With real crimes – that is, actions that result in real harm to real people – it is easy enough to objectively define the crime.
You either did – or didn’t take something that belongs to someone else.
You either did – or did not – hurt someone else.
If you did, then it’s right and reasonable that you – the causer of the harm – be held accountable.
“Speeding,” on the other hand, is an odd sort of crime.
In most cases, no harm has been caused to anyone. A statute has been offended, nothing more.
To whom must the “guilty” party make amends?
Since there is no actual victim, the “guilty” party is put in the position of a supplicant propitiating a rock sculpture of Huitzilopochtli in a kind of secular take on the religious concept of punishing the sinner for transgressing “god’s laws.”
The state and its statutes serving as stand-ins for Huitzilopochtli and his holy writ.
Cops serving in the role of Priests – their Glocks a modern take on obsidian daggers.
The proscribed act – “speeding” – is like “sin” …. an arbitrary edict eructing from the stone mouth of a god created by men who demand obedience in “his” name.We laugh at the poor Aztecs for cringing before Huitzilopochtli – but what’s the difference, really?
In 1970, it was legal to drive 75 MPH on the highway. Then – at the stroke of Nixon’s pen – it became illegal “speeding” to drive faster than 55 MPH on the same highway. Nothing had changed – except the sign (and the law).
Then – at the stroke of another politician’s pen – it became legal to drive 75 again… on the same road.
Were the millions of people pulled over for “speeding” during the 20-year reign of the Double Nickel guilty of any moral wrong? Or had they merely displeased Huitzilopochtli-Nixon?
Contrast this with actual crimes (properly defined) which always have a victim – regardless of statute.
Or statue.
A guy who just shot someone during the course of an armed robbery would never exclaim – but who did I harm? And even if the guy is a sociopath with no remorse for his actions, he still understands that he’s harmed someone. He may not feel bad about it, but he does understand it.
And regardless, there is a victim – no matter how the perpetrator feels about it.
On the other hand, when you get pulled over for “speeding,” where is the victim? Do you feel chagrined?
Or do you feel angry?
It’s just a game – a kind of kabuki theater – and most of us understand this implicitly. Including the cops who hand out the tickets. After all, they “speed,” too – routinely.
What does that tell you about this confected “crime”?
So why are there speed limits?
The generous answer that’s usually trotted out – leaving aside the ungenerous one that the main object is to facilitate the collection of revenue – is that they are necessary to keep “people” from driving “too fast,” that being defined as faster than is “safe” for them to drive.
Perhaps you see the problem.
Which “people”?
What is “too fast”?
How does one determine whether a given speed is “safe” – and another speed “unsafe”?
These are not easily nailed down.
So, instead, speed limits are dumbed down. One size-fits all, except it really fits none.
Such that everyone – just about – “speeds” routinely. Including cops.
This is the strongest proof that most speed limits are absurd. How can a speed limit be valid as a speed limit if most drivers are going faster and – somehow – managing to drive safely? The proof of which is that most people who are “speeding” aren’t wrecking.
A speed limit implies “this is the absolute fastest it’s safe to drive on this road.” Any faster and you’re on the knife’s edge – like Tony Stewart hugging the wall at Daytona.
It’s preposterous.
Speed limits actually are nothing more than a manufactured maximum – a legal prohibition – as opposed to a moral one, like don’t steal or kill other people.
They are analogous to having a drink during the Prohibition era.
It was illegal, but almost everyone did it anyhow, including those charged with enforcing the law. Like speed enforcement, Prohibition was both cynical and corrupting. It made a mockery of legitimate law (that premised on harm done) and ate away like an acid at the ordinary person’s respect for the enforcers of the law while also doing the same to the self-respect of these said enforcers (those who were human beings with operative brains and a still-kicking moral sense).
The same applies today, to “speeding.”
Most cops know exactly what they are doing when they pull some poor victim over and hit them over the head (perhaps literally as well as figuratively) with a $150 ticket for having committed a non-crime they themselves probably just committed in “pursuit” of their victim.
It must wear on them as much as it angers us.
They become jaded and resigned; we become resentful. Particularly given that while so much time and effort is devoted to enforcement of speed laws, proportionately less time and effort is devoted to dealing with real crimes – actual harms done to actual human victims (as opposed to “offenses” against statutes).
Speed limits make no sense because no one can make sense of them. Saying – to paraphrase a high priest of Huitzilopochtli – “I know it when I see it” isn’t good enough.
There must be a standard – and not an arbitrary one based on offending a statute.
It is preposterous to criminalize Driver X for operating at a certain velocity when his driving cannot be faulted on grounds other than his velocity – or because Driver Y was unable to safely handle his car at that velocity (as evidenced by Driver Y having lost control of his vehicle). It is like demanding that young, healthy people not run because old people can’t.
As in everything, people are not equal. One size does not fit all.
Speed limits presume otherwise – and punish people who’ve done nothing to anyone.
Their only offense is affronting Huitzilopochtli.
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Government is self expressed as a “…body politic and corporate…” and per contract law maxims the only reason any said “law” applies is because you believe it applies. Many folks across not only UNITED STATES which technically is not the same as America but also America and the globe are now Waking up and questioning authority directly with many getting positive and very interesting results in all areas both ‘money’ and “government” ‘law’.
Most specific to travel express “strawman” concepts as well as ‘refused w cause no contract’ and things mysteriously dissappear or dismissed w no payment required.
Again we emphasize, you will never see the so-called Straw Man in jail…
If you use this tactic it will be you that is in jail.
Also, we would point out that they indict “John
Does”, i.e., they go after the man, not the so-called strawman/name. And finally, please excuse
the pun, but using the so-called Straw Man premise will only make you look like a dummy.
http://pacinlaw.us/pdf/Straw_Man.pdf
i’m a failure cause I’m only a Baumian allegroical legal construct and don’t have a name or a brain
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sSFQy_cLvLU
I’m going to play devil’s advocate here.
Question, is it ok to drive 100 mph through a residential neighborhood as long as no one is hurt or killed and if no property is damaged,
For starters, I’d point out there is no devil. Or Santa Claus. Or tooth fairy.
Legal counsel for area code 423
http://chattanooga.craigslist.org/search/lgs
Hi Jeff,
I’ve dealt with this many times… but, once again:
First, it’s interesting that counter-arguments tend toward the hysterical. The “what if” scenario that might happen but which is extremely unlikely to happen because most people are not homicidal maniacs. But Clover logic is premised on the idea that – unless subjected to laws that criminalize driving 35 MPH through a residential neighborhood – people will drive 100 MPH through said neighborhood.
Well, no – they won’t. Just as most people won’t become serial killers or rapists if serial killing and rape were not illegal.
It’s of a piece with the logic regarding guns. If “people” are allowed to have handguns, it’ll be the Wild West! People will be shooting one another over trivialities!
And yes, it does happen.
But – again – it is the extreme exception rather than the rule. Yet we are supposed to accept everyone being presumed a reckless/homicidal maniac and treated accordingly rather than treating only those who do act as homicidal maniacs accordingly.
So, in sum: I prefer admitting the possibility that a maniac might drive 100 MPH through a residential neighborhood to the actuality of dumbed-down/least-common-denominator laws that punish people for driving a third that fast and causing no harm to anyone.
Private citizens in the US own 200,000,000 firearms and 12,000,000,000 rounds of ammunition. If this was a problem, you would know about it.
PtB, you been checking on people? Or are you using “govt. stats”? I suppose living in Tx. tends to skew my estimation but it’s rare for a gunowner to own a single gun. Of course everyone doesn’t own a gun but the ones who do seem to more than make up for the non-owners.
About 20 years ago an elderly man in a nearby city died and his widow employed someone to clean out his “garage”. He was a WWll vet so no telling who was doing the cleaning but he had scores of guns, lots from the war, barrels of ammo and a barrel of grenades plus all sorts of ordinance. People like that used to give me hope. He was prepared. Of course the cops stole it all.
My wife and I have been keeping tabs of a section of highway near the house that has changed speed limit 5 times in the last year. It went incrementally from 45 to 30, back to 45 and straight to 30.
The steroid abusers…..err…..police make their quotas in this stretch by the 3rd of the month. I like driving the hot rod through there in first gear, doing 15mph but sounding like the 60′ mark at Pomona – drives them insane!
Love it, El Guapo! 🙂
I do the same with my old two-stroke Kawasaki. It’s loud – and it smokes – but the Heroes can’t (legally) do anything because that’s the way they made ’em.
No arguments with anything in the post, except one:
Congress imposed the 55 MPH limit via statute; no doubt Nixon signed off on the statute, but never forget it was the Congress that crafted the law, only the Congress has the power to pass legislation.
The majority of laws come from the Executive Branch.
Executive Branch agencies issue regulations with the full force of law, but these are only under the authority of laws enacted by Congress. –
3 Headed Dog Co-Equal Branches of Govt Executive / Legislative / Judicial heads
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/5f/cf/28/5fcf282c19b46debc406ae9b12b463c0.jpg
Nixon Statement on Signing the 1974 Emergency Highway Energy Conservation Act
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=4332
Double Nickel
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Maximum_Speed_Law
Hi James,
If only.
In practice, the executive branch legislates and so do the various agencies of the FedGov. Their edicts have the force of law. This is an ugly truth – but no less true because ugly.
Speed saves Lives. Seat Belts Kill. Cops write tickets to raise revenue.
Few here will argue, but to expound on what should be on a bumper sticker:
Speed saves lives. Driving too slow leads to boredom, which leads to inattention, and distraction. I routinely surf and text in rural areas because 60mph is not enough to require attention in a modern vehicle on an empty road. I seriously doubt that guys on the unrestricted sections of the autobahn are eating a burger while driving. I do it routinely, but why not? When speeds are held artificailly, dangerously slow, you spend way too much time on the road and inevitably you will find something to do. All completely aside from the existential fact that a lifetime of taking 20% less time to travel from point to point has saved a big chunk of your life, almost certainly much more than the possible loss of live from going “too fast”.
Seat belts kill: Seat belts have never saved a single life. That is a naked assertion, unproven, and unprovable. Proving it would require time travel, and someone willing to have two identical wrecks, one belted and (presumably) living, and one unbelted and (presumably) dying. Claiming that seat belts save lives is thus a religious assertion, a claim of faith without evidence. On the other hand, Seat belts killing is easily documented. I heve personally heard the screams of a man burning to death while trapped in one. I also know of drownings, and serious injury had a person been unbelted when hit from the side and not held in place to be crushed like a walnut on an anvil.
Cops write tickets to raise revenue. Simply the truth. Without a victim, there is no public interest for any level of government to be meddling in. Some of them are deluded enough to believe they are the good guys. Armed thieves are not good guys regardless of their intents or beliefs.
A couple years ago I was run over from behind by a tiny T 800 KW pulling a sand frac trailer, almost weightless. My rig was struck at 50 or more and it totaled my trailer, dug out a big hole in the pavement and ruined the axles on the sand frac trailer. I was flung out of the seat and credit not having a seat belt on in keeping me from having serious injuries or death since those chest belts are killers when hit from behind. I manged to save damage to my face by using my hands to stop myself against the whindshield. Of course I was ticketed for not wearing a belt. Better ticketed by a gummit prick than carried by six I said.
“Seat belts kill”
I would agree that seat belts can kill. Being a champion of individual liberty, I resolutely oppose compulsory use of seat belts or any other goonvermin mandated “safety features”. If a person is belted in because he was forced to by law, and dies as a result, that is on the government. Ditto airbags.
That said, seat belts can also save lives. One guy made an improper left turn as I was driving through an intersection on a green light. We collided head on. 30 mph plus 30 mph = 60 mph.
He was unbelted. His head cracked his windshield and put a concave dent in it the shape of his skull.
I was belted in with Simpson racing belts in my Alfa Romeo Spider. My car was totaled, but my belt prevented me from doing the same to my windshield.
Nor should we forget that all race drivers, amateur and professional alike, wear seatbelts. These people are the farthest thing from “Clovers”, whom we all detest.
Again, let me stress that obviously everyone must decide for himself whether and what to wear. The term “seatbelt” clearly covers a lot of territory.
http://static.panorama-auto.it/var/ezflow_site/storage/images/media-library/e/se-bastien-loeb/11161731-1/Se-bastien-Loeb_horizontal_lancio_sezione_grande_doppio.jpg
World Rally Champion Sébastien Loeb
Yes, he is belted in.
There are no fast rules for belting. When racing, I like to be belted in very tightly. Most racing accidents involve such as flipping and spinning, something belts do well to ameliorate injury as opposed to being thrown out and possibly run over by another car or your own.
Rarely does a racing accident involve a head-on so rendering seat belts useless.
No study has ever shown that seatbelts save lives in big trucks yet the law is the same.. When I was hit from behind the saving grace for me was not having a belt on. Not only would the cab have hit my head and seat more than once but strapped in, I would have absorbed all that energy with the shoulder belt. That would most likely resulted in some serious injuries. Air bags are just another added cost with rarely few benefits.
And airbags often fail to deploy in circumstances more likely to reduce injuries. We had a 5500 Dodge with a roustabout bumper on the front, 3 feet in depth with chain vices for pipe. One of those dumbass people who can’t see you coming in the daylight on a straight and level road pulled out in front of it. No airbags deployed causing great consternation since blowing all air bags would have totaled it and we’d never had to use that lemon again(it lived many months at the Dodge dealership waiting it’s turn for various and sundry ailments.
Dear 8sm,
Also, sorry for the tardy reply. Forget to check the little box.
Anyway, no disagreement.
It all depends.
Bottom line, of course, is it should be up to the individual.
Hi Bevin,
Well-said.
The issue is one of calculating risk and arriving at a decision for oneself. Emphasis on for oneself. We are not little children or the property of others. It may indeed be “safer” to wear a seat belt. Just as it may be “more healthful” to not eat a pound of bacon. But the decision is ours to make – unless one is possessed of the effrontery to assert ownership over another human being. Which is exactly what we are talking about here.
Ownership is defined by control. If you own something, you are in a position to dispose of it as you see fit. This includes other people. It is the defining element of slavery.
If you are not free to be left alone, if some other person has the legal power to control you, he owns you.
Dear Eric,
Thanks!
I apologize for the tardy reply. In my haste, I must have forgotten to check the box to be notified about replies.
Anyway, check this out.
http://twimg.edgesuite.net/www/extfile/artvideo/20130623/a867a85124d563039b70_640.jpg
If one sits in certain seats on public buses here on Taiwan, one is legally required to buckle the provided seat belt, or else a 1500 NTD fine. That’s about 50 USD.
Now get this. If one stands next to the same seat, there is no legal requirement to buckle up, and no fine.
This is the kind of idiocy that only a goonvermin clover could cook up.
They have similar signs in taxi cabs, that say, “Buckle up or Pay Up!”
Every time I see one of them when I hop in a cab, I want to hit something, or someone.
When I lived in Sin City, the goon-vermin / rat-race patrollers made the cabbies install cameras with recorders in all their cameras and make the footage available to the home-land terrier-ists rottweiler-2 legged K( dogs of war.
Those guys are on razor thin margins, and at risk every night of being strong-arm robbed or worse. There’s not a lingua-frankenstein vitriolic enough for me to put into words how much I loathe heroes and caped crewcut-crusaders of every stripe.
Leaving the pub, there was two dour lard-butted Officers Ratcheds hasslings a couple of skantily covered island cuties, so I stuck my 10 dollar disposable sail fawn out my window and pretended to film them. Even asked them if everything was alright, ladies.
Parked a safe distance away and held my phone out the window for about 5 more mins and then the two safetybots started jawing into their radios and drove off to persecute some other black collar mundanes just trying to survive in todays goose steppe agora.
Got the idea from Eric speeding the gal to the hospital in that story of his a while back.
You used to be able to mock these mooks openly. But the National Lampoon type institutions have all been bought out by the defense cunt-tractors or shuttered down permanently.
Its a lot of potential cost and only a token benefit to put your neck and freedom on the line. But got dam if I’m going to keep taking this like a gut German any longer, sie ficken und füttern Fischköpfe !!
install them in all their cabs, that is… I say
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-LCsiWL6gn0
2 legged K9 dogs of war that is, now see here boy, see here, that’s a good boy, dog…
http://www.bajiroo.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/funny-fun-lol-cute-adorable-police-dogs-pics-images-photos-pictures-bajiroo-14.jpg
Ten years ago, then senator Hillary Clinton proposed returning to the 55 mph max speed limit.
http://www.autoblog.com/2006/05/24/hillary-clinton-pushes-for-reinstatement-of-national-55-mph-limi/
Lame
But what do you expect from someone of her ilk?
It doesn’t affect the amount of money she makes and it’s quite obvious nobody in the beltway is concerned about the people in the rest of the country.
I was just speaking to my neighbor cause we’re going fishing in my tank in a bit. He asked me about the increase in property tax this year. We got it broke off in us to the tune of an extra 10%. The fools at the county school district said it was because of Robin-Hood. Well, there is no one in this county or counties around here who can help “poor” counties since we are a “poor” county. Next they said it was the increase in land value because of hunting. What bullshit!!!! Our land prices peaked in ’05 and have dropped ever since. The only people making more money are the gummint subsidy farmers but they’re the landed gentry. Now my neighbor and I want taxes published for every tract of land in this county. You can find out a particular tracts’ supposed value and guess what the taxes might be. I’d like to see the increase on farmland. This is typical of state and county, to just assign a value to your property willy-nilly.
The last time this happened about 25 years ago this dipshit I went to school with was the county tax collector. He flew by my house at about 30 mph. That was my driveway, dogs and cats out there plus I or my wife or any of our friends could have been. It’s a 5 mph zone at best and private property to boot. He drove out about twice that fast. I don’t know how you could evaluate someone’s property at that speed. I jumped in my 454 pickup and chased him down. He started saying he was on official business. I told him the next time he got on my place his official business would be trying to stay alive while I was kicking his ass into the next county. I left with the “never, ever come on my place again”. He pissed off everybody in the county and his new tax rate was soon rolled right back. I’d drop a mini-nuke on the county seat and it’s brand new law enforcement center(as if we need one….and that’s where the money went)if I had one. Hell, we can barely keep the infra-structure we’ve had for 50 years standing up.
Noticed something new on my trip to Denver this morning. Dynamic speed limits on I-70. This morning it was 55 MPH. No one was paying any attention. Used to be 60 in the same zone. I wonder what it will is when the usual bumper to bumper ski traffic is coming through? My guess is no matter what the PSL is no one will be going anywhere near it.
There is a simple cure for assholism.
Call it assholics anonymous if you will.
Admit to yourself and everyone that you are powerless in the face of so many sphincters. And so purge them and remove them from your one and only life.
The thing is to drive, you don’t need any sphincters or gauges whatsoever,
Get some paper and tape and cover up your speedometer and gas gauges and rpm meters, and thermometers and radio tuners and clocks and every single sphincter you can find. And quit giving any kind of reality to any of it.
Go fill up your car with gas until the pump shuts off because its full. Do this constantly from now on, until you develop a natural animal’s sense of how much gas is in your vehicle. Push the pedal on the floor as far as you feel is needed to make you go however fast you feel is necessary. Or if you can’t do things for yourself, then see what others are doing, and try to match them as best you can.
Again, this is all innate and preinstalled monkey see monkey do software that has always been inside you. Just use this capability, instead of all the asshole sphincters you’ve been using to measure and mete out everything you do like some anal retentive cretin so far.
Get others to do the asshole tasks of life. Have your kids, wives, friends, families, neighbors, do all the tedious crap of the shit show. Like shopping. and keeping records. And doing anything in unnatural structured ways. These asshole things are dehumanizing you and keeping you in a perpetual motion machine of assholification. Don’t be a part of it anymore.
Try to avoid all the assholes in the world. The ones who want to talk about politics. Or specifics about the weather. Or gossip about what celebrities or criminals are doing that’s so great or so terrible. Or regurgitate the garbage they heard on the radio or tv. Or ask you incessant questions about the myriad of asshole specifics that you as a attentive asshole are suppose to have handy to reveal about yourself and others. So that they can check various boxes and set assorted levers on all the sphincters and menial paperwork that they pretend constitutes a real life.
And then do what you like to do. Drive somewhere where you are happy. Watch something on a screen or device that you enjoy. And don’t worry about the labels and assigned names of everything. Like what venue things are. Or what channel or website your viewing. Or the assigned name of everyone you encounter. Quit using names of persons places and things, that’s just another slice of meaninglessness in the great shit sandwich that you’ve have been programmed to eat every day of your asshole existence.
Purge all the meaningless shit from your life. And find out what it is you like to do. And then fucking do it. It’s that got dam easy. There isn’t enough time in limited existence to do all the asshole stuff you’ve been doing. Stop wallowing in the shit pile with all the other pants crappers. And start being something real and interesting.
There is so much more out there, than all the shit you’ve been worrying about that doesn’t do anything for you or for anyone else for that matter. Stop focusing on all that shit and find what’s real and good in this world.
Try buying $1,00 in gold without an ID. Try depositing $9,999 cash into your savings account without evidence that it was “honestly” acquired. Try carrying certain plants from Colorado to Utah.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Know_your_customer
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/26/us/law-lets-irs-seize-accounts-on-suspicion-no-crime-required.html
there is nothing reasonable about speed limits. it’s not really an objective reasonable thing. it’s an artifice so assholes can pretend they’re being productive, instead of just intrusive soviet nazi assholes.
there is no compromise with vermin who spend their days spying on other people to find out what “speed” is. or if they’re wearing a piece of “safety”fabric. or what foods, drinks, and medicines they might be consuming while they’re operating motor vehicles or anything else they might be do it.
don’t you understand what complete assholes you are for even coming on this site and defending such ridiculous subhuman primate rodent rathole behaviors.
it would make just as much sense if there was a constitution somewhere that decreed, there must always be a regimen of feces slinging primates on patrol everywhere.
and your job as good citizens is to avoid being hit by the flung feces.
if you are on your game, you’ll successfully avoid getting feces on your persons.
if somehow the official feces flinging monkeys of state manage to hit you with their shit. well, you must not be at your best. or otherwise, you wouldn’t have been caught.
got dam you all you dam dirty apes. both the ones who fling it for “a living”
and the ones who defend and accept that this is a moral sane thing to do.
go fuck yourselves good and hard with some fish heads, you got dam fucking assholes.
A the end of a local expressway there has been a frequent speed trap for many many years. Traffic is forced to exit. The left lane west the right lane east. The middle lane ends into the left. Some time ago they dropped the speed limit for this area from 55 to 45. For better revenue no doubt. So tonight I am in the left lane because I am going west. I am doing 55mph. A woman in that hamster car, the soul comes up on me tight. I get to the 45mph sign, I drop to 45mph. Now you’ll say I wasn’t passing, well I was passing when I entered the left lane at 55mph and now I am exiting. Any way the would in the hamster car passes me using the middle lane and returns to the left. The exit curves and guess who is now holding me up? Yeah. She had to brake significantly. I don’t brake at all for those curves. That’s how speed limits work.
OT, Passing this observation along to you guys (the experts in this matter, in my eyes) to dissect for truthfulness:
“RE: ‘i have noticed that my radar detector in my car goes off when the sun is in its direct line of sight – very strange – does anyone know why – particulates – uv – magentic waves????”
I saw that observation at geoengenerringwatch org and wondered if it was b.s. and knew you guys might have more than a clue.
Also, Mang, the slant of eric’s blog entry is fitting for my visit back to you all. It seems like you’re either spiraling down, or badly heading towards the right direction. Idk.
I do miss you all, none the less. And, hope you’re doing well in spite of the empires attempts to crush us all. Maybe someday I’ll be able to bare reading everything where I left off. So far, it’s just too got-damn-much for me. Like a freaking dee-vorce or something. …Yah, weak. I know. … Still: Not nothing, from nothing, into nothing.
I just thought you’d enjoy the challenge of the question as it relates to geoengenrring and autos.
First, I agree that most speed limits are set artificially low. I agree that the “primary” objective of the enforcement of speed, and many other traffic laws is to raise revenue.
But let’s address this issue of “no harm done.”
It’s undeniable that driving “too” fast will increase the “risk” of accident, injury and death on the highway. Everyone has less chance to react. The one driving “too” fast will have less of a margin of control over their vehicle.
If you disagree with this, consistency would demand that you also endorse people driving on the wrong side of the street, blowing red lights, and driving literally blind, on the presumption that they are skilled enough drivers to do these things without causing a crash…..at least until proven otherwise.
The question is what is a reasonable, honest standard for the law to impose.
I don’t want every driver doing whatever the hell they feel like. And based on how mad you get at clovers, I don’t think you do either. 😉
There’s a logical difference, though. If you’re doing 75 in a 55, whether or not there’s anyone else on the road, there’s no one individual you can point to whose life was risked in any significant way, because to the extent that there’s “risk” in a higher speed is purely theoretical without other factors in play (weather, heavy traffic, bad road, etc.).
If you’re going to drive the wrong way down the highway, or blow a red light, there are specific persons you run a serious risk of injuring or killing, because these acts are dangerous, unpredictable, and unpredicted by their very nature. These acts alone are all that’s required for a serious problem to result; they don’t require those other factors.
On top of that, if someone wants to pass you doing 90+ (on a highway built for cars of the 1950s to do that on), pull over and let him go. He’s no longer your problem. Attempting to take all cars on the road and harness them into a rigid mass instead of allowing it to flow at different rates is actually more dangerous.
Speeding is so much less dangerous than most things done wrong on the road. The guy who makes you pass on the left is not only breaking the law but probably oblivious to your presence when you have to illegally pass him to get by. How many times have you seen someone who simply drives in the left lane get stopped if they aren’t speeding? I’m still waiting to see it happen.
For many years I drove 100 mph or well above that. I slowed to pass other traffic so there was little chance of me running over them and I never did…. so how dangerous was that?
When someone actually applies their entire focus to driving there is slim to none chance of wrecking. I was cut off at an intersection recently by a woman curling her eye lashes while looking into her vanity mirror…..a mirror that makes some people’s cars much more dangerous.
Amen, that’s what I don’t get – the asshole that cuts over 3 lanes without a signal because he’ll miss his exit otherwise (god forbid going to the next exit and correcting the inattention in a sane manner) – those guys never get stopped even when a cop is around, because he wasn’t “speeding”. On the contrary, he was just dawdling in the left lane 5-10 below the limit oblivious to the world.
“The guy who makes you pass on the left” – assuming that ‘left’ is code for ‘right’?
He is probably referring to drivers who refuse to follow the Texas custom of slow vehicles pulling to the right and driving on the shoulder in order to allow faster traffic to pass him or her without them having to cross the center line. Many 2 lane roads in this state do have wide shoulders.
That’s an unforced law in Colorado. Sadly, many of the violators have Texas plates on their toy haulin’ 5th wheels…
The state of Texas has been invaded by a massive number of Californians in recent years. I am not a Texas native either, but I fit in with the natives much, much better than most Californians do. I highly suspect that the Toy Hauler driver road hogs you have seen were predominantly ex-Californians.
The state of Texas has been invaded by a massive number of Californians in recent years.
That’s been our problem here in Arizona too.
It seems that now that KKKalifornians have rendered their own state uninhabitable, they’re hellbent on infecting and destroying any others not already infected and destroyed by people like themselves. They appear to be starting with those in closest proximity to the corpse and spreading gradually northward and eastward
People are leaving Ca. because of taxes. Probably some who are retired voted for those democrat idiots who taxed businesses to death. But taxes are the reason they left. I can’t blame them but go to Co. or somewhere but here. NM is a good place for Californians although they have a state income tax. If I could get their attention I’d lie to them to get them not to come to Tx. I remember when we didn’t have but 3 million people in the entire state and most of those were in Houston, the carcinogenic coast.
Lib, when I was a kid, most Californians were displaced yankees, a beast of another color to be avoided. Where I grew up it’s still like that and being a yankee won’t get you far. To this day I can still tell a yankee just by looking from a distance.
When they try to wear western clothes they wear some weird high water Levi’s, some city slicker belt and shirt with a strange western hat….tilted too far back(just begging the wind to blow it off) and still have that Nazi mustache a Texan wouldn’t be caught dead wearing.
I’m reminded ever since seeing The Departed of that line where one cop says to another ‘You have a nice suit at home so why do you come to work looking like you’re about to invade Poland?”
Luckily our east ID winters are too cold for most Californians. Boise is fairly mild and a lot of caliclovers have moved there. There’s no state that can escape the filthy bastards from moving in though. When they have a population greater than Canada, they spread themselves far and wide because of sheer numbers.
PtB, I just saw that error. Yep, passing on the right…..must be code.
Brian, I do drive illegally and run on the shoulder letting faster traffic around on two lane roads. Just be warned it’s illegal in TX since that is not a designated traffic lane. I know a commercial driver ticketed just for that thing…..out by Ira where conga lines prevail if you don’t move over. He was miffed…..musta been a slow month for the reenooer.
Thanks for the warning 8. It wasn’t aware of that. Ahhh, yet another contradiction. This state has signs up saying ‘Drive Friendly – The Texas Way’ yet the coproaches ticket you for doing just that.
Here is a picture of the sign if ya’ll want to see one.
Really pretty sky. We now have one of every ten foreign immigrants into the US in Texas, a bit more than our share. Not sure they can read the signs. Even Texans don’t seem to be able to read those Left Lane Passing Only you see every 2-3 miles on the interstate.
A “sign” of the times. This past year I saw more people moving across Tx. than ever……by a long shot. Some seemed to have everything they could carry in a small car, sometimes with a small, iffy trailer. Many were just hoofing it and many had some sort of cycle power. I saw lots of plates from colder states.
To paraphrase a song from Midnight Cowboy, “They were going where the sun keeps shining, through the pouring rain. Going where the weather suits their clothes”. They don’t make movies like that anymore.
Well, if their leaders in Washington DC don’t read the bills that they are passing into law, then why should people read the signs?
You are mistaken on the illegal to pass on the right law. That only applies to single lane roads or passing on shoulder.
In a 5 lane highway I can legally pass someone on the right when someone is in the car left lane.
You may be right
I may be crazy
But it just might be a lunatic you’re lookin for
Turn out the light
Don’t try to save me
For all I know you may be wrong
But you may be right
RE: “I don’t want every driver doing whatever the hell they feel like.”
That’s the first step of a tyrant. Or, a wanna-be tyrant. Control of others.
How much do you get paid to post here?
And, if you don’t get paid, you sure are One useful dupe.
Either way, the bankers thank you for your service to the empire.
“How much do you get paid to post here?”
I can get paid to post here?
Wow, who do I contact.
I may be in your opinion, a “wanna-be tyrant.”
But I sure don’t want to work for free.
Thanks for the tip!
Just wait until I get a fee schedule worked out with the bankers. You aint seen nothing yet.
Hi Mike,
I know you’re not a Clover! 🙂
PS: GM is sending me a Z28… as OJ used to say… Look out!
Hi Mike,
The problem is how to define this. You write:
“It’s undeniable that driving “too” fast will increase the “risk” of accident, injury and death on the highway… ”
Well, I submit it is in fact very deniable. I have been driving faster than the speed limit every day for for decades without incident. The “risk” I present is objectively very low, based on the facts (as opposed to the assertions).
Most people “speed,” to varying degrees. Most of them don’t have accidents.
How do you propose to define “too fast”?
“Too fast” for my mother in law is well within my capabilities; and “too fast” for me is well within the capabilities of a Tony Stewart. So what’s the standard going to be? Why should I be punished for driving faster than my mother-in-law can handle and considers “safe”? Why should a Tony Stewart be punished for driving faster than I can handle safely?
How about we each drive within our limits, at the speed we are comfortable driving and (until proved otherwise) capable of handling? People vary in their abilities. Why must there always be a single (and inevitably) dumbed-down standard?
If we accept punishing people based not on harms people have caused but rather on what someone else feels is “risky” haven’t we just bought into Clover’s mentality lock stock and barrel?
In re driving down the wrong side of the street/driving while blind, etc:
I submit that is a fatuous argument. Which ought to be obvious. I will explain, if necessary.
“Blow” red lights? Sure. Why not? If there is no reason to sit there – if there is no oncoming traffic and the way is clear – why not? I “blow” such lights frequently. I will do so this morning, in fact. There is a light at the entrance/exit to the parking lot where my gym is located. You can sit at this light, waiting, for 5 minutes or more. I go the gym very early in the morning; there is virtually no traffic and one can clearly see in both opposing directions. I stop, look both ways – and if the way is clear, I go. Is this, as such, a terrible thing?
What then is a reasonable standard for holding people accountable?
Harm caused.
Did my driving cause a problem for someone else in terms of physical damage to their property or their person? If yes, then hold me fully accountable for it.
If not, leave me be!
This is the only standard that is compatible with liberty.
A lesser standard is to embrace Cloverism in principle. It may begin “reasonably”… but in time, it will lead to exactly where we find ourselves today.
Wouldn’t it be preferable to accept the “risk” that some people (always the minority) will act irresponsibly and them hold them accountable – completely – rather than presume everyone is irresponsible and punish them according to ever-more-dumbed-down standards, as today?
Eric,
To take the devil’s argument: (apologies for the rambling)
What to do when those responsible for harm are:
• unable (regardless of reason) to provide financial restitution for harm caused
• unable to provide restitution due to an impossibility:
A physical injury results that cannot be financially compensated,
A death occurs (either to the one injured or the one that causes the harm)
Shouldn’t there be some (minimum at least) standards for governing traffic flow and/or conditions. If yes then what should they be?
If no, should everyone be held to a “strict” driving standard supported by some financial backing (insurance or personal). In some states you have a point system. Once you exceed the allotted points you can not legally drive.
Should a financial component be mandatory? If one did not have the financial means to provide financial restitution, then they could not legally drive. (is insurance the only way to provide this? Can a bond or other method be used?)
Should a driver’s license be more challenging and rigorous? (ie harder to get, those that get it demonstrate a higher skill set, the license really means that one is competent to drive.)
Hi Mith,
These are valid questions. Here’s my answer:
There will always be people who behave irresponsibly, cause harm and are unable to make restitution. Regardless of “the law.” For example, there are still people who drive drunk, without insurance – notwithstanding both are illegal.
Now, “the law” may reduce the number of such – but it cannot eliminate them.
So, the question becomes – what cost (in the form of restrictions, fines and so on) imposed on people who’ve done nothing to cause harm to others is acceptable in the name of reducing the potential harm that may be caused by others?
As a Libertarian whose moral foundation is the NAP, my answer is that it is unacceptable to any impose costs on people who’ve done nothing to cause any harm to anyone on the basis that they might – or because someone else has.
I would much rather accept the slight risk that (as an example) an irresponsible indigent drunk driver might hit my car and total it (and maybe me, too) than the certainty of mandatory insurance and the much higher likelihood of being ticketed/jailed for a non-crime such as having a single open can of beer in my car.
Freedom requires the acceptance of risk and the possibility of loss.
Coercive collectivism is appealing because it false-promises “safety” and that irresponsible people will be held responsible. In fact, what happens is we are all treated as presumptively irresponsible – and increasingly controlled and punished, not for harms we’ve caused but for “laws” we’ve transgressed.
I’d rather the law confined itself to those who actually have caused harm and holding them, and them only, accountable.
The acid test is simple: Did the action at issue result in harm to another person or their property? Can a victim be presented?
If a victim cannot be produced, if no harm can be shown to have resulted from the person’s actions, then on the face of it, a “crime” cannot be said to have occurred – and it seems odd to punish someone who has not committed a criminal act.
Now, I understand there are cases in which harm clearly might have been caused but the person “got lucky.” As an example, the soused driver who almost hit someone (but didn’t).
And I understand the desire to “do something.” But what?
Maybe you can adduce sufficient evidence that a person’s actions, even if they didn’t end up actually causing harm, were sufficiently reckless such that some type of sanction is justified. But I think the standard for conviction would need to be very high – and even then, I oppose punishing people absent harm caused. Because it admits hypotheticals into the calculation. He might have hurt someone!
This is Clover’s banshee wail.
Once it’s accepted – even in a situation that seems reasonable to most people (example – the asshole who drives 80 MPH through a suburban neighborhood, high on drugs) it inevitably leads to where we find ourselves today, micromanaged by the government and punished for obviously ridiculous “offenses” such as not wearing a seat belt or driving faster (along with everyone else) than an absurdly low speed limit.
I think that most people are not irresponsible and will behave more responsibly when they are not treated as presumptive imbeciles. I think that the more people are presumed to be imbeciles and treated as imbeciles, the more imbecilic behavior you’ll get. The evidence is all around us!
(example – the asshole who drives 80 MPH through a suburban neighborhood, high on drugs)
Oh, you mean the cops? Yeah, they are a blight on safety. There oughta be a law…..
I worked with a guy who met an equally stupid person, a guy that had only been able to be employed at a service station but kept an app in at the police dept. for years and finally got hired. This dupe once told me when doing an inspection on my car that “having that like that doesn’t help anything” referring to the upside down air cleaner top on a 400 hp engine with a tribe-sized air cleaner and longer stud to accommodate the increased size.
I replied to him “So, you think this tiny hole(air horn)would supply enough air for this obviously not stock engine with two 2.5″ exhausts on tube headers with a big aftermarket intake?” He didn’t reply….well above his paygrade.
So he takes this guy “riding” one night in his Ford “Interceptor”.. My co-worker spoke of doing 80 mph(no emergency lights, siren or any other thing to denote an idiot driving) down this street that is in the old part of town, narrow street, small houses close together and everyone parks on the street so there’s barely room for one car to travel at night when everyone is home. I pointed out that was a really stupid thing to do and only somebody like his buddy would even consider doing that. He didn’t tell me more stories after that.
Sadly, there are many nice guys like Mith, who are unable to conceive of living without being institutionalized within laws and statutes.
Mith was here
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kotNxb2YApk
Maybe its my own kind of mutation. That I need video clips to help me get a point across and don’t trust mere words to get the job done. Who knows.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jeMux1GjA7Y
I’d happily give it all up. Let the whole house of cards economy collapse if need be. If only the ability to force things I don’t want goes with the tainted wealth.
I would absolutely risk it all to return to a life without institutional authority. Its a risk, to be sure. But that what’s life’s meant to be. Not this castrated mockery of reality that we currently meekly inhabit and sleepwalk thru. Seeing only illusory glimpses of freely acting men to be found in books and on screens by painted actors and fictional characters.
I hear you Eric. The only time in my life I ever had an at fault incident was the time I wasn’t paying attention. That was 17 years ago as a dumb 20 year old. I wasn’t speeding or ignoring “traffic rules”. In the 17 years since, I have driven faster than the psl virtually every time I drive. I have driven through red lights–when it’s obviously “safe” to proceed–as you have.
It blows my mind that–as a group–we become so institutionalized that the we believe the “law”, in and of itself, protects us from anything. I’d like to know an approximate number of murders avoided last year because “law”. How many wrecks avoided because speed limit? How many rapes didn’t happen because “law”?
If you don’t have a moral basis for law–the NAP–you have no basis at all. It’s not a crime without a victim. Fuck every last one of you who want punishments for possible, rather than actual harm. Hell is where you can go, rather than introducing us all to it.
Hi Ancap,
Yup. If liberty is ever to have a resurgence, it will only occur if a critical mass once again understands liberty. It does not mean freedom from risk. It means accepting that risk can’t be eliminated and that questing to do so only results in ever-diminishing liberty – invariably for the majority who did absolutely nothing to warrant it (other than buy into Devil’s bargain of exchanging their liberty for the chimera of a “risk free” society).
There are so many ways to view this mess… but one of my personal favorites is the economic angle. The money wasted on insurance, for instance.
Let’s say you spend – ahem, are forced to pay – $1,500 annually to the insurance mafia to be “covered.” You do so for 30 years. There went $45,000!
That is not counting the opportunity cost – what that money might have done for you, in terms of paying for other actual expenses, to say nothing of the possible investment income lost.
And that’s just the car insurance.
Now add “health” insurance.
Is it any wonder people are broke or living hand to mouth?
Fuck insurance!
When did the country become so over-run with pussies who can’t stand even trivial risks?
I gibs you another example, home insurance. Unless you live in an area subject to regular flooding or where natural disasters are fairly common, it is a stupid waste of money. What percent of homeowners ever experience a total loss? Maybe a tree branch falls on the house and causes a little damage – you are much better off paying for that kind of thing out of pocket.
I cancelled my policy years ago- which I can still do (for now) because the cocksuckers can’t force me to buy their got-damned policy. I had one once – until the sons of bitches tried to raise the policy for no reason – insofar as anything I did to warrant it. I never filed a claim. But they just decided to jack the premium up from $1,200 annually to $1,500 annually (rough numbers).
I told them to cancel the policy. Damn, it felt good!
Even better – knowing I have already saved almost $9,000 that would otherwise have been pissed down the drain.
The crazy thing with insurance is that your home isn’t covered in a flood anyway. You have to buy a special flood insurance policy just for that. If you live in a “flood plane” as they call it here in ID, you are mandated to have it if you have any kind of a mortgage. It doesn’t matter if it hasn’t flooded there in 100 years. If the USGS considers your home to be in a flood plane, the mafia gets your money, plain and simple.
I don’t mind insurance, as such, but the government mandates destroy the whole idea of it. In my taxi company, I’d never dare let other people drive without having some coverage to reduce my risk. The problem is the municipalities forcing me to have a million in coverage, when I’m comfortable with half that. Would there be companies who operated with none? Of course. I don’t care. I’d have insurance with no mandate. Instead, I have to have a million per incident, which makes it tough to compete against Uber and Lyft. These companies are huge and that gives them bargaining power with insurers–a must have product–that I don’t have. The insurance mafia is like the state bar lawyer mafia. They always, always win.
Flood insurance is an add-on in Tx. but mobile homes, modular homes and the like have policies with flood insurance. My neighbor has a double wide on a pier and beam foundation just like any normal house on top of one of the highest hills around but he has flood insurance because of the type of dwelling it is.
I can see where insuring a mobile home for floods might be a good thing though. Last year there was a huge flash flood that fairly much followed city streets in Rankin, Tx. What was normally a very dry place became a huge river in just a few hours of rain. There were videos of it from the air showing mobile homes and many RV’s belonging to oil field workers headed south at breakneck speed. Some people didn’t escape.
I lived in an rv park a couple years ago at the bottom of a big hill next to the Colorado river.
Here’s one from my daughter (who lived in TX longer than I did) – Why is an Arkansas divorce like a Texas tornado? One way or another, somebody’s losing a trailer.
relative humidity……the stuff that builds up between naked cousins in Arkansas.
Oh! the humanity!
eric, this is for you. “The most dangerous man, to any government, is the man who is able to think things out for himself, without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos. Almost invariably he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane and intolerable, and so, if he is romantic, he tries to change it. And if he is not romantic personally, he is apt to spread discontent among those who are.”
— H. L. Mencken
“To compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation
of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors, is sinful and tyrannical.”
— Thomas Jefferson
“We contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into
prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying
to lift himself up by the handle.”
— Sir Winston Churchill
ancap, double it all for me. I used to run loads out there in far southwest Tx. An intersection out there on two major highways has a flashing red light for you to stop. You could see for miles, headed down the road I’d be on the only thing in sight besides desert flora and flauna and oil field “stuff” was the Davis Mountains. I’d cackle every time I went through there peddle to the metal. I said “look out boys I got a license to fly”.
We dropped home insurance years ago. It has saved us nearly enough for a new roof. If it burns tomorrow, we still have a power source and a water well. We’ll pitch a tent if it comes to that…..or pay some ridiculous (5% maybe?) interest on a trailer house, a third of what we originally paid under RR’s reign of banking rif-offs.
“In re driving down the wrong side of the street/driving while blind, etc:
I submit that is a fatuous argument. Which ought to be obvious. I will explain, if necessary.
“Blow” red lights? Sure. Why not? If there is no reason to sit there – if there is no oncoming traffic and the way is clear – why not? I “blow” such lights frequently.”
Driving on the wrong side of the freeway? Sure. Why not. If there is no oncoming traffic, and you feel confident that your skill and reflexes will be more than sufficient to dodge any cars that enter from an offramp – why not?
You probably could pull that off multiple times late at night without having a crash. Therefore, No Harm….No Foul….yet. So that stupid law shouldn’t apply either….at least not to really skillful, libertarian drivers. 🙂
All HAIL the King of the Strawman Argument!
I agree. I kept wondering what a “libertarian” driver had to do with anything.
Hi Mike,
Here’s why the driving the wrong way argument fails:
It is always and necessarily a threat to others – the same thing as pointing a loaded gun at someone.
Merely driving faster than an arbitrary number is no such thing. “Speeding” is a matter of opinion and feeling and of statute. Driving the wrong way down the street is objectively dangerous; there is no way to do it “safely” unless the road is known to be empty (note, not believed – known to be devoid of other traffic).
Agree with you. In a few years though, you (and all of us) will be continuously watched by the Government panopticon, with cameras everywhere, and you can expect a ticket in the mail every time you jump a red light.
Hi Escher,
Yeah, probably. I may pull a “Fred” (Fred Reed) and just head for the border. Mexico looks better and better.
While revenue is certainly a significant reason for traffic enforcement, it is also a major tool for apprehension of other types of criminals. I live in a relatively small town and my brother is police chief. According to him, over 70% of the arrests in town are the result of a traffic stop. Drugs, outstanding warrants, “illegal” gun possession, etc., the majority get caught because of a traffic violation. In his honest moments, (like after a few beers), brother will admit that, excepting for really egregious or dangerous driving, they don’t actually care that much about traffic violations. It just gives them a convenient excuse to go after those that they suspect are “bad guys”.
There’s another aspect to that. Lots of people have “fines” they can’t pay. Cops use plate readers and drive through poor areas to catch the ones who can’t pay. It’s a catch-22 situation in that picking them up simply exacerbates the problem and has caused this country to become a debtor’s prison state. Laws didn’t exist till recently in Tx. so a judge COULD waive fees or fines. Now many cities are passing their own laws so the state law that would allow judges to waive these fees are over-riden. This is what anybody with a working brain would call “A Police State”, by and for the cops since townships and counties get nothing from people who can’t pay and the taxpayer has to pay for their detention.
I’m aware cops like to use “drugs, thieves, rapists etc” to justify what they do but it’s all about them and their ever-increasing salaries. More laws mean more criminals. Every person contributing here probably violates 2-3 federal laws every day, things that would put you away for a good while or forever.
A good thing to remember when we speak of crime is that back when the shrub was in office they had plenty of federal prosecutors in DC. They used to get together every morning at Starbucks or some place for coffee and see who could come up with the most felonies to ascribe to each other every day.
When federal law alone is more than10,000 pages, who could possibly be exempt.? Are you breathing? Must be a criminal. I cut the labels off a pair of warm-ups yesterday. No telling how many federal and international laws I broke.
Then I hopped on my 300 hp bike and ripped through a few towns at 100+ mph, went to the “projects”, picked up some crack, heroin and a couple keys of XXX Skunk, then blasted my way….while being blasted outta my mind back through these towns leaving swooning women, terrified children and dead cats behind me for the poor bewildered cops to assist….with their .40’s and sanitation workers picking up my discarded 40’s. I drove so fast I set 3 pastures on fire, burned down twelve structures including an orphanage with no survivors and got back home before 10 am. Then I had to consider what to do the rest of the day. It’s this kind of thing those poor cops have to endure day after day. I’m happy to oblige. Oh, btw, I hit a bald eagle whose feathers lodged on my bike……..and I kept them….
http://www.budcad.com/Motorcycling/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/Smalls2.jpg
“It just gives them a convenient excuse to go after those that they suspect are ‘bad guys’.”
And who did they say they were catching? Drug ‘offenders’, outstanding warrants (probably most of those also regarding drugs), and those with ‘illegal’ guns, an unconstitutional condition. So these ‘bad guys’ are not immoral people, they are just those who disrespected some malum prohibitum statute, and happened to get caught because they ignored another one, the PSL.
Absolutely right, Phillip the Bruce. Don’t get me wrong, even though I have family who are cops, I’m not on their side by any means. Thanksgiving dinner usually turns into an ugly affair. I’m just sayin’ that the average street cop doesn’t give a crap about revenue, but to him a traffic stop is an excuse to go after those that he wants to go after. The beaurocrats and admin folks may look at traffic enforcement as a revenue source, but the cops see it as an opportunity to abuse, harass and intimidate people.
The safety reason for speed limits is total bullsh!t. If they were serious about safety, speed limits would be 5-10mph everywhere. Once you get them to argue for faster limits, you win the argument.
It’s not new.
If you go poking around? Back when TOP speed for a car was 20 MPH, in the Model T years?
People had to have a flag bearer go before their car to protect the populace.
Real reason, mind, there were horses who could act on their own and bolt out of fear, causing damage and injuries. The flag bearer was to walk in front of the car, so that horses could be controlled, more or less.
But that “SAAFETY” Uber Alles attitude isn’t new, is my point. Even when the populace was raised on tales of Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn, Daniel Boone and Sam Houston…
They still craved Safety regardless of cost…
eric, the day the speed limit changed remains seared in my mind. I had a torque rod and mount go out on my tractor so the wife and I go to Dallas on Sunday and visit her sister and BIL so we can be at the warehouse first thing Monday to get said parts. I was east of Breckenridge on 180 doing a sedate 70 when a DPS stopped me for speeding. I knew the law was about to change and incorrectly thought it would be at the end of Sunday that it took effect. It had changed at midnight so I was “speeding” early that morning when the day before, actually, several hours before I wouldn’t have been. Made no difference to the DPS since he was out collecting revenue and I was as good as it comes, a trucker with his wife and a CDL to protect.
That was the start of my use of radial tires and installing big HP engines in our vehicles along with a CB. There were no radar detectors so I simply outran the cops after that when there was a good chance of not being caught. Fishheads to everyone with “speed detectors”……up the wazoo………sideways.
eric, the day the speed limit changed remains seared in my mind. I had a torque rod and mount do out on my tractor so the wife and I go to Dallas on Sunday and visit her sister and BIL so we can be at the warehouse first thing Monday to get said parts. I was east of Breckenridge on 180 doing a sedate 70 when a DPS stopped me for speeding. I knew the law was about to change and incorrectly thought it would be at the end of Sunday that it took effect. It had changed at midnight so I was “speeding” early that morning when the day before, actually, several hours before I wouldn’t have been. Made no difference to the DPS since he was out collecting revenue and I was as good as it comes, a trucker with his wife and a CDL to protect.
That was the start of my use of radial tires and installing big HP engines in our vehicles. There were no radar detectors so I simply outran the cops after that when it there was a good chance of not being caught. Fishheads to everyone with “speed detectors”……up the wazoo………sideways.
Eric, I’d like you to know that I first heard you on the Tom Woods Show podcast and now I visit your site regularly when I need some sane reading while at work (I’m a used car salesman). Have to say I agree with what’s said here, just didn’t know it until I saw it it print.
Hear! Hear!
Thanks for the kind words, Insider!