Would you be in favor of automatic speed tracking with raised speed limits?

[wildcoyote]

The speeding thing- Forget the satellite.  Call me cynical about our government, but shortly after we agreed to it, the speed limit would go back down again.  Never mind computer errors- "What?!?! I got 87 tickets last week?! And I\'ve never even been to New Mexico!"  

The toll booths- Only if they just put them on the NY and RI borders.  Living on I-95, most of the problems, especially in the summer are caused by out of state traffic, with state residents footing the DOT bill.  These travelers really don\'t bring any commerce to the state either, most are just passing through.  I think this would be a decent way to generate a little cash without sticking it too hard to people already supporting the DOT in the form of taxes.

[derickw]

^^^^ hey i resemble that remark, if you do that you\'d be cutting down on your casino business. but now RI is looking at getting 2 new super casinos one put up by Trump.... right next to a SuperFunds site..for those that don\'t know a superfund site is basically a toxic waste dump.... yeah casino....


i always had the thought... what if they put a sensor under your car and a wire in the road so once you get in a certain lane it controls the speed of your car, everyone in that lane would be going say 65-70 and not have to pay attention till it was there time to get off the highway. if you fell asleep your car would just keep going and after a certain number of miles a alarm would go off to make sure your still alive. maybe I\'m getting a little ahead of myself but to think how many accidents late night on the highway that would solve.

[Wolfman]

Bear in mind a satellite constantly watches you.  You only have to speed for say 50 feet and it will catch you.  It will not be fooled if you sit in traffic for a while then go over the speed limit the way a tracking device such as EZPass is fooled.  The satellite can also take photos of your license plate to ensure you don\'t get the wrong tickets.  They could even do with the satellites what they do in some midwestern states with airplanes and helicopters: they paint huge horizontal lines across the highway every quarter mile and some guy sits there in the air with a stopwatch and determines how fast you\'re going, then dispatches a ground unit if you\'re going too fast.  They even pull you over with the helicopter in some cases!  

I would be down if the speed limit were 85.

[antbach]

I think I saw a problem like this on the SATs. :biggrin:

I\'m pretty sure that a satelite would be able to tell in very short distances if you are speeding....but it would take a shit load of time to program them for road differences. A satelite will be looking at a flat surface, while in reality you have hills, lanes around a curve are different distances, etc., etc. Doesn\'t seem like anything that will be happening any time soon.

Oh, btw, where did this come from Wolf?

I didn\'t think that had these types of questions back then, I thought it was more or less the 2+2 types :duck:

The speed limits are fine where they\'re at. Raising limits = more accidents. Yea more people will be driving faster and you\'ll get from A to B quicker maybe, but you also have to factor in the assholes who drive 55 in the left lane. They\'re not going faster anytime soon. You\'d have to set a minumum (which most do at 40) that is within 10mph of the limit on highways and within 5 on smaller roads. Plus northeast highways in general are overpopulated as it is so you\'d need at least 5 lanes on every part of every major highway, which won\'t happen.

Tollbooths at the NY/MA/Ri border of CT won\'t work either because there are way too many ways around them if people wanted to take a 5 minute detour.

[wildcoyote]

Will anyone really stop coming to the casino b/c they have to pay a toll?   Hell, we can even set it up so you pull a lever and see how much you have to pay. Three, uh, nutmegs(?) and you get to go free!
Also, the casinos are scamming the tax payers as well. They use the Native American cloak for tax benefits, but it\'s really just big business. Most of the actual surviving Native Americans live in poverty on reservations in the south west, and they don\'t see a dime of this money.

[jking]

as for the speed monitoring device, HELL NO. that\'s called big brother, and i want no part in that. why not slow the speed limits and get rid of traffic cops? i\'d be more in favor of that than having constant surveillance and info gathering going on with my consent. for better or worse, its my personal liberty to drive as fast or as slow as i want and i choose not to give up that right.

as for toll booths.... well, for some reason you folks in the north seem to loooove those things. the vast majority of the country has no need for them, but you guys with the smallest states seem to have no other idea of how to raise money without them. they suck, cripple the flow of traffic, and are wildly over-priced. why not just have a "highway commuter tax"? if you buy something on or near a highway, there\'s an extra 10 cents tacked on to every dollar, and that money goes to dot projects. if you live in the area and can prove it, you would be exempt. this would keep your already crappy traffic problems minimalized while still providing income that apparently y\'all don\'t want to have to pay yourselves.

here in dc we have FAR worse traffic than anything y\'all have in ct, but the thought of toll booths would make anybody around here apoplectic. there is a new push to have toll lanes, where you\'d pay a fee to be able to drive on these presumably less traveled lanes, but i can\'t see those working, either.

[FrankZappa]

i always had the thought... what if they put a sensor under your car and a wire in the road so once you get in a certain lane it controls the speed of your car, everyone in that lane would be going say 65-70 and not have to pay attention till it was there time to get off the highway. if you fell asleep your car would just keep going and after a certain number of miles a alarm would go off to make sure your still alive. maybe I\'m getting a little ahead of myself but to think how many accidents late night on the highway that would solve.

they have test runs of this out in california. Sometimes you can see lines of white sedans in the center lane with the drivers reading the newspaper. History channel did a show on it.

articles I found online:
here
and
here.

[Blackieshamps]

if this law would prohibit cops from cruising the highways and pulling people over, id be all about it.:biggrin:

[FreeSpirit]

i always had the thought... what if they put a sensor under your car and a wire in the road so once you get in a certain lane it controls the speed of your car, everyone in that lane would be going say 65-70 and not have to pay attention till it was there time to get off the highway. if you fell asleep your car would just keep going and after a certain number of miles a alarm would go off to make sure your still alive. maybe I\'m getting a little ahead of myself but to think how many accidents late night on the highway that would solve.

:lol: I think amtrak has already stolen your idea... :duck:

[sallyalli]

Im with cops and lower limits...satellite or tracking seems too 1984ish

[Spacey]

The last thing any of us want is to be tracked 24/7, they start with something like this, next thing you know, we have chips in our bodies.

[Me!]

Im with cops and lower limits...satellite or tracking seems too 1984ish

:that:

my simple answer: no, thank you. :wave:

[derickw]

i always had the thought... what if they put a sensor under your car and a wire in the road so once you get in a certain lane it controls the speed of your car, everyone in that lane would be going say 65-70 and not have to pay attention till it was there time to get off the highway. if you fell asleep your car would just keep going and after a certain number of miles a alarm would go off to make sure your still alive. maybe I\'m getting a little ahead of myself but to think how many accidents late night on the highway that would solve.

they have test runs of this out in california. Sometimes you can see lines of white sedans in the center lane with the drivers reading the newspaper. History channel did a show on it.

articles I found online:
here
and
here.

good stuff, bring on the magnetic strip. it would make rides home from the bar a little safer... until you got back in control of your vehicle

[jking]

The last thing any of us want is to be tracked 24/7, they start with something like this, next thing you know, we have chips in our bodies.

they\'re actually doing a voluntary pilot program for exactly that in DC. presumably for \'medical information\' only, its the same chip that they\'re putting in pets in case they get lost. one swipe of a reader, and everything about you is known.

[kindm's]

FYI slower speed limits on highways has been proven to cause more accidents. They have done many studies that show when the speed limits are increased there are fewer accidents.

People are always gonna break the law when it comes to speeding. regardless if they are being tracked by ez pass or satelites or whatever.

RE: Toll Booths in CT
Many of you might not remember but they used to have them on 95 in CT. It was in the early 80\'s if I remember correctly that they closed them. 95 in CT has always been a problem because whoever designed the highway was a dumbass. Why oh Why would you have 3 lanes up to New haven then immediately shrink it to 2 lanes for almost the entire run to the RI border. Thats just about the dumbest thing. It bottlenecks everyone.

Satellite tracking is just as bad an idea as cameras. It punishes the car owner and not the driver of the vehicle. So if your driving your parents car or your friends car etc they get the ticket not who broke the law. So thats pretty un-american right there. not to mention the database of all the locations you have gone, repeat trips, they would know where every car was at any given time and thats just down right scary.

They should invest all this money to make highways automated. If they had autopilot like cars where a central computer was running them. people could sit back and let the system drive the cars. that way everyone could be within feet of eachother driving at ever increasing speeds no one would be able to make stupid driving moves, you could get in your car after a night out and let it drive you home etc. thats more like a plan to me. or if you wanted to go accross country. Punch in the destination and let your car take you there.