Growing up, I had a friend who actually said the accelerator doesn’t stop at the speed limit. And I’ve known my share of lead-foots. Gotten a speeding ticket or two myself. Never been addicted to speed, though some folks love them some acceleration way over the posted speed limit, while most drive a few over, and as long as everyone behaves, that seems to be agreeable.
On a related point, Democrats can’t NOT impose or raise taxes. The Little Shop of Horrors-like monster of government is the beast they feed these revenues to, which feeds all sorts of other little monsters in and out of elected office. So, when New York announced it was passing legislation to put speed limiters on chronic speeders, my first thought was: where do they get more money?
Speed limiting devices are not new. They are used all over, from transportation and livery services to, according to the reporting, over 7000 New York City Fleet vehicles.
The speed-limiting devices offer alerts or even actively limit acceleration when the speed limit is exceeded. The newly passed legislation specifically focuses on active speed limiters that do not allow the driver to exceed the speed limit by more than a few miles per hour. …
The enforcement process of these speed-limiting devices is strict. “Super speeders” who rack up 16 or more school zone camera tickets within 10 years of their initial offense can be forced to reinstall the speed governor for 24 months. A third round of speed camera tickets within 15 years requires the speed governor to be installed for 36 months, while a fourth round mandates an indefinite installation.
I have another friend who, while we were in New York City in our High School Years. got hit by a cab, so this exception was interesting.
The legislation does provide carve-outs for certain classes of drivers: state and city-owned vehicles, New York City Taxi and Limousine Commission vehicles, and commercial vehicles used by two or more people are all exempt from the legislation.
The key thing to remember here is that elected Democrats are posers looking for photo-ops and easy feel-good moments on the ground that hide the fact that they don’t actually care about public safety or safety of any kind. They care about power and money. The regulators are an expression of power, but Democrat state-run DMVs are not notorious for their efficiency or follow-through.
Volodymyr Zhukovskyy killed seven in New Hampshire when he should not have been driving at all. After that tragedy, the Massachusetts RMV managed to find over 2000 drivers whose licenses should have been revoked for a long list of reasons; no one could be bothered to address them until some people died. My guess is, there wasn’t any money in it, so why rush until getting sued and losing money got their attention.
Remember, overseeing motor vehicle safety is their job, but progressive bureaucrats tend toward Third-Worldism. What’s in it for me, and as I look at the reporting on these limiters, I’m not seeing a lot of opportunities to replace all the money they are going to lose if chronic speeders are no longer getting ticketed.
Installation of the devices costs 1500.00, and fines for tampering with them range from 1500 to 2500 dollars. And yeah, some folks will mess with them. And yeah, there will still be lots of speeding and red-light camera infractions because people are people. But if there’s no future revenue, then it has to be about control.
Over on LinkedIn, Josh Paul sort of nailed it.
-How long do you think NY will pretend the threshold will stay at 16 forever?
-What’s the over/under on when 16 becomes 10?
-10 becomes 5?
-And when will it turn into whoever the State decides is a “risk?”
If you pair this with the unpopular technology advances being built into new cars, we’re more or less on the path to you driving by a cop, they push a button, and your car shuts off and coasts to a stop.
Before too long, we’ll be seeing reports about injuries or deaths resulting from this activity, investigations into the officers involved, policy and procedure, accusations of racism (why are you stalling out more cars driven by brown people?), oh, the fun we’ll have.
As Josh noted, and this was my thought as well, if speed is such a risk to the rest of us, skip all the BS and revoke their license. If you have the right to go to court to fight the limiter, then go and fight for the right to not have to take public transportation for a few years. That sounds like punishment enough, and you get ride fares in the bargain.
Of course, I also know someone who lost their license and still found a way to get a car, get it registered, and drive, often drunk. They eventually went to jail and lost their license forever.
And I know someone who got drunk, wrapped around a utility pole, and never had to report to work or worry about driving drunk ever again. He was lucky he didn’t kill someone else.
People are people. The limiter program will have successes and failures, but only the failures will make news, and those will be what the progressives use to ratchet either their power or any new fines, in the only direction they know.
