Laws I wish were enforced
 

Noise laws. I hate hearing a car stereo from several blocks away.
While I'm at it phoning/texting while driving.
True story: I saw a woman (easily could have been a man) weaving down a curvy hillside road while texting with two youngsters in tow. Was it really that important?

Re: Laws I wish were enforced
 

Speed limits. In fact every driving law going.

Re: Laws I wish were enforced
 

Over the years that I have been in the US commuting daily on the Interstate, I have seen drivers engaged in just about every imaginable task distracting them from what they're supposed to be focused on while sitting in the front left seat. My personal favorites include putting on make-up, reading a book, and eating a bowl of cereal! :scaredhair:

Re: Laws I wish were enforced
 

In town, I'd agree.

Less so when the speed limit is 50mph on a motorway in the middle of nowhere, like a lot of I-90/95 is down my way.

Oh and texting on the move, see that a lot, even the cops doing it. One of the local highschools have a smashed up car by the front gate that was caved in by someone who was texting as a warning to the kids over the holidays.

Re: Laws I wish were enforced
 

Worst I've seen, a chap in a Merc, having a wank, as he over took me.

Close second, a chap in a Vette, pouring vodka into his OJ and slurping it down, while stuck in traffic.

Re: Laws I wish were enforced
 

I saw a woman eating sushi...with chopsticks, I can barely master an Starbucks without spilling oh and I simply turn my phone off and my stereo up, car time is karaoke time :D

Re: Laws I wish were enforced
 

I saw a man eating a full breakfast from a proper plate and using a knife and fork.
I've started putting my bag in the back so my phone is out of temptation.

Re: Laws I wish were enforced
 

I don't think there is a law, but there should be... People having their little dogs in their laps as they drive!:eek::frown: It's just crazy and annoying!

Re: Laws I wish were enforced
 

....and air pollution levels re: gas powered leaf blowers

Re: Laws I wish were enforced
 

Riiiiggghhht! :rolleyes: ..... Next you'll be telling us he had a yeti in the back seat! :rofl:

Re: Laws I wish were enforced
 

Traffic laws for cops in non-emergency situations. Saw one run a red light on Friday.

Re: Laws I wish were enforced
 

They never seem to stop for people at cross walks either.

Re: Laws I wish were enforced
 

I didn't specify using a knife and fork at the same time!

Re: Laws I wish were enforced
 

I'm with you on that. The amount of times I have seen a cops lights go on just so they can run a red light and then turn them off when they've done so is incredible.

Re: Laws I wish were enforced
 

We have a photo radar van in our town. We only have two main highways going through town, one of which is 30mph and the other 50mph. Our van does not issue a ticket unless the vehicle is 11mph or more over the posted limit.

After all the cost of running the van, officer salary, court time and the Judges and two court staff salaries are paid, and all other admin cost, the van makes about $500k a year. That is how many people drive at least 11mph over the limit. It isn't like people don't know we have it, as our "speed trap" has featured on all the local news stations.

Re: Laws I wish were enforced
 

And that's a perfect example of why the limits should be enforced. Not because it's a nice little earner (that's just a bonus), but rather to stop the seemingly widespread attitude among drivers that rules don't matter to them once they get behind the wheel.

Re: Laws I wish were enforced
 

It's been my experience that (traffic/any) laws are only enforced within sight of a police officer. Also, if there's a group of cars going faster than the limit then the police will pull over the slowest one. I hope the traffic fine goes towards the vehicle budget, so they can start to catch the faster ones.

Re: Laws I wish were enforced
 

Couple of days ago we were crossing the road in Boston on a 'walk' sign. A car turning left decided that rather than wait for us to cross he'd take the corner as fast as possible in front of us.

The police car behind him waited for us to cross, put on his blue lights, and immediately pulled him over. We waved as we passed him :-)

Re: Laws I wish were enforced
 

Cops down my way just watch and do nothing. There were two parked side by side and another across the street when a slew of cars didn't bother to stop while I was at the cross walk...

Re: Laws I wish were enforced
 

The purpose of a speed limit should be to inform motorists of what is a safe speed. On a highway, a safe speed is generally determined by the flow of traffic. But most of our highway speed limits are set arbitrarily low. Drivers tend to choose a speed that they find to be comfortable, so the low limits only serve to increase the number of violators.

If you want better compliance with speed limits, then the answer usually lies in increasing the speed limit to a realistic level that accounts for how drivers use the road. (Most drivers will choose a speed that is appropriate for the highway design.) When compliance is low, then the problem is usually with the law, not with the driver.

If anything, low limits encourage scofflaws. Since the limits make no sense, some begin to presume that other controls are equally arbitrary. You shouldn't want a situation in which drivers come to believe that all of the laws, not just the limits, are arbitrary.

Re: Laws I wish were enforced
 

They were probably waiting for a specific person/ vehicle to show up. Pairs of cops waiting and watching are commonly on a specific assignment, not just looking for speeders and other low level infractions.

Re: Laws I wish were enforced
 

In our sleepy burbs, it just means there was a deal at the Dunkin' D's :lol:

Though seriously, it would make sense if they were across town, but not at that particular junction :)

Re: Laws I wish were enforced
 

We're they outside of a Dunkin' Donuts, by any chance? :D

Re: Laws I wish were enforced
 

On my commute, I tend to stick to the limit - 65 on my bit of freeway. I frequently get overtaken/cut up by School Buses.

Re: Laws I wish were enforced
 

The only part of that which I agree with is the first sentence. Speed limits are about safety.

The rest of it is just an attempt at justification for individual drivers to make their own assessments of risks and to drive accordingly. That is the problem with compliance - it's not the law, it's more the fact that every driver arrogantly thinks that "they" know what's best.

Re: Laws I wish were enforced
 

I thought that was illegal in general in the US anyway, going by the ones that I know :rofl:

Re: Laws I wish were enforced
 

I agree with everything except the highlighted.

If that happens it seems to be coincidental.

Re: Laws I wish were enforced
 

Except that there has been a huge amount of research carried out into automobile safety down the years and the vast majority of it, unsurprisingly, has found that as speeds are reduced, so are the severity of injuries in an accident.

That's not to say that speed limits aren't potentially employed for other reasons (eg. reducing emissions and environmental impact through increasing fuel economy is one).

Re: Laws I wish were enforced
 

So let's eliminate vehicular deaths by reducing all speed limits to 4mph and mandating that you must have someone walking ahead of each vehicle waiving a red flag! :rolleyes:

Re: Laws I wish were enforced
 

Round here money raising is the biggie.

Re: Laws I wish were enforced
 

"Round here" meaning "almost anywhere in the 50 states plus DC". :D

Re: Laws I wish were enforced
 

Weren't far off it :lol:

Re: Laws I wish were enforced
 

You really think in this day and age that a 50mph speed limit is high on a motorway?

What about when they lower it to 40mph for a road works project that doesn't begin for another 6 months?

Wouldn't have anything to do with the fact that they can now double the speeding ticket at all.

Re: Laws I wish were enforced
 

That's been my experience also. Perhaps because there isn't anyone to enforce a law when the violation is not within sight of a police officer.

Regards, JEff

Re: Laws I wish were enforced
 

I wasn't really offering an opinion. I was informing you of what traffic engineers already know about speed limits, namely that safe speeds on highways are governed primarily by the design speed of the highway and the flow of traffic. This is what is known as the 85th percentile speed.

http://www.maine.gov/mdot/csd/mlrc/t...ightyfifth.htm

When we allow emotions and gut feelings to inform our positions, then we end up such nonsense as creationism in public schools, climate change "skeptics" and speed limits that are set by know-nothing politicians who can't be bothered with the use of sound engineering principles. Putting numbers on a sign doesn't change behavior, and in any case, safe speeds are more relative than absolute.

Re: Laws I wish were enforced
 

I am heading down to Denver this afternoon.

I will pull onto a US Highway 2 lanes blind crests lots of memorials to previous accidents. 65mph

As I approach Denver then there is new 4 lane highway think Motorway through the Lake District without the traffic. 50 mph.

Re: Laws I wish were enforced
 

Traffic laws in the state I live in (MA) are a joke. EVERYONE has a cell phone to their ear (which is entirely legal), or they're texting (which is illegal).

However, not that any of that matters as the local STATE police are too busy hiding to catch speeding motorists to bother about careless driving offences. It's literally open season to do whatever you want in your car UNLESS you speed.

A joke. Totally and utterly.

Re: Laws I wish were enforced
 

It's too simplistic to say driving faster = more deaths. If that were the case, Germany would have a higher rate of fatalities per 100,000 population per year than USA (4.5 vs. 12.3) or a higher rate of fatalities per billion vehicle km per year (7.2 vs. 8.5) - figures from a WHO report for 2010. I picked Germany because of the autobahns and what I believe is a reasonable level of social ambivalence/acceptance of drink driving.

Incidentally the UK was 3.59 & 5.7 respectively.

If speed is reduced then the total amount of energy available to injure & kill is obviously reduced. I'm sure I saw something a while back in the UK that concluded the majority of road fatalities were on 30 mph roads (though people may have been speeding on them). The limit isn't the issue, the attitude is. Speed limits on motorways that seem arbitrarily low don't help - people do think they know better, they have a history of not hurting themselves and therefore decide they can drive faster. People have the ability to decide for that moment they know better. And every time they don't crash, that reinforces the belief. I don't think the general setting of speed limits helps any with this.

Personally, especially in the USA, I think it is way too easy to get a driving license (maybe with the exception of California, based on some of the threads on that). I guess with the general lack of any other transport options, it has to be that easy though.

Re: Laws I wish were enforced
 

A couple of months ago, the crossing guard at my daughters school was knocked over (not too serious), and a woman was killed on a crossing, around a quarter of a mile away from the school. The following week, rather than have police cars in the area, (which commonly has accidents) every single time I left my house they were set up outside an empty office building, on the only road in town with a 25mph speed limit:frown:

It's about money, not safety, around here.

Re: Laws I wish were enforced
 

Energy is function of the square of the velocity.

I always thought it odd we called them "speed limits" as if we shouldn't be going faster yet seem to treat them more as "speed minimums" and get upset if someone isn't going the limit.