Gernby

True ... True ...

Many years ago, when I took a defensive driving course, they gave us statistics about traffic deaths. The number of deaths that were related to driving TOO SLOW was equal to the number that were related to driving too fast.

walkabt

Here is the biggest one I remember:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/1759791.stm

boltonblue

over the last couple of years, speeds have continued to rise over here, as least in the areas outlying Boston. On 495 traffic can roll along at 80-85 (limit 65)
fines. $70 for first 10mph over then 10 for each additional mile. so generally if you get pulled over figure on $200.

during the nineties, enforcement tended to worry about other things. but now that we are in a recession, I fear that the politicians will again turn to the highways as a form of revenue. 20 years ago, you would drive forty miles on a major highway and drive through 3-4 radar speed traps with multiple pursuit cars.

The other goody of course is insurance.
Massachusetts has mandatory fixed price insurance. A ticket is worth two points.
1 point = 7% increase in your insurance premium. a point stays on your driving record for 6 years. that costs more than the fine.

junehhan

All of this is still nothing but a big pile of dog crap! It's just simple legalized extortion. Traffic in general moves at about 15-20mph above the speed limit, especially in the mornings. What really irritates me, is how they would rather spend money and time to catch the safe casual speeder, while letting morons(i.e. some soccer moms) get away. Soccer moms in their urban assault vehicles who feel they can talk on the phone, eat, put makeup on, and still driver 80-90mph are the ones that need to be concentrated on. Nearly every accident that occurs during the busy commute around Cincinnati is happening because of idiots. Heck, last year, a lady was killed when she was so busy talking on her phone, that she T-Boned a school bus injuring students and killing herself instantly.

bArt2

Using phone while driving is illegal here and is fined 275 - 1375

In Finland this is thrue, I'm not sure about other European countries, there was talk about introducing that over here but it did not happen (I guess politicians earn too much

JonBoy

Absolutely true. Teemu Selanne (hockey star for the Anaheim Mighty Ducks) was back in Finland (I think that's where he's from) and got a ticket for roughly $63K!!! He makes about $9M per year, so even a tiny percentage of his income is a HUGE ticket. Insanity.

JohnnyG

I think the US needs to take a lesson from the Autobahn. They have less fataliaties per 100M miles than we do because getting a license in Germany costs something like $1,500, requires individual instruction and people OBEY the rules of the road much better (stay right, pass left, no eating or drinking while driving and no cell phone BS). Crap, with being able to go 200MPH+ on the parts of the Autobahn with no limits, you would think there would be all kinds of problems with people driving like nuts, but there aren't.

IMO, one of the problems with the US is that people can obliviously meander all over the freeway blocking faster traffic in the left lane while eating their Big Macs, reading the paper, watching TV and yakking on a phone which just leads to more accidents and no laws are ever passed to prevent this ridiculous behavior. We just get stupid laws to give people tickets for not wearing their seat belts and for going 60 in a 55. How lame. Sometimes I think that our law enforcement system is only concerned with generating revenue than making the roads safe.

djohnston

I just returned from a short vaca in Colorado, and now that I'm back in NJ I'm once again reminded how crappy NJ drivers are.

I'm convinced now that the more drivers there are in a given geographical area, the less respect there is for one another and the driving habits suffer. In NJ, which I believe still has the record for the most people per square mile (Newark to be precise), people are always rude to each other on the roads and accidents are more common. In Colorado, drivers are more civil toward each other, motorists passing on remote roads even wave to each other, much in the same way that Sport motorcycle riders used to do.

Getting off the soap box now, anyone know any companies needing network engineers in Colorado?

Gernby

Anyone know any companies needing network engineers in THE U.S.?