Speed limits & revenue

[Loren Pechtel]

http://hamptonroads.com/2015/10/chesapeake-lower-speed-limit-route-obx-bypasses-tolls

Many on here have called the notion that speed limits are set for revenue rather than safety as crazy.

Here we have a case where it most clearly is being set for revenue, although of a toll road rather than tickets.

 

[ksen]

I don't get it.

 

[Nexus]

They are lowering speed limits on non-toll roads to get people to drive on the toll road with higher speed limits.

 

[ksen]

Oh, thanks! :hug:

those bastards!

 

[Bronzeage]

"Who will help me bake the bread?" said the little red hen.

An expressway is built to get people to where they want to go, a little quicker, but they are expected to pay for it. To avoid paying for the road that will do exactly what they want, they choose to mix in the traffic of people who live and work on the non-toll road. Since there is now a toll road for people who have no business on the non-toll road, speed limits on the local road can be reduced, making conditions safer and nicer for the people who live and work there.

Of course, the freeloaders who don't want to pay for something that delivers what they need and want, now face the possibility of speeding tickets because they chose to drive on a road that does not suit their needs.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

"Who will help me bake the bread?" said the little red hen.

An expressway is built to get people to where they want to go, a little quicker, but they are expected to pay for it. To avoid paying for the road that will do exactly what they want, they choose to mix in the traffic of people who live and work on the non-toll road. Since there is now a toll road for people who have no business on the non-toll road, speed limits on the local road can be reduced, making conditions safer and nicer for the people who live and work there.

Of course, the freeloaders who don't want to pay for something that delivers what they need and want, now face the possibility of speeding tickets because they chose to drive on a road that does not suit their needs.

And how do you conclude they have no business on the non-toll road? That's where they were before, the road didn't change.

It's just the state wants to make more money so they are impeding non-toll traffic despite the fact that nobody benefits from this.

 

[Bronzeage]

"Who will help me bake the bread?" said the little red hen.

An expressway is built to get people to where they want to go, a little quicker, but they are expected to pay for it. To avoid paying for the road that will do exactly what they want, they choose to mix in the traffic of people who live and work on the non-toll road. Since there is now a toll road for people who have no business on the non-toll road, speed limits on the local road can be reduced, making conditions safer and nicer for the people who live and work there.

Of course, the freeloaders who don't want to pay for something that delivers what they need and want, now face the possibility of speeding tickets because they chose to drive on a road that does not suit their needs.

And how do you conclude they have no business on the non-toll road? That's where they were before, the road didn't change.

It's just the state wants to make more money so they are impeding non-toll traffic despite the fact that nobody benefits from this.

There is no Constitutional right to get there in a hurry.

How do you know nobody benefits from this? Is there some public benefit to driving fast through commercial and residential districts, which have traffic side roads entering the highway? If someone needs to use a road, they can obey the law. Wanting the get there faster is not an excuse.

If it's not worth $6 to get there faster, they can slow down.

 

[prideandfall]

There is no Constitutional right to get there in a hurry.

there is no constitutional power to artificially impede people's ability to get somewhere quickly.

How do you know nobody benefits from this?

how do you know anybody does?

Is there some public benefit to driving fast through commercial and residential districts, which have traffic side roads entering the highway?

is there some public benefit to people in residential districts wandering into the middle of a highway?
because that seems to be what you're suggesting is going on, since i can't imagine why else the surrounding region has any relevance to what's happening on the highway itself.

If someone needs to use a road, they can obey the law. Wanting the get there faster is not an excuse.

if people need to get places in a hurry, they can stop making superfluous laws that punish negligible behavior. wanting to make more money off speeding tickets is not an excuse.

If it's not worth $6 to get there faster, they can slow down.

spoken like someone truly and enormously ignorant of the reality of living in a large urban region.

 

[prideandfall]

k so a little research done for context and here's more info.

if you look at a map of the roadways some things are very obvious:
https://www.google.com/maps/place/C...m2!3m1!1s0x89bab11d6836cfc9:0x74077e6c6eedf21

1. prior to the express tollway being built, Battlefield Blvd (Virginia State route 168) was the only roadway in the eastern half of virginia that went from cheasepeke all the way to north carolina - your options were to take battlefield, or go over a hundred miles out of your way to the west to take US highway 17.

2. at some point, traffic going from cheasepeake south on route 168 got high enough that the 2 lane road (one way in each direction) could no longer handle the amount of traffic being driven on it, and the state had 3 options:
A. expand battlefield blvd to accommodate the increased traffic
B. build a new expressway
C. build a tollway to punish people for the fact that the state didn't have any viable options for transportation in the SE region.
they decided to go with option C.

75 odd years ago the government pretty much colluded with the automobile manufacturer's to make the US a car-dependent country with limited public transit that requires vehicle access to get anywhere. this was a specific and deliberate choice by the government, and we are dealing with the consequences of that choice to this day.
making further deliberate choices to inconvenience and punish the american public for that decision is bullshit on every moral, ethical, or civil metric you care to name.

 

[dismal]

75 odd years ago the government pretty much colluded with the automobile manufacturer's to make the US a car-dependent country with limited public transit that requires vehicle access to get anywhere.

"the government" with a small "g"?

Can you be more specific?

 

[prideandfall]

75 odd years ago the government pretty much colluded with the automobile manufacturer's to make the US a car-dependent country with limited public transit that requires vehicle access to get anywhere.

"the government" with a small "g"?

Can you be more specific?

essentially what it comes down to is that in the early-mid 20th century in the US (and other places in the world obviously but for the purposes of this discussion we'll focus on the US), the choice came down to investing in public transits (trains, electric cars, urban networks and continental routes) or investing in freeways and roads and associated infrastructure.
while there are of course numerous arguments and valid points to be made about whether this was in response to public demand or a natural evolution of technological progress, the end result is that in the US both local and federal governments largely invested in personal transit infrastructure - highways and such, instead of expanding public transit.
so you take the natural social migration away from packed urban centers into more spread-out suburban areas and then factor in the planned infrastructure making owning a car more convenient (in many cases to the point of making it difficult or impossible to hold a certain class of job without access to car transportation), and you have a situation where car use was effectively designed by the government to be mandatory.
(this doesn't even start to go into things like the GM streetcar conspiracy or many other such stories and how the car manufacturer's and/or government agencies colluded or turned a blind eye to the systematic dismantlement of privately operated public transportation systems)

now, mind you, i'm not saying that private car use is at least partially a designed function in order to cast it as an evil and sinister thing - i own a car, i've always owned a car, and i could never even imagine using public transit regularly the thought of doing so kind of mortifies me - but that doesn't mean that it's not a reality.
i find it ironic and funny (in a tragic way) that car ownership was basically pushed on the american people, and now there's a growing undercurrent of resentment towards car owners and cases like this where they're being punished for it.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

"Who will help me bake the bread?" said the little red hen.

An expressway is built to get people to where they want to go, a little quicker, but they are expected to pay for it. To avoid paying for the road that will do exactly what they want, they choose to mix in the traffic of people who live and work on the non-toll road. Since there is now a toll road for people who have no business on the non-toll road, speed limits on the local road can be reduced, making conditions safer and nicer for the people who live and work there.

Of course, the freeloaders who don't want to pay for something that delivers what they need and want, now face the possibility of speeding tickets because they chose to drive on a road that does not suit their needs.

And how do you conclude they have no business on the non-toll road? That's where they were before, the road didn't change.

It's just the state wants to make more money so they are impeding non-toll traffic despite the fact that nobody benefits from this.

Doesn't the article indicate that they want traffic to move from local to Expressway to reduce local congestion? That the Mayor wanted the city (not the State) to look into increasing the speed limit on the Expressway as an added incentive for traffic to shift to the Expressway, prior to lowering the speed limits on the local roads?

 

[JonA]

What are you people all harping about?

Every road's a toll road - it's called 'taxes' - some are just more expensive than others.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

And how do you conclude they have no business on the non-toll road? That's where they were before, the road didn't change.

It's just the state wants to make more money so they are impeding non-toll traffic despite the fact that nobody benefits from this.

There is no Constitutional right to get there in a hurry.

How do you know nobody benefits from this? Is there some public benefit to driving fast through commercial and residential districts, which have traffic side roads entering the highway? If someone needs to use a road, they can obey the law. Wanting the get there faster is not an excuse.

If it's not worth $6 to get there faster, they can slow down.

Is there anything you won't support in traffic enforcement?

How about a stunt they sometimes pull here: Wait until you're about 3 seconds from a crosswalk and then have a cop step into the crosswalk in a lane you're not in.

You failed to yield to a pedestrian, you get a ticket. Never mind that you couldn't stop in time.

 

[Bronzeage]

There is no Constitutional right to get there in a hurry.

How do you know nobody benefits from this? Is there some public benefit to driving fast through commercial and residential districts, which have traffic side roads entering the highway? If someone needs to use a road, they can obey the law. Wanting the get there faster is not an excuse.

If it's not worth $6 to get there faster, they can slow down.

Is there anything you won't support in traffic enforcement?

How about a stunt they sometimes pull here: Wait until you're about 3 seconds from a crosswalk and then have a cop step into the crosswalk in a lane you're not in.

You failed to yield to a pedestrian, you get a ticket. Never mind that you couldn't stop in time.

I like traffic safety. I like streets where pedestrians and bike riders do not risk their lives. There are few places where pedestrians have the right of way in a crosswalk, and when they do, it's usually on a school campus.

A traffic offender always has an excuse and always blames someone else. Owning an automobile is not a license to kill.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Is there anything you won't support in traffic enforcement?

How about a stunt they sometimes pull here: Wait until you're about 3 seconds from a crosswalk and then have a cop step into the crosswalk in a lane you're not in.

You failed to yield to a pedestrian, you get a ticket. Never mind that you couldn't stop in time.

I like traffic safety. I like streets where pedestrians and bike riders do not risk their lives. There are few places where pedestrians have the right of way in a crosswalk, and when they do, it's usually on a school campus.

A traffic offender always has an excuse and always blames someone else. Owning an automobile is not a license to kill.

So you consider a distance less than the minimum stopping distance an excuse?

You have a magical car that can stop on a dime?

 

[Bronzeage]

I like traffic safety. I like streets where pedestrians and bike riders do not risk their lives. There are few places where pedestrians have the right of way in a crosswalk, and when they do, it's usually on a school campus.

A traffic offender always has an excuse and always blames someone else. Owning an automobile is not a license to kill.

So you consider a distance less than the minimum stopping distance an excuse?

You have a magical car that can stop on a dime?

No, but I do have a brain that is capable of seeing analyzing visual input and reducing my speed in situations where a sudden stop might be needed.

What is the speed limit of the streets where pedestrians have the right of way in crosswalks? In my state, the safety inspection brake test required a car going 20 mph to stop in 20 feet. That's not magic and it's not a dime.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

So you consider a distance less than the minimum stopping distance an excuse?

You have a magical car that can stop on a dime?

No, but I do have a brain that is capable of seeing analyzing visual input and reducing my speed in situations where a sudden stop might be needed.

What is the speed limit of the streets where pedestrians have the right of way in crosswalks? In my state, the safety inspection brake test required a car going 20 mph to stop in 20 feet. That's not magic and it's not a dime.

The street they were pulling this stunt on was a 45 mph street.

They were also using a crosswork that at the time I saw it was not be used at all--the only place that it served was closed.

 

[Bronzeage]

No, but I do have a brain that is capable of seeing analyzing visual input and reducing my speed in situations where a sudden stop might be needed.

What is the speed limit of the streets where pedestrians have the right of way in crosswalks? In my state, the safety inspection brake test required a car going 20 mph to stop in 20 feet. That's not magic and it's not a dime.

The street they were pulling this stunt on was a 45 mph street.

They were also using a crosswork that at the time I saw it was not be used at all--the only place that it served was closed.

You live in a very dangerous place. Apparently there is no concern for anyone who is not inside a car. It actually sounds more like an urban legend. Why would there be a crosswalk at a location where there is no traffic light or stop sign?

 

[DBT]

The authorities would probably never admit to it, but I think there is definitely a degree of revenue raising at work.