<- tries out inline replies yay me ;-> > -----Original Message----- > From: pic microcontroller discussion list > [mailto:PICLIST@MITVMA.MIT.EDU]On Behalf Of Philip Stortz > Sent: Wednesday, June 16, 2004 1:58 PM > To: PICLIST@MITVMA.MIT.EDU > Subject: Re: [OT]: detecting emergency vehicles > > > you are kidding right? or are you just blissfully ignorant? no i'm not, eh a little ignorance is good for the soul > it would > not punish the rich equally, the rich have chauffeurs, nothing us mere mortals devise will work against the people with that level of money. by rich i mean the person on $100k a year and by poor i mean the starving student. hell if anything it would harm the rich person more because as a rule their time and schedule are more important. > and the > chauffeurs would be the ones driving, also interestingly, in colorado > chauffeur licenses have twice as many points as an ordinary license, I have thaught about this before, here interstate truck drivers have the same points as ordinary drivers (afaikr, though its more stringent even when they arent driving a truck). I am unsure of the answer these people drive much more than we do, so odds are they will have more minor oopses than we do. by the same token they are meant to be profesional drivers so they shouldnt be making the mistakes... all the solutions i come up with wind up being complicated with multi tiered points systems and the like > though they need a regular license for when they aren't actually > chauffeuring, meaning the rich can afford to have someone else speed > more than you can afford to speed or violate other traffic laws. > > secondly, yeah, and the death penalty would be even more effective, well if you want to get silly about things yes i spose it would > but > it still wouldn't be right. no it wouldnt be, which is why it'd be silly > you don't get to cause people an > arbitrarily large amount of inconvenience for violating minor laws, why not? people as a rule are driven by concequences. they *know* they are breaking the law, they *know* the punishment. at the moment the punishment is too harsh to be handed out all the time (well it is here anyway) and it dosent work on people with high incomes untill they are about to loose their licence. (that one i have had much first hand experience of). Something that takes time out of your day, makes you wait in line, get disaproving looks from the person behind the desk etc and has no real financial cost seems to be the most equitable way of doing things. you could try singapores approach too, fines are a % of your yearly wage, though a few years ago kerry packer paid around $32 in taxes so that isnt what i call fair either. > which is what speeding laws are. Says you. anything that other people do to place my life at greater risk without my permission is pretty important to me > most studies have concluded that speed > differentials are dangerous, but going a little faster isn't that > dangerous. great so everybody should just drive at the speed limit and there are no problems > also, here in the u.s. and probably in most places, city > streets are deliberately assigned a speed limit 5 mph slower than the > traffic guys think is reasonable on the assumption that many people will > speed by about 5 mph, the reasonable assumption that people are going to break the law? > thus ensuring it's still relatively safe since > most people still aren't going too fast for the road. that is just so wrong lol i dont really know how to reply to it. "everybody does it so it must be ok" ? > those who speed repeatedly in this country do lose their license to > drive. while some drive without a license, the penalties do go > up steeply. > > and what's your solution if they don't happen to own the car they are > using? its happened to me, i was driving sombody elses car, thaught it was an 80 zone it was in fact a 60 got booked for doing 76 in an 80 zone. (now i do have an argument about revenue raising here, in the photo you can actually see the 80km sign about 50 meters in front of me, that is pretty flagrant if you ask me, though it was legal, i paid the fine $150 or so, which as a student hit me *hard*, but our neighbour who was on 100k a year had 4 of them in about 3 months when he got his new mx300 and it didnt bother him one bit (well till he had 2 points left on his licence, after that he was a good little boy)) what happens is included in the envlope with the fine is a form in which you say you wernt the driver and this person was, you send that back in and the fine gets re-issued. if you want to argue about it it winds up in court. > what if they borrowed the car from someone who didn't know they > didn't have a license (you'd have to be pretty stupid to let an > unlicensed friend borrow your car, though like all stupid things > it does happen). Then that person shouldnt have been driving the car, if the owner knew they were unlicenced they would have some culpability, if not then they didnt, give em a stern talking to. I assume you are talking about selling the car? perhaps i was making assumptions that you would fill in the specific case if i outlined the general case. there are exceptions to every rule. even speeding, i'm pretty sure your allowed to do that here in case of a medical emergincy. > can you be a little less simplistic? why would i want to be? it takes a lot of work to come up with the simplest solutions and they are generally the best. especially when you are dealing with "people" > are you 12 or 13? 21 actually > or have you > just not experienced much in life? thats entirley possible but this is sounding rather like a personal attack, hopefully my faith that individual persons (as opposed to people) arent prone to being petty, silly and otherwise daft, will override that feeling. > i'm 41, and i've experienced a lot, > including seeing a lot of stupidity and occasionally being stupid myself. i have experienced my fair share of being stupid, i mean everybodys got to be good at something > far, far more serious a problem than speeding is people going too fast > for conditions, speeding down the snowy possibly icy highway, driving > too fast in fog when they can barely tell where the lane is, these are > the things that lead to serious accidents, not going a little faster > than you are supposed to down the highway or most city streets, though > obviously people should take speeding in residential areas more seriously. as was pointed out earlier KE = mv^2 a little faster = a whole lot more KE, and when you are in a SUV to start with well. > Jake Anderson wrote: > > > > personally i think fixed speed cameras are a bit silly, everybody always > > slows to go through them. > > what i think is needed is massive wide spread booking for > anything 5km over > > the limit. > > fine is $1 payable at a police station or somewhere equally inconvinent. > > you would have near instant compliance i would think and it > penalises rich > > and poor alike. > > those who are willfully drastically speeding can have their > licence revoked > > and if they keep it up their car sold with the money going somewhere > > usefull. > > > > people need to be aware that the cops are "everywhere" and that they are > > watching. But at the same time its obviously *not* revenue raising. > --------- > > -- > http://www.piclist.com hint: PICList Posts must start with ONE topic: > [PIC]:,[SX]:,[AVR]: ->uP ONLY! [EE]:,[OT]: ->Other [BUY]:,[AD]: ->Ads -- http://www.piclist.com hint: The list server can filter out subtopics (like ads or off topics) for you. See http://www.piclist.com/#topics