This from the NY Times: High Fines for Speeding Anger Virginians. Apparently in Virginia you can now be fined upwards of $1,000 if you're going 20 miles faster than the speed limit, and if you get caught driving drunk, you could pay over $2000. And those Virginians are pissed. There are petitions to make the government knock it off. They're angry because the government of VA wants this to be a source of revenue. They say they'd prefer a gas tax, which would be more equitable. Some people are saying this is especially rough on poor people.
Frankly, I think the moral high ground they're taking is pretty swampy. It seems like it wouldn't be that hard to keep from going 20 miles faster than the speed limit. You have a choice in the matter, folks.
And that comment about how it'll hit the poor especially hard? Weird to
me. A gas tax would hit them harder, I think. Are the poor less able to
drive close to the speed limit? Do their speed limit gauges not work?
If anything, I think they'd be less likely to have cars capable of
exceeding the speed limit by 20 mph. (My first car couldn't hit 85 without doing some serious shaking, if at all. If you can afford a BMW or Mercedes, though, that's another story.) And frankly, a tax where you
essentially make a choice to pay it or not (by speeding or not) seems
not so unfair.
I don't know, all this righteous indignation from
people who think they should be able to break the law without penalties
that actually bother them seems unjustified. I sure wouldn't want to pay a $1-2K ticket, but would feel a pretty
chutzpadik saying it's not fair and they can't do that to me.
Rather than a petition to
repeal, they should start a drive to have everyone drive the speed
limit, thus denying the government the funds it hopes to raise and
showing them that counting on citizens' breaking the law to raise money
won't work. And meanwhile, it's actually quite dangerous to drive that
fast, drunk driving is also potentially catastrophic, and if penalties this size would make people slow down, that's
not such a bad thing, no matter why the gov't has decided to impose
them.
I'm no goodie-two-shoes (well, I sort of am), and was in fact recently busted for speeding in VA (I was passing through)--I was 14 miles above the speed limit. I didn't have to pay any $1,000, for which I'm grateful, but you can bet I won't be speeding much in VA now. I also didn't feel miffed at being ticketed. I was upset, sure, but the fact is I was speeding and I knew it, and I deserved the ticket.
Also, this is the first cop I ever had stop me for speeding (yes, I've been stopped before, mostly in my callow youth), who wasn't really smarmy about it. I really appreciated that he didn't make me squirm, and was just completely matter-of-fact and professional. So hats off to you, Officer Buchanan of Bristol, VA. (By the way, he was just cherry-picking on that highway, because everyone was doing 80. After he ticketed me, he pulled away and stopped someone else not a quarter of a mile down the road. Not a bad gig.)
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