2018. Mida kõrgem palk, seda suurem trahv.

[ElectroMoto]

Kiiruse ületamise ja õnnetuste statistika kohta tasub lugeda sellist asja nagu "Montana kiiruspiirangute paradoks", kus kiiruspiirangute puudmine hoopis vähendas liiklusõnnestuste koguhulka USA osariikidest kõige madalamale tasemele. Ja nende kehtestamine tõstis fataalsete õnnetuste määra 111% võrra.
Montana paradoks: https://www.motorists.org/…/montana-no- ... -safety-…/

Vastukaaluks siis inimeste väited, kes võtsid veits vaevaks tausta ja numbreid lähemalt vaadata: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Speed_limit#Montana
Lisaks: tegemist on 2001 aasta teemaga. 15 aastaga on autod, juhtimisharjumused ja masinate kogus veits muutunud.

Mis muidugi ei puuduta absoluutselt trahvide ühtlustamist vastavalt palgale. Miks peavad mingid tõusikud saama endale arutut kihutamist lubada, kui mina seda ei saa?! Joobes juhtimisest rääkimata. Ka mulle meeldib õllet libistada.

EDIT. Leidsin veel mõtlemisainest samal kiirusepiirangute kaotamise teemal. Kuna tekst suvalise inimese poolt suvalisest foorumist siis pole ka referentsi mõtet panna. Aga point ikkagi:

Spoiler

I spent plenty of time booking around in Montana during 55mph era before Reasonable and Prudent (R&P),
during R&P, during the period when there was no speed limit at all, and now. Here are my observations.
Before, everyone drove either 55 or however fast they wanted, and the penalty for speeding
was $5, on the spot. Montana pretty much was thumbing their nose at the federal
goverment's stupid 55mph speed limit. Anyone who's driven across Eastern portions of Wyoming or
Montana knows that no sane person can drive 55mph for more than 10 minutes without falling
asleep.
During the R&P era, there was a perception by the rest of the country (and world for that matter)
that Montana had no speed limit. That was untrue. R&P was actually a legal daytime speed limit, it just
didn't have any fixed values. It was at the discretion of the officer as to whether you were
travelling too fast for conditions or your vehicle or whether it was after dusk. (There have always
been nighttime limits in Montana.. mainly due to wildlife). R&P actually worked pretty well
in terms of people regulating their own speed. I found that most people either drove 55 (stuck
in their old ways), or about 70mph on two lane highways, and 70-85 on interstates.
In other words, not more than a mph or two faster than before. It was actually slightly frustrating
to me on some roads (Highway 93 in particular), that so many people still drove 55mph because
a lot of other cars would pile up behind them, or space themselves out just enough that
you couldn't pass (and Highway 93 has some of the longest passing zones in the entire country
for a semi rural area). R&P went away because, as expected, a small number of people abused the
privledge. Not so much the out of state folks who had always come to Montana to go fast, and still
did, and still do, but locals near populated areas who felt the need to drive 90+mph
in their pickup trucks, then fought a legal battle when they got tickets for being idiots.
They abolished R&P but had to wait until the legislature met to institute a new speed limit, so
for a period there, there was no daytime limit at all.
During the period when there was no limit s=as mentioned above, the actual speeds that people drove
didn't really change much at all, but their awareness of the driving experience increased some. Now they
were driving in the wild west so paid a bit more attention. People pretty much still followed R&P
but expected the worst. Imagine that.. People realizing that they could die while driving
their cars, and being forced to drive as though their own lives and the lives of those around them
depended on doing it with some small bit of situational awareness and skill. Damn, we can't
have any of that.
Now there are posted daytime speed limits. In serious rural areas Montana has the highest
2 lane highway speed limit in the nation, at 70mph, and in less rural, non-urban areas it's usually around
60mph depending on population density. The penalties for exceeding the limit are worse than they
were back during the 55mph era, so in some ways it's worse. In other ways, it's better because
at least the people who drove 55mph in the R&P era realize they're just slow, because
virtually all the speed limits are higher than 55mph (even the nighttime limit is sometimes 60mph).
Can the increase in the fatality rate be blaimed on speed limits? Hard to say. For one thing, the people who
used to drive 55mph all the time, no matter what, may actually feel pressured to drive faster, or the people
who are stuck behind them now feel more aggressive about trying to pass them. Folks may have reverted
to their normal barely awake driving mode, but mostly I suspect it's simply for the same reason
that accident rates go up everywhere. More people. Montana is growing very fast. What those
statistics don't show (and people always skew statistics this way) is fatalities per average mile
driven, which takes into account the total number of cars on the road. I don't doubt that the
rate is still higher than during R&P and no limit, but I suspect it's much less dramatic an
increase as that report would lead you to believe, and is much more in line with the
population growth of the state as a whole, which tends to be growing quickly in very
small areas of the state.
BTW, they do some pretty stupid things from an engineering perspective too. Highway 93
has always been a busy 2 lane highway with lots of little businesses along about 60 miles of it.
Cars always entering and leaving, which slows the average flow and creates congestion. A few
years back they made two proposals. They said.. "With the money we've got, we can build you either

1. what's called a "Super 2", which is a 2 lane highway with nice wide whoulders and continuous center
   turn lane for people to exit and enter from.. OR
2. a 4 lane highway with narrow shoulders and no center lane anywhere. "
   Almost unanimously the local community said.. "We'd rather have a super 2"
   so of course the politicians approved and started construction of the 4 lane highway instead,
   believing that the solution to the congestion problem was a highway that
   could handle more cars period, rather one that handles the cars in a more
   intelligent fashion.. No provisions are being made for getting cars in and out of the
   hundreds of businesses safely. When that highway is completed almost everyone is
   predicting that there will be many fatalities from people stopped in the "fast" lane
   preparing to turn left, or getting struck just as they are forced to make a left
   across lanes into the fast lane.. A disaster. And we wonder how fatality
   rates can go up. We can only hope that the "fast" lanes simply are avoided
   completely by non-merging traffic, simply for the sake of survival. It's a mess.
   ian