North Carolina’s Cloverific Temper Tantrum

By
eric
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Clovers like ALL CAPS. It is their way of temper-tantruming. Invariably, when their most sacred totem – THE LAW – is scoffed.clover

North Carolina has gone full Clover.

Speed limits WILL be obeyed, to the letter. Or else.

Unleash the hounds.

Well, unleash the North Carolina State Police – whose primary mission, it appears, is not the apprehension of thieves, rapists and murderers and other people who’ve actually caused harm to others but rather to enforce the speed limit on North Carolina highways.

North Carolina’s Department of Transportation – the Hauptquartier of the state police – is launching an uber-Clover unternehmen (I use the German for the same reason that “Homeland” sounds much more right when it is rendered in the original, der Heimat… as in, for instance, Heimatsicherheitsdeinst… look it up.. you may be  interested to learn the literal translation, as well as its prior usage) to filch as many dollars from as many “speeders” as possible.

The unternehmen (i.e., the operation) is called Obey the Sign Or Pay the Fine.

All caps.

And yes, really.NC porker

One could not gin up a better slogan for the mindless bullying of the populace by government enforcers (their own term, don’t forget.. peace-keeping having gone out of vogue a long time ago).

“Zero tolerance” for any non-immediate supinage to THE LAW.

The operation began in late March and runs through April 3 and – according to the NC State Police Hauptquartier, drivers will be ticketed – that is, waylaid by an armed stranger and threatened with physical violence unless they hand over money – for “speeding” as little as 1 MPH in excess of the posted maximum.

“Many Americans believe they won’t be ticketed if they drive within a ‘buffer zone’ above the posted speed limit. But now, law enforcement will be targeting and ticketing speeding drivers,” lectures the North Carolina DOT Hauptquartier (see here). 

Because we all know how unsafe it is to drive 71 MPH in a zone with a 70 MPH posted maximum.

In the same same way it was not-unrecently unsafe to drive, well, 70 MPH on the same highway… you know, before the state arbitrarily rescinded the prior 55 MPH maximum (which had just as arbitrarily replaced the former 70-75 MPH maximum).

Safety, you see, is all a matter of numbers.   NC clover 3

Whatever number they decree – subject to random, arbitrary change at any time.

This helps with other numbers.

The number of tickets issued, for instance. And thereby, the amount of revenue collected.

Which, of course, is ultimately what this is all about.

What it has always been about.

Speed limits get set such that almost every driver is “speeding” whenever they are driving – and so subject to being ticketed at almost any time.

It is literally like shooting fish in a barrel.

But what to think of a speed limit that’s (see above) no such thing?

Legally, sure. The speed limit is the fastest you’re allowed to drive. But it’s not a limit in any other sense.NC Clover 4

The term implies – this number is the absolute fastest it’s safe to travel; any faster (even 1 MPH faster) is to cross a red line from reasonable to reckless. But a question comes to mind – or ought to: If almost everyone is “speeding” every time they get behind the wheel (which they are) then either the speed limit is preposterous, a limit in the legal sense only – or almost everyone is a maniac, indifferent to their safety as well as the safety of others.

Which do you suppose it is?

If speed limits were actual rather than legal limits, the number would comport with a velocity obviously unreasonable to most people, who would for their own self-interested reasons avoid driving that fast. Enforcement would be comparable to enforcement of laws forbidding theft. Most people don’t do that, either – so cops can focus on the few who do.

But then, there’s not much money in going after thieves while there is a fortune (millions) to be made from enforcing silly laws that turn almost everyone into an offender (and so, a payer).

It is not necessary to post signs forbidding 100 MPH speeds on suburban roads because most people would never think of driving at such speeds on suburban roads, regardless of THE LAW.NC Clover 5

So, what we’re dealing with here is a bogeyman – a manufactured offense.

Most of us know this, instinctively.

It is why we feel anger rather than remorse when we are pulled over (that is, forced to stop by an armed stranger) and handed a piece of paper ordering us to Stand and Deliver.

The anger sure to erupt over North Carolina’s “zero tolerance” Obey The Sign Or Pay The Fine exercise in sheeple shearing is bound to be volcanic (one hopes) especially given that most speedometers are slightly inaccurate. You may believe you set the cruise control to 70 – but officer not-so-friendly’s radar gun says 72.

Bye-bye $150.

Plus whatever the insurance mafia ends up surcharging you for this manufactured offense.

So, you might want to avoid North Carolina between now and April 3 – when Unternehmen Obey The Sign or Pay The Fine is schedule to end.

One wonders how much longer this sort of thing will be tolerated – when pushback will (at last) erupt and the cynical, tyrannical acts of these creatures who lord it over us become intolerable and so no longer enforceable.

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Related posts:
  1. On “Speeding”
  2. Speed Averages
  3. Texas May Go To 85! (Clovers Stroking Out All Over)
  4. I’d Like A Refund, Please
  5. Don’t think you need a radar detector?

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42 COMMENTS

  1. 17 year old girl arrested for saying fuck during a 911 call. She was trying to get help for her dying father
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tp5bjzAwdAc

    Hero:
    Well, OK, first of all you don’t need to swear over 9-1-1 and slow down.
    Caller:
    OK, send me a fucking ambulance!
    Hero hangs up on her.

    Daniel Shaver murdered by a Mesa, Arizona hero begged for his life
    http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2016/03/29/man-fatally-shot-ariz-police-officer-begged-life/82393582/

    How many Freudian analysts does it take to change a light bulb?
    Two. One to change it, and the other to hold the penis.

    EDIT: LADDER. I MEANT LADDER.

    Rescuing a cat
    http://i.imgur.com/tWIIzAr.gifv

  2. Isn’t that the whole premise of UH MERKIN UH?

    OBEY THE CONSTITUTION OR ROT IN AN INSTITUTION.

    ALL CITIZENS WILL BE MADE TO PAY FOR FOR FELLOW DISOBEDIENT’S ACCOMMODATIONS

    Sure you could argue the constitution is intended only to limit those in Govt. But how many know that. Bringing it up means your SOME KIND OF FAG, as they say in the script of IDIOCRACY. A future dystopia, where almost everyman thinks and speaks in capslock, the lower cases being far beyond his limited radius of attention and apprehension.

    Idiocracy was by Mike Judge. So was Office Space, another good one, but goes beyond the NAP to gain the protagonists freedom, so keep your wits about you and don’t cheer on an aggression. To aggressors do not make any further aggressions right, you know.
    http://www.dailyscript.com/scripts/office-early-reduced.pdf

    IS THIS REALLY SHOUTING TO ANYONE. SERIOUSLY. EVERYONE BECOMES A FUCKING VICTIM ON THE INTERNET, WHERE LITERALLY NOTHING IS AT RISK EXCEPT MAYBE A CASE OF CARPAL TUNNEL AT THE WORST.

    IF SOMETHING OFFENDS YOU, TURN OFF YOUR DEVICE. WALK AWAY. HOW HARD IS IT REALLY TO ESCAPE THE MUCH FEARED CYBERBULLY. UNLIKE A PAPER TIGER, HE CANT EVEN WRITE SOMETHING ON A PAGE THAT COULD GIVE YOU A PAPER CUT THAT COULD THEN GET INFECTED. JUST DELETE THE SHIT ALREADY, IF ITS THAT BAD. AVERT YOUR EYE TO THE FLASHING ADS AND STOP STOP READING.

  3. I have zero doubt that it’s not a coincidence that this ‘zero tolerance’ week also happens to coincide with spring break travel.

  4. Cops are a bunch of lazy pigs. Are cops this ducking stupid that they will target the 5% of people who drive 1mph above the limit and ignore the 90% of people driving at least 20mph above? That’s how it is in the NJ GSP in the 55mph zone. I swear I’d flip my lid of I’d get pulled over going 5 above…I’d feel like the slowest gazelle trying to outrun the lion. If he asks do I know how fast I was going, I’d say, slower than 99% of the drivers on this road….

    • No matter if you got a ticket for 71, the radar isn’t infallible by a long shot and auto speedo’s are not dead on the money. More crap like this and they’ll all have ground radar for speedo’s and those won’t be exact either, just as police radar isn’t exact. The entire debacle reeks of pig shit. I washed the wife’s car Friday in a stall someone had washed a trailer that had hauled hogs. It seemed like it took hours with pig shit overwhelming me. It’s much worse in uniform.

      Know what’s lower than cops? Politicians.

      • Eightsouthman,

        That is deep. 😉

        Eventually those in government will kill the goose laying the golden eggs. I am surprised the public has not risen up yet in protest.

        Although people (in the USA) may mock the French and other nationalities in Europe, at least most people in Europe will protest and not take everything quietly. At some level it seems that the politicians are wary not to push the public too far. (perhaps I am reading too much into it.)

    • Hi C_lover,

      The entire premise – pulling people over for “speeding” – is ridiculous. It is no different than hassling people for “possessing” or “using” arbitrarily illegal “drugs.”

      There is no actual harm caused to an actual victim. The state – that is, the people who have it in their power to hurt you – has issued these statutory fatwas, and punishes you for “violating” them. It’s outrageous. The state cannot be a victim – and without a real victim of an actual harm, there cannot be a crime.

      This is what people need to flash on – because it will make them mad when they do flash on it.

  5. Just do what i did, rip off the plates and vins and take anything with the legal name out. Then tell em its illegal to use a legal name. No juris fiction anymore..

    • Good luck with that.

      Driving around without plates will result in being pulled over and – minimally – the car being impounded and (if you don’t have the necessary permissions, such as license and proof of insurance) very likely you being impounded (arrested).

      I agree it’s tyrannical to be forced to carry permissions to travel; to have to put the state’s cattle tags on (cough) your car. It’s neither here nor there regarding what will happen to you if you don’t comply.

    • let’s say you’re 100% correct. The problem is that every cop you come across thinks you’re not and believes he has laws to enforce. This means fighting the court battle over and over again at great expense personally. And should you prevail the masses won’t join you, they’ll just consider you the weirdo. Then a new cop is hired or you have to go some place new and the battle repeats over again. It doesn’t really achieve anything because people have perceptions. It’s the perceptions that need to be changed first and then the rest changes.

    • I’m going to pass on that solution. 10’s of thousands of people are rotting in jail in Tx. because they can’t make bail, often for simple misdemeanors such as driving without a license.

      They sit there year after year for no good reason and for no real crime. People without a name can’t be bailed and may achieve the status of terrorist(you can barely speak to a Tx LEO about any crime without hearing the T word come up in connection to it)since you have no name. If you like jail food and being passed around with no pants, be my guest….and when I say be my guest, you are my guest but not voluntarily from me and if I don’t pony up the taxes for you, I’ll be getting passed around just like you.

      I find every time someone says they’ll do something that’s bound to get them jailed are the very ones who’ve never seen the inside of a cell. BTDT, more than once……I’ll pass.

  7. …and then police wonder why they are hated…in a perverse sort of way, I am sure that many honest citizens have no remorse when a member of “the thin blue line” loses out to a mere citizen…figuratively or actually…
    As for those who say “blame the politicians” for this fiasco, each individual police officer has a brain and can elect to exercise “discretion”…and “common sense”…Will they?

    • In a campaign like this (originated from the governor’s office, specifically the Governor’s Highway Safety Program) the officer has a choice of exercising discretion and potentially losing their job, or giving you, someone he doesn’t know and has a vague feeling of disdain towards, a ticket. He’s going to write the ticket every time.

      Governor McCrory is a Republican in a heavily Republican state. They probably didn’t care about him signing the anti-LGBT bill into law (preempting local ordinances), but this will probably get the electorate’s attention and make his chances of a second term anything but a shoe-in.

  8. This is the sort of thing that Colorado highway patrol likes to crow about any time there’s a holiday where there might be excess alcohol consumption (guess what, that’s all of them). Surprised I didn’t have an email warning me they’d be out “in force” over the Easter weekend. Then a week or so later we get the follow up message boasting about the 350 or so DUIs the heroes “caught.” No mention of the amount of alcohol consumed, nor the follow up about how their lives ruined because of an arbitrary blood alcohol reading.

    The thing that gets me about all the traffic enforcement is that technology becomes the law. The police put up a sign telling you how fast to go. That sign (technology) becomes the law. Take the humans out of the equation, at least after the sign comes into existence. Then, to make sure the sign’s law is adhered to, come out with another machine that checks the humans to make sure they are obeying the sign. Again, turn the local cop into a data processor. Red light cameras and automatic photo-radar systems take away that too. If you want to fight a ticket, you’ll have to go against a machine. A machine that the legal system says is infallible, because society is willing to accept that machines are perfect.

    It seems fitting that the T-2000 disguised itself as a traffic cop…

    Kyle Reese: Listen, and understand! That Terminator is out there! It can’t be bargained with. It can’t be reasoned with It doesn’t feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are dead.

    https://www.youtube.com/zu0rP2VWLWw

  9. Eric, I’m glad you picked up on this. As a resident of The People’s Republic of NC I’ve decided to react in a different way. I’m going FULL CLOVER! I hope others will follow my lead, literally and figuratively. From now until April 4 I’m driving anywhere from 10-15 mph UNDER THE POSTED SPEED. I figure if 5-10% of other drivers will do the same we can screw up the traffic in this state beyond belief, particularly on the interstates. You want slow, I’ll give you slow.

    Thankfully NC has a Republican Governor, Senate and House of Representatives. Imagine if we had Demoncrats running the show instead of the Liberty Minded, Small GovCo Republicans.

    Interestingly, after only two days of this activity I can now identify cars by the sound of their horns and I never tire of being signaled “You’re Number One”

    Are you with me Brothers?

    • Yep, Texas is also a bastion of Republicans, hence by far the most incarcerated and almost as many executed as all other states combined with the exception of La. It’s been only ONE Republican and mainly Democrats who’ve tried to turn the state back into some sort of free place. With the Republican lock, it isn’t going that well. It was bad enough before the Shrub with Ann Richards tripling the number of prisons but since the Shrub, it’s been a double-down and everybody except the few begging for some tax relief.

      • Hi Eight,

        Yup. There’s this ridiculous idea floating around that Republicans esteem freedom. Yeah, the party of Lincoln favors freedom…

        • While I agree with you in general, Eric, on taxation Republicans tend to be better than Democrats. I moved from a one party Democratic legislature in Hawaii, where the top marginal state income tax rate was 11%, to a heavily Republican legislature in Texas where the top income tax rate was 0%.

          It’s on other topics that Republicans tend to be horrific – the TSA, having Border Patrol checkpoints (aka Constitution-free zones) 100 miles inland from Big Bend with a nasty uniformed thug looking for an excuse to search my vehicle, etc.

            • Yup, totally agree with you there.

              Well, we can vote for the LP candidate — if we’re foolish enough to volunteer to get put on the government list for jury conscription, etc. in exchange for wasting an irretrievable half hour or so of our life at a voting station. No thanks.

          • jim, all that’s(the border part) true……and more……as the Mothers of Invention used to say. Now BO is going to sign a bill contrary to what most states want although probably not TX. It will allow the NSA to help every cop agency of every sort. Great to know we’ll someday be a completely crime free country where only the biggest criminals are rewarded.

            • It can’t happen here,
              I’m telling you my dear,
              That it can’t happen here,
              Cause I’ve been checking it out baby,
              I checked it out a couple of times,
              And it important that you believe me that it can’t happen here…

              FZ and the Mothers, Freakout, 1966….

              (more or less….longterm memory may be flakin’ out. So as the stormtroopers goose-step into the night in NC, can anyplace else be far behind?

              • I figure freedom is directly proportional to the number of people who can do the Mudshark. Out….you go out…..so far out….you do the Mudshark baby……not looking good right now.

                • Ya know, 8SM,

                  I figure someday we will have to cross paths in meatspace. Just too many common cultural similarites to ignore.
                  If you ever come through the Chattanooga area, look me up. Also, you being a Texan and all, you might like the Austin Lounge Lizards’ cover of the Red Clay Ramblers tune, The Merchant’s Lunch….

                  Meanwhile, out in the desert, the Arabs were eating their dates…

                  • GC, it may happen sooner than later. I spent part of yesterday and all today on a backhoe doing stuff around the place, haven’t worked since Tue. I’m not hot to run coast to coast but it may happen. At least it might be physically easy. Then again, I’ve always been a heavy hauler, flatbeds, lowboys, rockhauling the tough stuff(not so easy at 66).

                    I’d much rather haul a dirt mover to L.A. or Chattanooga than a dry box or reefer.

                    No doubt we’d have a good time together. I’ll check out that cover album. I do enjoy the ALL.

                    We must be about the same age so “meatspace” may also be on the ticket sooner than later. peace….b BTW, do they sell Shiner in Chattanooga?

    • Excellent idea! I drive through GA every week going to & from work. Their “Maximum” is 70 MPH; they also post a “Minimum” of 40 MPH. If NC has anything similar, just make sure to stay 5 MPH away from either end (and closer to the minimum would annoy quite a few more “Clovers”. Second thought, some might like it!).

  10. eric, having vehicles with Texas license plates I can assure you I will not only avoid N. Carolina till April 4 but till the saints come marching in…..and a couple days after that…..per Goldwater.

    Ca. was probably the freest state before it filled with yankees.

    • I did go 100 feet or so into NC a few years ago at the top of the Blue Ridge mountains. It looked pretty enough from that vantage point. Then I went back into TN.

  11. This is definitely a money grab and social conditioning exercise. I don’t imagine it would be difficult at all to get your 1 mph over ticket dismissed after you show up in court and pay the $60 or so in court costs. They’re probably going to need more clerks (cashiers) at the courthouse to keep the line from backing up outside the doors…

    • In the last 3 years N.C. has been the site of a few of those fedgov surreptitious military/state/local cop brouhaha’s and a couple of shooting deaths of said goons by those uninformed mountainous natives. Evidently they knew what action to take when they saw men in black with guns in their back yard.

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