Life in the Fast Lane

The Sun decided today would be a good day to run a column in the Maryland section lamenting the lack of penalties for speeders on Maryland roads. Michael Dresser's biggest gripe seems to be that people who are speeding get only speeding tickets instead of jail time and loss of their license.

That's right; for these folks, Maryland is not enough of a nanny state. Quotes like this:

The problem with the charge of vehicular manslaughter is that it addresses the outcome - which is in part a matter of bad luck - rather than the behavior that caused it. How many drivers get caught tearing down the road at 85 mph and get nothing more than a fine? In fact, many drivers routinely go 85 mph and don't even consider it extreme.

Under this logic, people should be arrested for doing anything that is dangerous that may or may not proceed to a bad outcome. That means somebody who is putting up Christmas lights should be arrested while standing on a ladder because he might fall and injure somebody else. And in a lot of situations, it is unsafe not to speed; if you are not keeping up with the flow of traffic, it is dangerous to both yourself and the cars around you.

Some other things that these folks would like to do is to confiscate vehicles and permanently take your driver's license for committing egregious speeding offenses (egregious in their eyes, at least). Never mind the fact that nothing requires you to have a driver's license to physically operate a motor vehicle on the roads; the license merely allows you to do it legally.

Then there is this quote:

What Rice experienced was no less an assault than a gunshot aimed at her that missed. When a vehicle is being used as a weapon rather than as a means of transportation, why shouldn't the law treat it as a weapon?

That's just unenlightened. Who determines when a vehicle is being used as a weapon? Once again, it can only be done after the fact and upon assessing intent. There are already laws against using your vehicle as a weapon. There are already laws against reckless driving. I'm not sure exactly what these people want.

I understand that there are people who have lost their loved ones in a vehicular incident, and that is unfortunate. But a lot of the kvetching seems to be related to people who are driving the speed-limit and not keeping up with the flow of traffic, which is also against the law, though I doubt the folks complaining about the enforcement of speeding and reckless driving laws would support increased enforcement of that law.

My solutions do not include more enforcement (we already have enough police officers setting up speed traps in dangerous locations, which cause people to slam on the brakes and cause or nearly cause fender-benders; the most dangerous of these is the 100/10 crossover, where I was once ticketed because for speeding up to safely negotiate the crossover). The solutions are to raise the speed limit and to require the use of the right lane whenever possible.

Yes, raise the speed limit. Driver's are more attentive at higher speeds, and more attentive drivers lead to better drivers. And requiring the use of the right lane (when possible) means that the faster traffic will have more unfettered ability to driver more safely at a higher speed. It works for the Autobahn in Germany, which incidentally has a lower accident rate than American highways. And German authorities strictly enforce the two laws above to ensure that traffic has more unfettered access.

Dresser and his reader's complaint seems like it should be with the judicial system more than anything else. If cops are writing tickets, and judges are allowing other tickets to be thrown out, how are any new laws going to stop that, short of mandatory minimums on speeding violations, which seems to be what Dresser and company are looking for?

Once again, Sun columnists and readers unfortunately jump to the conclusion that safety can only be increased and the public can only be served through more laws and regulations. And once again, that's just not the case.