Crossposted from GreenState Project
The car is virtually inseparable from the notion of "America". Your car is your freedom.
You can go where you want, when you want.
This does not mean there are no rules, though. There are numerous laws regarding all sorts of issues related to driving.
Probably the first rule or law everybody would mention would be the Speed Limit.
The speed limit is something of an odd thing given the nature of most vehicles in America. Most places the limit is 55, and sometimes 65 or 70 mph. People, of course, violate this law egregiously. They only really respond to seeing police cars or when their radar detector, a device made to help people break the law, goes off.
Americans habitually drive well above the posted speed. I did it just yesterday on the way to a job interview. It was 'drive 80 mph, or get run over' - everybody else was speeding like hell.
No cops anywhere.
Speed Kills though:
A recent study examined the impact of higher travel speeds on US rural interstates after the repeal in November 1995 of the national speed limit. Researchers found states that had increased their speed limits to 75 mph (120 km/h) experienced a shocking 38 per cent increase in deaths per million vehicle miles than expected, compared to deaths in those states that did not change their speed limits. States that increased speed limits to 70 mph (112 km/h) showed a 35 per cent increase in fatalities.
The US Insurance Institute for Highway Safety has tracked vehicle speeds on rural and urban interstates since 1987. Preliminary data for 2003 show the highest speeds the Institute has ever observed. In California, for example, the speed limit is 70 mph. However, the mean speed is 74. Well over two-thirds (69 per cent) of drivers go over 70 mph, and 19 per cent go faster than 80 mph.
So this law is about protecting lives. It’s a goal we can all support, right?
Constitutional Protections endanger lives
Historically this would have been a 4th Amendment violation, just like drug testing and spying on Americans, but Americans have embraced wiretapping and they have embraced drug testing despite these being a grossly unreasonable search into one’s most private life areas. Fear of marijuana and drugs have helped make pre-employment and random drug-screening a standardized violation of the 4th. Fear of terrorism has caused Americans to put up with being spied on more or less constantly.
Americans have shown they do not really care much as about their constitutional rights and protections and have recurrently abandoned the principles of the Constitution and its amendments. They have tolerated the intrusiveness and inappropriateness of pre-employment drug screening, for example, for nearly 2 decades. "If you have nothing to hide, what’s the big deal?" is the meme that gets used.
They have also indicated they will tolerate The Bush Administration’s wrecking of the Constitution in general and spying on the telephones, cell phones, and internet interactions. They simply put up with it. After, if one has nothing to hide, the Constitution is just a piece of paper.
We have the technology now to alert law enforcement when any car or any number of cars exceed the posted limits.
The sign doesn’t say "56″, does it?
Speeding is a crime: a law is broken when the speed limit is exceeded.
Most usually you just get a ticket and a court date or a fine. While cops like to put on the swagger that they are "saving lives" or whatnot, they are raking in the bucks with traffic violations.
"Black boxes" very similar to those used in airplanes can be made a very inexpensive part of all US motor vehicles.
Using GPS technology as well as the same sorts of technology used by ONSTAR a car’s speed, location, and altitude can be determined.
Constantly.
A black box would emit a unique signal, determined by the car’s VIN number, each time the vehicle exceeds the posted limit. IT would also be able to store data in a file that can be easily retrieved when necessary.
In addition to the pre-employment drug screens and criminal background checking, a check for driving habits is appropriate especially if the position requires any driving during work hours.
Innocent until Proven Guilty? Of course!
We just need to be able to verify people’s innocence, that’s all. No harm in that, is there?
You do it with pre-employment drug testing all the time.
Check out the Georgia Technical Institute’s Drug Testing Policy: it's very similar to most such policies.
Georgia Tech will not discriminate against applicants for employment because of past abuse of drugs or alcohol. It is the current abuse of drugs or alcohol which prevents employees from properly performing their jobs that the Institute will not tolerate.
So Ga Tech won’t discriminate against past "drug use":it is current drug use they want to discriminate against based on the notions of "health and safety".
Just the same, your criminal background check can show speeding by history but current repetitive violation of the speed limit, even when on personal/private time, creates an unacceptable risk.
A lot of this can be traced to an attitude that discounts the seriousness of speeding. This attitude leads to carelessness. Even when on their private time, people’s speeding behavior must be checked. It's too dangerous.
This risk can be minimized by getting people to respect the speed limit. A few more tickets and some warnings or referral to defensive driving school by your employer (much like the EAP program you might have for drug addiction or gambling issues) will help a lot of drivers learn to respect the law and adhere to speed limits as posted.
The End of the Radar Detector
As the system is GPS-based and constantly able to monitor all cars, the radar detector would be rendered useless. All drivers will be constantly facing a GPS "speedgun". Day and night. There will be no further cheating on the posted speed limit using evasive technologies.
At least until something new is developed. And something always is.
A boon to Law Enforcement
My plan would forward a driver’s name, address, VIN, and telephone number to the police station in the nearest electronically-determined jurisdiction for every five occurrence of exceeding the posted speed limit by less than 5 mph. And speed in excess of 6 mph or more would be immediately sent to law enforcement, which could, at its discretion, scramble patrol cars to intercept and arrest or merely mail a fine to the address.
Failure to pay fines falls back on basic court procedures: a warrant will be issued for arrest and this will be placed in the criminal database permanently.
Law enforcement should absolutely love this technology as it will free them from there traditional efforts to trap people at speeding as well as bypass the problems of people adhering to the speed limit when police are visible.
This should actually provide a dramatic increase in revenue over a short term while shifting police resources to more important issues.
So we stand at the verge of eliminating speeding, increasing respect for our laws, saving lives, and better-using law enforcement resources WHILE saving law enforcement lots of time spent waiting to catch speeding cars.
Americans will stop speeding.
Update [2007-7-28 11:8:22 by xxdr zombiexx]: This diary is not about speeding actually.
It is NOT "snark" as some seem to want to label it. Snark and Allegory are very different. This is not meant to be funny. It's not funny at all.
Congratulations to ticketpunch who figured it out first!
It is an allegory about the use of technology to do an "end run" around our Constitutional protections, in this case, specifically the 4th Amendment:
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
Republicans and Technology have conspired to make it possible to invalidate these protections.
And that is a serious problem.
But Americans have become complacent with pre-employment drug testing. They accept it. Wiretappig is no different. If you hate wiretapping you should likely be less than pleased about random and pre-employment drug testing.
This is the lubricant on the proverbial "slippery slope" and progressive should seek to stop it.
Thank you for reading.