These stories are very sad reminders of the dangers of street racing :-(

 

I hope that anyone that is street racing gets caught and is locked up for a long long time. I deal with idiots every day on the road, no sympathy here if you sit in jail forever if you’re caught street racing.

 

Locked up for a Long Long time? But then I guess I can go do a smash and grab and get out on no bail and then go do another one, no jail. If some dip is rolling around racing in and out of traffic that obviously is not condonable. Should they be caught or heaven forbid hurt someone they should get the same penalty commensurate of an ordinary citizen committing a crime, negligence, nusiance, manslaughter etc. But not locked up for a long long time or even FOREVER for being a butt in traffic.

 

Everyone has their own opinion and I stated mine. You can’t change my mind, it’s a waste of your time. In your post you spoke about people committing crimes and bailing out, in my opinion that’s what is wrong with the world today. The penalties are far too lenient. Do the crime do the time and it should be a long sentence, that would stop all of the crap people get away with nowadays. I have never been convicted of any crime in my life and I’m pretty old. I also don’t go anywhere without two pistols on my person legally because I have never been convicted of any crime.

 

Well now dont go so far as to say I cant change your mind. Someone near and dear to you , granddaughter, son, mother were charged with street racing and were imminent danger of going to jail for life, you may find yourself cooking up a a couple potential exception to the rules, "right / wrong" But I get your point you are a mean old angry bastard who drives 70 in a 70 and any lawbreaker needs to pony up the penalties. Ha ha, jus busting your chops. We do need rules and more mega-RULES for sure.

 

[QUOTE=ZIPPY02;728726]Well now dont go so far as to say I cant change your mind. Someone near and dear to you , granddaughter, son, mother were charged with street racing and were imminent danger of going to jail for life, you may find yourself cooking up a a couple potential exception to the rules, "right / wrong" But I get your point you are a mean old angry bastard who drives 70 in a 70 and any lawbreaker needs to pony up the penalties. Ha ha, jus busting your chops. We do need rules and more mega-RULES for sure.

Zippy,

I drive 60 in the right lane. Biden has the gas prices to high to drive any faster. 😊

I could tell you some good stories of when I was younger, however the roads had a lot less vehicles on the road back then. In my home town when I was in my late teens we used to go down town to the only big hill that was paved and skateboard down the road after dark because there wasn’t much traffic on it after dark.

I might pay for her to have a good lawyer, however I don’t think that our one daughter would street race in her 4 banger jeep. She’s 40 years old and pretty stable because we disciplined her well when she was younger. Enjoy your life while you are young, just don’t hurt anyone else while your doing it. We all have to leave together in this world.

I’m a little grumpy these days. 🙂

I am wondering though when you all speak about racing these Monte’s are you talking about a rear wheel drive with a V8? I ask because I have only owned Monte’s with 3.8 or 3.1 in them. I use my Monte’s as a work car, my 3.1 was finally laid too rest with 399’990.00 miles on her. The current 3.8 has 196,000 miles on it now and I have another 100,000 to put on it before retirement. I like these cars because they last so long and my big body fit’s in it well.


Have a great day,

Mike

 

So, I won't support street racing (but I will also say, I found my self before caught up in some of that before). BUT, I will say I have a disagreement on some of the issues our police enforce specifically on the freeway.
1. - Speed limits are claimed to be there for public safety. Then why is it LEGAL for a police officer to speed FASTER than me with no lights or siren (indicating he is on his way to an emergency and needs some space from the normal rules of the road) to then caught me and ticket me for speeding. Two wrongs do NOT make a right (but they do make money for a city).
2. - 55mph speed limit was claimed to be for fuel efficiency. That's a bit goofy, as that means the law claims they know peak efficiency on my vehicle. Today there are freeways with speeds of 65/65/70/75, MAYBE even 80mph. Cars built since 2000 can easily and safely drive at speeds anywhere from 60-80mph, maybe even 90mph. Why are the freeways clinging to these lower speeds? Here is an article that bugged me on the topic from a city near me. They sent 1700 warning letters from the first month of testing a hand held speed camera to speeders doing 76-99mph in a 60mph zone. Some things I want to point out:
-- it never mentioned accidents that were a direct result of speed.
-- It talks about i-271. This is a freeway that has something I have never seen before, a two lane Express Way (has nothing to do with car pooling, the express way has fewer on/off points because you are planning to travel a longer stretch of i-271). Why does the expressway have to adhere to the same speed laws as the local lanes?
https://www.cleveland.com/community/...ing-jan-3.html
3. - At least in Ohio, it is a law that the left lane is for passing. I have never seen or heard of an officer in Ohio writing a ticket to people camping out in the left lane (obstructing traffic and forcing people to pass on the right).

I am not saying I am against speed laws, I am saying that I feel the freeway should have more room for high speeds and that speed laws on the freeway are primarily a money grab and not as much rooted in safety. When you talk about 25mph residential and areas of 35/40/45mph (non-freeway), I am fine with those and feel officers should police those areas MORE than the freeway. A lot more going on and higher risk of speed related issues.

Just my take on the topic.

 

I think that the speed limit should be enforced at all times. I travel a road to work the speed limit is posted at 60 mph. I try and drive the speed limit and people fly by me. It doesn’t bother me that they speed it is their choose. I just wish that if they are going to drive fast, that would pass me in a safe manner, don’t pass me as if we’re in a nascar race and trying to pull the paint off my old Monte.

There’s a section of interstate 95 over by the east coast. There’s wrecks there daily because people think that they can drive fast and read their fakebook account while they are driving.

My last ticket of any kind was because the ground on my boat trailer lights was loose, I got what we here in Florida call a fix it ticket. You fix the problem and take the vehicle back to the town where you got the ticket show the police that you repaired the problem. That was 1999. It’s not that hard obey the laws of the road and your insurance will go down drastically.

I also don’t agree with the police using their computer while driving.

I put my phone up while driving, even if I was too get an important call, I can’t do anything until I get home or pull over because I heard my phone.

We all have opinions and that’s what is so great about this country is that we can agree to disagree.

That’s my take on speeding.

Mike

 

You are within your right to have your opinion about speeding. Keep in mind, I am talking speeding on the freeway (not a residential). My point though is the laws about speeding claim it is for public safety, which a cop speeding with out lights and siren to shrink the gap means he is also breaking that law, so clearly it is NOT about public safety. I would be willing to accept that it might be to handle the the average safety equipment and limits within production cars, but even that is a stretch. There are roadways in Europe that permit higher rates of speed than we allow in the U.S., which makes me wonder "what is different, why do they allow it and we don't". I feel the fact that police write speeding tickets but don't typically write tickets for other infractions (such as camping out in the left lane, tail gating, not using a signal) tells me this is more about a government money grab vs obey the law (speeding is easier to catch and easier to prove). I am willing to bet any vehicle built after the year 2000 can handle traveling at 75mph (perhaps faster) and an accident at 75mph is probably no worse then an accident at 65mph with few exceptions.

The article I shared about the city of Mayfield, which is near me. At one point in my time, my hour long commute to work had me on i-271 every day in rush hour, going through Mayfield. In a month's time with a hand held speed camera, they tagged 1700 cars going 76-99mph. The question I have, what is the public safety issue? Clearly people are doing these speeds, how many accidents were speed related vs distracted driving (or not checking your surroundings before making doing something on the road). And since there are express lanes, those lanes could EASILY travel at 70mph with no issue.

Admittedly, this is a topic that could be debated countless times and view points might adjust based on information and statistics provided. I just feel the effort to focus on speed laws on the freeway is more about a money grab vs actually protecting people. Just my take. And I will admit, I have had a good share of speeding tickets over my time, but this is not about justifying those tickets. When I got those tickets, I was disobeying the law, based on that, I was rightfully cited. But it does not mean I have to agree with with the law. And I also had one ticket in 2008 that was out of state and I fought it because a trooper deliberately increased the speed he wrote on the ticket. I admitted guilty to speed I knew I was traveling at (a little over 10+ NOT the 30+ the trooper said I was doing). In the end, my fine went from $350 to $80.

 

Money driven for most tickets is my thinking. My brother was a city cop for Springfield, Ill (we grew up there) and at one point we had a discussion on writing tickets. He said "Greg, do you know how many tickets I write a day? Do you know how many officers there are on the Springfield police department? Do you know how many cities there are in the State of Illinois? We are making big money... And that equation does not factor in the highway patrol, sheriffs etc. So public safety in that maybe they can afford new cars, cool equipment.

Out here in Utah we have 80 mph limits on desolate freeway areas. The study performed after our law had been in effect for a handful of years found no significant increase in traffic accidents from cars traveling at these higher rates of speed.