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If you get rid of poor engineering and predatory ticketing, laws will be obeyed. We will be safer too. Pull up the National Motorists Association.

The NMA basic beliefs make me feel all warm and fuzzy. Consider their stance regarding speed limits: "Speed limits should be based on sound traffic-engineering principles that consider motorists’ reasonable and prudent travel speeds."

No mention of other potential users of the road.

Thanks for this info. I totally agree

As an engineer - sound principles are those based on reaction time, stopping distance, proximity, and degree of threat to others. I hope reasonable and prudent in this sense means concern for those aspects, and not the backwards past method of taking 80% of drivers speed and saying that's reasonable and prudent. Driver's clearly don't weight risk (or even properly consider physics) properly so using their judgement while driving is quite backwards.

It's funny to complain about poor engineering, because also from an engineering standpoint, its' precisely because the roads are so overly engineered (i.e. low radius turns, wide lanes, high quality surfaces, etc.) that driver's are saved from consequences of their own dangerous driving.

It's also hard to see the problems of driver behavior and conclude there's a problem with "predatory ticketing". If that were a problem, drivers would be inordinately cautious.

Ultimately, I think it's a huge moral failing to let people just pay to violently break the law. Eliminating all fines for moving violations seems more just (or maybe just compensatory payments along with points and license suspension/removal)

A little off topic, but when it snows the dominance of the automobile is clearly demonstrated. Main roads are cleared within a few hours, most neighborhood roads within 24 hours. Sidewalks, curb cuts/ramps, bus stops, bike lanes/trails? Not so much. Residents clear the parking are on the street and pile the snow on the sidewalk. They clear their driveways and then leave the sidewalks on either side of the driveway untouched. 4 days since it stopped snowing and I cannot safely walk to a store a quarter-mile away. But the roads and parking lots are clear and dry.

Infuriating.

@James
I'm pretty sure that many black and brown drivers are "inordinately cautious." Just sayin'

I got a speeding camera ticket on MacArthur Blvd a while back. 34 MPH in a 25 MPH. I don't drive that road too often and I was distracted by another driver near me who would zoom past at like 50 mph then slam on the breaks down to 20 MPH. We'd even out at red lights but he kept up with his 50-20 mood swings. It was a Friday night and freaking me out. I thought he was drunk. Turns out he knew where the cameras were and I didn't. A human officer would have ticketed the other driver; not me.

If they stop creating speed traps to juice drivers for cash, maybe. But for that matter, cycling should require a license, revokable for riding in pedestrian areas.

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