarian left, tell it to Fox News [sic].  As to the Michelle Obama quote, we should all be so lucky as to be able to motivate people out of their small safe lives.

[Rupert]

Anything worth calling "empirical data" is citable, whether through a link or a traditional bibliographical system. (E.g. Young, J. 1986. Some stuff about speeding. NHTSA Journal, v. 34 pp. 1450-1468). Google Scholar is pretty powerful, and I am sure that some of these guys have access to journals (via a University system).

[Rupert]

James, in my 60 years and 938 million miles of travel (including 3 trips to the moon and back), I've never had a citation, so I'm right and you're wrong.

You might acquaint yourself with the authoritarian left - the ones who want to force people to buy health insurance, force doctors to cover everyone and everything under the sun for free, force schools to stop serving chocolate milk/french fries/soda and anything THEY dislike, ban circumcisions and other nutty propositions and generally want to tell us what cars we can drive, what light bulbs we can buy and how much water our toilets can flush. You cite conservative authoritarians? You dopes seek to run every facet of our lives. 

James, since you're a self professed liberal, just stay the hell out of my life.


?Barack will never allow you to go back to your lives as usual, uninvolved, uninformed? - Michelle Obama

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0Gl8aMOpcg

Ha, talk about out of context!

[hounddog]

I have been confronted by bigger, meaner, smarter, and better informed and connected people than you so in the long-run, your attack is just pathetic rhetoric to protect you from facts and concepts that threaten you.

No, not at all paraniod. 

[hounddog]

Fair observation, Rupert.  While the volume of material is much too vast and includes material that is not linkable, I used to provide sources and/or links where possible.  Remember, I have over 50 years worth of stuff and I lost a lot in a flood back in Austin.   

And yet you once again provide no actual or tangible evidence to support your left field claims. 

How surprising. 

Oh, that is right, you provided it by saying, "I have been collecting traffic enforcement data since I was 11, but lost it in a flood."

We believe you.  Honestly.

[James Young]

No, not at all paraniod. 

Your observations are nothing more than verbal roadkill, irrelevant and the product of poor judgment. 

[James Young]

Oh, that is right, you provided it by saying, "I have been collecting traffic enforcement data since I was 11, but lost it in a flood."

We believe you.  Honestly.

You can't read either.

[hounddog]

Your observations are nothing more than verbal roadkill, irrelevant and the product of poor judgment.  

And yet, you only provide more personal attack.  

I notice you have still not actually provided us with anything which might resemble "work" on your behalf.

The best you can come up with is tired rhetoric and half-hearted assertions about paraniod plots of patrol level employees aimed to create lies and generate revenue.

Even then, you provide nothing to support these paranoid schizophrenic delusions of palored clandestineness.

[hounddog]

You can't read either.

Provide something to read other than uncatagorized raw data, then.

[hounddog]

The remove all limits are have LE watch for other things.     

Uh...Ok, sure?

[James Young]

I am certainly willing and able to play the citation game and, obviously, I am willing to put up my interpretation of the data against anybody?s.  When I post in the future, I will give the citations although I doubt that those who need the information the most will heed them.
   
However, I expect the same in return.  In fact, since the current public policy rests squarely on the theory that speed limits and law enforcement have a positive effect on traffic safety, let?s see your proof.  You, the traffic safety community, make the positive assertion that you can and do affect traffic safety with your extant methods and behaviors; therefore the burden of proof is yours.  Show us the correlation between speed limits or changes in speed limits and the three key safety rates.  Sow us the correlation between actual driving speeds or changes in actual driving speeds and those three key rates.  Finally, show us the correlation between the intensity of law enforcement or changes in the intensity of LE and those three key rates.
   
Caveat:  Beware all those insurance and Astroturf ?road safety? organizations who have a vested interest in lower limits or more restrictions, for much of their finding follows their funding.  Remember when IIHS got caught faking data in an attempt to prove the NMSL ?saved lives?? 
 

Now, I'm off to play a Hollywood liberal.

[S204STi]

2.) It is simply too expensive to tailor speed limits to each and every (stretch of) road to match actual speed driven.

On a related note, there was a stretch of road down in Aurora I think where they legislated a new, higher, speed limit since the flow of traffic was safely 55mph whereas the limit was significantly lower.  Also sort of goes in the face of speed limits as a revenue generator.

[Rupert]

I am certainly willing and able to play the citation game and, obviously, I am willing to put up my interpretation of the data against anybody?s.  When I post in the future, I will give the citations although I doubt that those who need the information the most will heed them.
   
However, I expect the same in return.  In fact, since the current public policy rests squarely on the theory that speed limits and law enforcement have a positive effect on traffic safety, let?s see your proof.  You, the traffic safety community, make the positive assertion that you can and do affect traffic safety with your extant methods and behaviors; therefore the burden of proof is yours.  Show us the correlation between speed limits or changes in speed limits and the three key safety rates.  Sow us the correlation between actual driving speeds or changes in actual driving speeds and those three key rates.  Finally, show us the correlation between the intensity of law enforcement or changes in the intensity of LE and those three key rates.
   
Caveat:  Beware all those insurance and Astroturf ?road safety? organizations who have a vested interest in lower limits or more restrictions, for much of their finding follows their funding.  Remember when IIHS got caught faking data in an attempt to prove the NMSL ?saved lives?? 
 

Now, I'm off to play a Hollywood liberal.

Feel free to start the game. Look, James, what you're saying resonates with me to a fair degree, and the fact that it pisses off hdog is even better ( ), but you have, so far, talked a pretty good talk, while remaining stationary in your citations walk, if you get my meaning. I'm not all that invested in the topic, but I hate to see people tout all their empirical data without actually showing it to anyone.

[bing_oh]

As already explained, paranoia is not accurate because, no, I don’t believe evil forces are targeting me.  I’m far more concerned about the institutional behavior and continuation of polices that we know do not work but continue just because somebody benefits from them, just not the intended beneficiaries.
 
Since you’re playing psychologist – keyword:  playing – why don’t you expand on institutional behavior.  Then you can explain why you dwell on demonizing and diminishing me rather than addressing the facts or issues outlined in my post.  You make a lot of assertions but have no reason to make them and no ability to support them, other than your desire to strike out at me. 
   
I have been confronted by bigger, meaner, smarter, and better informed and connected people than you so in the long-run, your attack is just pathetic rhetoric to protect you from facts and concepts that threaten you.

Let me start out by pointing out that I've debated this issue with you ad nauseum in the past, Jimmy. I've countered you with various facts while debunking yours (which, I might add, are suspiciously absent from this particular thread), all without any result. You're going to believe what you want and no statement or information from anybody will change your mind. I won't participate in insane behavior (insanity being defined as repeating the same action over and over again and expecting a different result).

Quite frankly, I'll freely admit that I'm just goading you into a fight by using your ego as psychological target practice at this point...all for a little message board amusement and with rather disgusting ease. I gave up actually trying to discuss anything with you a long time ago. Normally, I just ignore you, but you caught me in a sadistic mood.

On a side note, besides having advanced education in psychology, you apparently forget what I do for a living. I'm a police officer. Using psychology against people is my bread and butter. I get people to admit that they did things that get them put in jail on a regular basis. A little message board debate pales in comparison, my friend. It's not even really sport anymore.

[hounddog]

Now, I'm off to play a Hollywood liberal.

Douchebag drug-abusing HIV positive pedofile?

Let me start out by pointing out that I've debated this issue with you ad nauseum in the past, Jimmy. I've countered you with various facts while debunking yours (which, I might add, are suspiciously absent from this particular thread), all without any result. You're going to believe what you want and no statement or information from anybody will change your mind. I won't participate in insane behavior (insanity being defined as repeating the same action over and over again and expecting a different result).

Quite frankly, I'll freely admit that I'm just goading you into a fight by using your ego as psychological target practice at this point...all for a little message board amusement and with rather disgusting ease. I gave up actually trying to discuss anything with you a long time ago. Normally, I just ignore you, but you caught me in a sadistic mood.

On a side note, besides having advanced education in psychology, you apparently forget what I do for a living. I'm a police officer. Using psychology against people is my bread and butter. I get people to admit that they did things that get them put in jail on a regular basis. A little message board debate pales in comparison, my friend. It's not even really sport anymore.

  <---That.

FTW, btw. 

[BENZ BOY15]

Haha, do you ever go off Gloria Allred patrol?  You take this stuff WAY too seriously, man.  

You're right that it's not only women, but anecdotally it seems like a lot more women than men who yakk on the phone while they're driving.  Most men aren't as fond of talking on the phone in any case.  But we do other stuff, so I guess it evens out.

I got caught talking on the phone in the car. But you accuse me of driving like a ditzy chick, so maybe I'll just stop with this argument.

Fuck you!



And FWIW, I was nice & respectful and admitted I was guilty.

Here's a question for all you LEOs: How long should I wait for the ticket? Two weeks? Do I call the courthouse? I want to say it's been a week or so and I haven't received anything.

[GoCougs]

GoCougs writes:  {1.) I don't think the revenue motive exists en masse. There is simply too much cost eaten up in court and administrative costs to make it a material "profit" center.}
 
Too much empirical evidence exists to cause us to believe otherwise.  Many cities and even entire states now openly admit that they enforce traffic laws for the revenue.  Court costs collected by the courts are revenue, despite the name.  They are a cost only to the defendant.

{2.) It is simply too expensive to tailor speed limits to each and every (stretch of) road to match actual speed driven.}

The remove all limits are have LE watch for other things.  Remember, the posted limit has no effect on any of the key traffic safety rates.    BTW, I-5 through the San Joaquin Valley has variable limits that can be electronically altered instantaneously based on measured traffic flow and impaired visibility because of dust and this can be for 5 miles, 50 miles or 400 miles.

Costs collected by courts have a cost; overhead, personnel, equipment, etc. Sure there is a sunk cost in LEO salary and probably elsewhere, but a $150 traffic fine isn't $150 into the issuing government's coffers. Sure there are exceptions but en masse I have real trouble buying the revenue angle.

By removing speed limits you're relying solely on subjective law for traffic enforcement, which is the proverbial play field of tyrants. I am well aware of variable limits on interstates but most roads aren't interstates.

[MX793]

Costs collected by courts have a cost; overhead, personnel, equipment, etc. Sure there is a sunk cost in LEO salary and probably elsewhere, but a $150 traffic fine isn't $150 into the issuing government's coffers. Sure there are exceptions but en masse I have real trouble buying the revenue angle.

By removing speed limits you're relying solely on subjective law for traffic enforcement, which is the proverbial play field of tyrants. I am well aware of variable limits on interstates but most roads aren't interstates.

You're apparently not familiar with the way NY handles traffic tickets.  In addition to the fine, you pay an $85 dollar "court surcharge".