When Government steals, it's legal

"When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men living together in society, they create for themselves in the course of time a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that justifies it."
Frederic Bastiat

GEORGIA'S SUPER-SPEEDER LAW
By Neal Boortz @ December 17, 2009 9:06 AM

The Governor's Office of Highway Safety in Georgia is oh-so-proud of a new "Super Speeders" law that has now gone into effect. If you're caught doing 75 or better on a two-lane road, or 85+ on an expressway you're going to be nailed for an extra $200 in fines ... payable to the state after you've finished with the local jurisdiction.

What a crock.

I wrote a column for the December 4th edition of The Atlanta Journal Constitution on Governor Perdue's Super-Speeder law. [ Click here to read it ] In that column I cited the National Motor Vehicle Crash Causation Survey that was released in 2008 by the U.S. Department of Transportation. That study reported that speeding accounted for only 5% of "pre-crash events." There's another study from the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles stating that speeding caused only 2.9% of Virginia crashes in 2007.

So why the emphasis on speeding? Because it's easy, that's why. You put a Trooper out there with a radar gun. Aim and shoot. There you go, a record of how fast a car was traveling. There is no evidence there that the driver was driving dangerously. No evidence that the driver was failing to yield the right-of-way. No evidence that the driver was following too close. No evidence that the driver was making dangerous lane changes and cutting drivers off. The only evidence you have is that the driver was exceeding some arbitrary speed limit set by government. That's an easy case to prove in court .. much more easy than proving failure to yield the right-of-way or changing lanes without using a turn signal.

The issue here is money. Notice, please, that the Governor's office is bragging quite a bit about the $23 million they expect to receive from the evil speeders.

I got word from the Governor's office yesterday that his highway safety czar wants to debate me on the subject. No debate. Let's go for a practical demonstration. We'll put the czar in my car and drive to Macon following the speed limit all the way. We'll sit there while all the other drivers jockey to get around me. We'll see cars swerving to get out of the way making an unwise lane change. We'll see tailgating, horn blowing and some interesting gestures. Then we'll drive back to Atlanta at whatever speed I choose. If the lane is open in front of me I'll just open it up. When there's traffic I'll slow down. I'll maintain a respectable distance behind the car ahead of me - get around him when I can - and pull it up to about 80 or 85 mph when the way is clear. While I'm doing this let's see how many cars have to change lanes or speed because of the way I'm driving.

Just know this Georgians. These law enforcement types who stop you to give you your super-speeder ticket are heroes when they're out there chasing criminals or dealing with the results of a traffic accident. But when they're writing you a ticket for nothing other than speeding, they're tax collectors.

The real problems on our roads and Interstates is not speeders, it's those people who don't understand 'Keep right except to pass' and 'slower traffic keep right'. If they would observe these rules there would be less speeding. Of course the government couldn't make no money enforcing these rules. The roads are so bad here that pretty soon you'll have to go slow to avoid damaging your car. I guess they will have to paved streets with gold because they seen not to be able to afford concrete or asphalt. We haven't seen a new road here in ten years. Of course thieves never have enough money.