Speed Cameras in Maryland

In the U.S., not only do we have no required driver education, we have pathetic driver testing. And no serious laws/enforcement against distracted driving. A person can take a driving test in a VW Bug in rural North Dakota (where the driving test is a total joke) and then drive a large SUV across country, through crowded cities.

Driving tests test that you know which is the brake and which is the accelerator, and that you can more or less steer the car, and that's about it. In North Dakota I took my test in a CJ-5 Jeep, and a few years later got a job driving a dump truck on the sugar beet harvest. I had no idea how to drive the damn thing. My employer gave me five minutes of explanation and that was it. I learned to drive the thing on the job.

As mentioned by other posters above, Americans think a driver's license is an entitlement. Never mind if they have gotten too old to have any acceptable reaction time. Someone who gets convicted of drunk driving will plead that he should be allowed to keep his license so that he can drive to work, and will be taken seriously. A cop won't even stop someone who is eating a sandwich or drinking a milk shake while driving. The presumption is that if you make it to your destination without hitting someone, you've done nothing wrong.

And apparently Americans are either willing to accept the high death rate, or they deny that speeding, running red lights, and distracted driving causes accidents. Until quite recently, drunk driving was not even considered a serious offense until you actually caused an accident. And even then nobody is willing to associate the accident with the bad driving behavior. Everyone will just say the guy was a bad driver (while insisting that they themselves can drive safely while eating, drinking, texting, etc.) and the guy at fault will blame the other driver.

We need REAL driving tests, that are car specific, and we need to get serious about distracted driving and traffic violations.

 

Daniel I am amazed and appaulled reading that.

Drink driving here- over the limit is a minimum 12 month ban, more the higher over the limit you are. If you need your car for your job, tough ****. Get the bus or a cab or walk or (and this is the really interesting part), DON'T DRINK AND DRIVE. Get a cab, walk, have a designated driver.

Everybody has a sob story why they need their licence but then the person you maimed when drunk might have a genuine sob story of why their life has now been ruined by your selfish behaviour.

But I fear your judges or representatives are too arrogant to learn from other Countries as you know best Well it's your people you're killing and your massive insurance premiums you're paying. Carry on.


Oh and our friends across the Irish Sea have a good way of putting it;

 

No ad like that could be produced in the United States. The Truth In Advertising Council would get it banned on the basis that it implies an obvious falsehood: that god doesn't protect you.

 

No. They'd just say it was too shocking to show on tv.

 

Here's what I'm thinking.

A mandate requiring GPS for all cars, plus a fingerprint reader so we know who is driving.

Then, any time the car exceeds the speed limit, the fine is automatically deducted from the driver's bank account.

Hey, it's no different than the process we have now...is it..?

 

Don't forget, that most surveys done show that something like 80% of drivers think they're better than the average driver, too. Clearly, most people think they're a good driver and the other drivers are idiots. I've seen people that do the same actions in their car that they complain about other drivers doing. Then they get mad when I'll call them on it. Am I a perfect driver? Not by any means, but I do try my best to minimize distractions when I drive. It might help that I also ride a motorcycle, and those safety courses really make you think.

I wish I could easily, and cheaply take advanced driver technique courses. I just have no clue where to look, and I know my local DMV would probably wonder why I want to become a better driver....

 

Drink driving penalties in most US States are left to the Judge's discretion. If you have enough money to hire a good lawyer it is pretty easy to keep your license and pay a fine. For example you may have heard about the actor Mel Gibson getting arrested for driving under the influence (DUI) and going into a drunken anti-Semitic rant a while back. This was his sentence:

On 17 August 2006, Gibson pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor drunken-driving charge and was sentenced to three years probation. He was ordered to attend self-help meetings five times a week for four and a half months and three times a week for the remainder of the first year of his probation. He was also ordered to attend a First Offenders Program, was fined $1,300, and his license was restricted for 90 days​

That was his punishment for driving 87mph in a 45mph zone and registering a blood alcohol level of 0.12 or 50% over the legal limit!


A sobering statistic from M.A.D.D. (Mothers Against Drunk Driving):

Over 1.46 million drivers were arrested in 2006 for driving under the influence of alcohol or narcotics. This is an arrest rate of 1 for every 139 licensed drivers in the United States.​

 

Perhaps people are so blase about it because they feel it doesn't affect them. Drink driving still goes on here despite the strict sentences and because of the many hours I drive I have come across the mess caused by drink drivers a number of times. Once me and my passenger had to pull a women from her burning car (which thankfully quickly extinguished itself) after being hit head on by a possible drunk driver on a quiet country road. I can tell you that struggling to pull the buckled door open when your shins are getting burnt by the heat is not how I like to spend my shift. And then trying to comfort a hysterical woman with heavily bleeding shattered legs for 20 mins while you wait for an ambulance, looking over and seeing the still body of the other driver mangled in their smashed car is not pleasant at all - haunting perhaps.

I could then relate the story of some young girls who had their lives changed permanently for the worst when the taxi they were in was hit head on by a drunk. He pulled straight out of a pub at high speed onto the wrong side of the road. The force of that impact threw vehicle parts hundreds of feet in all directions and it was one of my friends driving the cab.

I think you get the picture. Anybody who tells me they drink drive and it isn't a problem are likely to get a frosty reaction from me

 

A large part of the problem is that alcohol impairs your judgement. Thus, some people who when sober might recognize that they shouldn't drive drunk, when drunk think they are not too impaired to drive. Every tenth of a second reaction-time impairment reduces your ability to avoid an accident. But when drunk you do not think in those terms, and of course Americans have never been educated in critical thinking (in fact, they are indoctrinated in church AGAINST critical thinking). So the drunker you are, the less likely you are to understand that you shouldn't drive.

And then people will argue that it wasn't their fault because they were too drunk to know better!!!

Drunk driving should be one strike and you're out! A few years in prison and no more driving license ever.

I am not generally a "law-and-order" kind of guy. But driving drunk is the moral equivalent of walking down the street shooting a shotgun into occupied houses. Then when someone is killed, you say "I didn't mean to kill anyone. I didn't even know who was in the house."

 

Mostly correct. In Maryland it is called the Rookie Driver Program, as it applies to all new drivers, regardless of age. However, those holding a driver's license from another state for at least 18 months are not required to take any sort of training, so training is not mandatory for all drivers.

Tom

 

An update for this season time of year just in case one of you is considering drink driving;

BBC News - North Yorkshire Police warn of drink-driving danger after death

"It was bad enough with the loss of one life, but this incident has had greater, far-reaching consequences," he said. "Apart from the physical trauma, we can only imagine what this child is going to remember for the rest of his life, after being in that car while his dad died next to him."

Don't do it guys. Get a cab - and no that isn't a plug.

 

We are back into the "aggressive driver campaign" here again. Basically, they put more enforcement out and make more traffic stops. They used to do this on I-95 right as you come north into DE. They'd have usually 3 people: 1 outside with radar gun, and 2 in cars to go get them.

They also are into running their DUI checkpoints over the weekends. They do have to advertise where they are running them, though. When I worked at a movie theater, the local town's officers would work weekend nights there. One of them would always brag about how many DUI's he managed to pick up. I really think he got his jollies off on that kind of thing.

 

For all the speed camera fans, I'm sure you're looking forward to the day when our cars have a fingerprint reader on the dashboard, and use GPS to automatically deduct money from drivers' bank account whenever they go above the posted limit.

 

That's a good idea. I thought about having a speeding car generate an automatic "I'm speeding" signal, but a direct deduction system is a much cleaner system. You could also have it assess points for running red lights or very excessive speed.

Tom

 

Apparently there are some folks who think that traffic laws are nothing but a means for local government to fill its coffers. To such folks, what you've described is a genuine Orwellian threat. Other folks feel that the purpose of traffic laws is to prevent accidents, and the attendant injuries and deaths. For them, having cars issue tickets/fines automatically would be an improvement in road safety. The first group may convert to the second group when they are hit by a reckless driver and demand to know why he was not taken off the road earlier. The second group may convert to the first when their car fines them for speeding to get to work on time after they overslept. ("It wasn't my fault I overslept. My blankety-blank alarm clock malfunctioned.")

People are experts at constructing reasons for why they were justified for breaking this or that law, but are quite good at seeing through other people's reasons for breaking laws. Logs and motes.