Monday, December 28, 2009
News Super Speeder fines start Jan. 1
Posted by Thomas Wheatley @thomaswheatley on Mon, Dec 28, 2009 at 3:56 PM
Be careful driving home from lackluster New Year's Eve parties. If you're caught speeding, you could be fined extra cash under a new state law that takes effect Jan. 1.
Going 85 miles per hour or more on most Georgia roads -- including interstates -- will cost a speeder an additional $200, when a new "super-speeder" law takes effect on Friday. On two-lane roads, meaning one lane each way, the extra fine kicks in at 75 mph.That’s on top of whatever ticket the speeder gets for going over the speed limit.
“It’s a lifesaving law,” said Bob Dallas, director of the Governor’s Office of Highway Safety, noting that speeding makes death or severe injury much more likely when an accident happens.
The program, which Gov. Sonny Perdue has pushed for years, is projected to raise $23 million to help fund trauma centers. It's worth watching how state lawmakers manage those funds, especially this year. Hart reminds us that legislators will ultimately decide what to do with the cash. In an upcoming session that's predicted to be all about cutting the budget, there's a high risk that the cash could be funneled toward other projects.
Comments (21)
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I have no problem with speeding fines if the pain was shared by all kinds of dangerous drivers. Speeders bear the brunt of insurance premium increases because of the way states like to ticket drivers. If safety was such a concern, they could catch many speeders who merely do not just speed in the left lane and do nothing else wrong, but they should be able to find enough speeders who talk on the phone and waver between lanes, or tail another car or are a danger to drivers in the right lanes. For my money, a guy going 85 in the left lane, assuming that is his only infraction, is a much safer driver than the guy going 75 in the right lane who weaves back and forth without using signals. But a cop will always give the guy in the left lane going 85 the ticket even if a worse driver is in the right lane because more revenue comes from the 85mph ticket and the cop is too lazy to be proactive in finding bad drivers. So much for safety.
This is a tax. Speed is not the biggest contributor to highway deaths, but it is the easiest to enforce and tax.
i call bullshit on this. it IS just a source of money for the state, rather than a safety measure, which is how it was sold.
In many states, going more than 25 over the speed limit will land you in jail for reckless driving. What's wrong with that?
Mike_Midtown is your typical citizen who thinks everything is justified once the "safety" excuse is used. And then he makes a fool of himself by saying "in many states, going more than 25 over speed limit will land you in jail" . Seriously? Which states? 25 above speed limit is usually around 80 or 90mph. How many states put you in jail at those speeds? Also you did not address the criticism that speeding bears a highly disproportionate amount of burden compared to other safety related risky driving on the road. I even gave an example in my earlier comment illustrating how the typical cop is more concerned with the fine than actual dangerous driving.
Praveen - I, and probably you, make the mistake of expecting logic and intelligence to prevail with an emotional and uninformed argument.
Praveen and Dale: Take some time and do some research before you spout off about misinformation when all you've done is made a weak ad hominem attack without any logical thought and used unreliable first-hand "knowledge" as evidence: http://www.mit.edu/~jfc/laws.html What happens in New York? Or Hawaii?
Calculus Entropy - I have been in the insurance total loss industry for over 25 years with the resulting reams of actuarial data and real world experience to form my opinion. I trust that more than your linked article, which does not even address the point of speeding as a danger on the road. Rather, it actually supports the contention that WesleyWhatWhat and I made that this is a tax, not a safety issue. If speed were such a clear safety factor, wouldn't the state laws be more uniform? Why do they address points which merely define differing levels of fines? Just because a law is on the books, doesn't mean it is enforced which I took as Praveen's point. For a good example just look at laws regulating sex. Speed, especially on interstate highways, is far less significant that intoxication, fatigue, device distraction (radio, computer, cell phone), among other factors. If you are going to post a link in rebuttal of my post, at least post one which is somewhat relevant.
How is showing that there are indeed laws that allow police to jail someone for speeding not relevant to your comment that no states have laws where you will be arrested for speeding? You know, where you said, "Seriously? Which states?" But, fine, you want me to address the other issue. This study says 40% of traffic deaths are from speeding (not to mention the cost involved to the community): http://www.rta.nsw.gov.au/roadsafety/speedandspeedcameras/index.html or here: http://www.medicineonline.com/news/12/761/Us-Speeding-Deaths-Up-As-Speed-Limits-Rise.html These are just a couple of random sites I picked out, but it seems to me there is a direct correlation between speeding and an increase in death, thus validating that this super speeder law does have merit, no matter what your thoughts are on the secondary motives or reasonings are behind it. Surely your reams of data would show that--at the very least--the more riskier the behavior, the more dangerous it is? Isn't that why we have an insurance industry, to bet against risk? State laws are not uniform specifically because they are state laws--there are 50 of them, and they are certainly going to vary... widely. But, yup, I would agree: Because a law is on the books, that doesn't mean it's enforced. In that sense, then, this a non-issue; in a few months or a year, this too will be another lackluster law that is not always enforced.
Honestly, this law is ridiculous. Like it has been said - it is just easier to pick up someone cruising at 85 vs the person weaving and texting at 70-75. Guess what? That person weaving is a lot more likely to hit someone and the impact at 70-75 is going to cause serious injury if not death. They say that 40% of traffic deaths are caused by speeding - but do we really know that? Whats to say that persons favorite song didnt just come on the radio and they reached to turn it up - or were singing and dancing in their seat. Or that they didnt sneeze and lose control. Any number of things could have happened, and who is to say that the accident wouldn't have happened if that person was doing 75 vs 80.
Manfred: DaleC assumes if the government collects one iota of revenue it is the big bad leftist socialist machine taking our money; it's what the Cato Institute and Neil Boortz tells him to think.
Manfred - any money you pay to the government is a tax. Speeding fines tax behavior just like taxes on tobacco and alcohol. Calculus Entropy - typical leftist response. If i am a Conservative, I can't have a brain, right? BTW try reading comprehension lessons. I never said the quote you attribute to me.
Calculus Entropy - it is illegal in several states (including GA I think) to engage in oral or anal sex, with jail time as punishment. Those states don't jail people for that and I doubt the others jail people for driving 27 mph over the limit. I would imagine that, by that definition, 95% of the people on this blog are dodging jail time :-0 Just because a law is on the books, doesn't mean the law is enforced.
felles, fellas, no need to argue - you're both morons. it just happens that dalec is correct in this case. the superspeeder law is a crock of sh*t.
First of all, let's leave right and left out of this argument. I am liberal, but I share a libertarian streak, just from the left side. The fact that Boortz, Dale and I share a common ground on this shows that common sense trumps ideology. The governor that put this fine in is a republican. Democrats are just as guilty of doing the same. As dale said, I dont care what the law said. Some of those laws are discretionary and it usually takes a pissed off cop or some aggravating secondary driving mistake for the cop to arrest someone at the speeds I cited. Just driving 85-90 alone will not get you arrested in many states. I see people like CalculusEntropy still have not addressed the criticisms we brought up. There are plenty of speeders who exhibit secondary bad habits that it is not needed for a cop to fire a laser gun on the left lane speeders who are not doing anything else wrong. The speeders who make other mistakes are the reason for those accidents related to speed. Just using a laser indiscriminately at the biggest speeder during a given time frame is silly especially when there are so many bad drivers around.
One more thing, anyone remember the stunt a bunch of people pulled driving 55 on I-285? It would be great to recreate that and frustrate the cops. Imagine how much safer Atlanta will be with that pent up road rage created by following the law. Do you think the government actually would like that? All that lost revenue? The fact is not one of their statements say that their increased fines will help curb speeding. It just talks about the increased revenue. So how exactly is this law working to crub speeding if they are bragggin about revenue and not reduced speeding which would decrease revenue?
Praveen - here is the link to "A Meditation on the Speed Limit" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OoETMCosULQ
Calculus Entropy- You seem to just want to argue for the sake of arguing. All those studies you point to are discredited by other studies. The new speeding law is just a crock of excrement. It is pure and simply a revenue stream. You appear to be an educated and fairly intelligent (if obstreperous and argumentative). Surely you do not believe that speed or 80-100mph per se is dangerous or the single cause of accidents.. Do you? Perhaps for some folks it would be dangerous but for your average driver in a modern automobile on a modern limited access highway it should be quite safe as long as conditions allow it.
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