Just need to vent...

I'm not sure if traffic enforcement has ever existed here on many different highways between towns, especially at night. But people don't dim their headlights either. In reality, the LED bars are illegal for highway use. They are meant for off-road use. But there is no enforcement. Even truck drivers use them. There are a few who turn them off when approaching another vehicle. But a lot don't.

 

Based on speeds that many people here in PC, readily admit to, it is clear that traffic enforcement vanished in numerous other places long before it vanished in my areas.

I grew up in a time and place where a habitual 5mph over the speed limit would typically build up points fast enough to lose one's driver's license in about a year. A sibling is now a magistrate judge there, and gets (pre-Pandemic, I haven't heard an update since) loads of appeals filed by drivers from out of area who are accustomed to higher allowances almost as a birthright.

 

That brings up another pet peeve of mine: people's excuses for breaking the law or even driving out-right poorly, sometimes as a justification for the vehicles they buy.

Things like:

• "It's safer to speed up to avoid an accident than to slow down or stop."
• "Speed doesn't kill. I can drive as fast as I want and it's no less safer than going the speed limit."
• "Riding close to someone's rear bumper doesn't cause accidents."
• "My [3,500lb] CUV is safer than your [4,500lb] full sized sedan because bigger is better. (And therefore I feel I have the right to drive around like an idiot because my CUV will save me in accident, unlike your death-trap sedan.)"
• "My only concern is someone else crashing into me. The way I drive could never cause an accident."

 

Standard procedure around here. The streets are too narrow to park in the street without blocking traffic, although some do that, too. And there's an ordinance against parking on the grass. But many do that as well. But what are they going to do when the family has five cars, a one car garage, one car driveway, and they have visitors?

So I went outside expecting to take a picture for you of a line of cars on the sidewalk and wadayaknow! The street is totally clear.

 

Reminds me of a paradox I have. A lot of my family lives in the city and does not drive. So when they come out here I usually go get them. But I don't have a van any longer, so cramming us and our kids and them and their kids into a 5 passenger sedan is kind of nuts. But then again I'm not allowed more than a couple parking spaces, so even if they did rent a car and come see me, where would they park? The closest public parking area is about three miles away and there ain't no public transportation. Maybe I need to just sell the ol' Prius that sits unsued in the other parking space or see if someone will trade me for a passenger van or minivan of some sort.

 

A friend of mine lives in an HOA that is so strict that he can't even have a Bible study that invites people beyond walking distance because they are that strict about parking. He can put two cars in his garage and two in the driveway and that's it.

(BTW, "HOA" stands for "helping others argue." )

 

LoL; so these entitled idiots are admitting to breaking the law and their defense is WHAT???? Send them a bill for looking at the case, fine them for wasting the courts time, and dismiss the case with prejudice... Win - win all the way around. LoL

 

My brother-in-law once opened his hood simply to check his oil and the landlord and her helpers were at his property onto him like special police forces when the president is held hostage (at least in movies)!

 

Is it just me; or is anyone else noticing a lot more cars on the road with expired license plates. If people can't pay their registration fees, what are the chances they are driving w/o insurance? The last three people that hit me over the decade (their fault) didn't have insurance.

 

Several states, including Pennsylvania, have changed their registration system in recent years.

We are no longer issued with adhesive stickers to mark our license plates for registration expiry. Thus, every car with Pennsylvania tags would appear to be expired as of this writing.

Interested parties and law enforcement now rely solely on database lookups to determine registration validity.

 

While that's nice for those jurisdictions, how do you get those cars and drivers to obey the law. Instead of whining about not enough revenue to maintain our roads and purposing extra taxes on EV's; that only affects other law abiding citizens.
Cops will only catch someone if they are being pulled over for an infraction or involved in an accident - that's if they don't hit and run.

 

Ever hear of automatic license plate readers?

 

The only people who use those are parking enforcement. I don't believe standard police cruisers are equipped with automatic plate readers; that would automatic flag an illegal car, but I may be wrong.
Parking enforcement runs a grid and uses GPS. If it sees a car in the same spot, it's flagged for a ticket. I don't believe they automatic run the plates for expired fees or insurance; unless it's actively being ticketed. If someone here is in parking enforcement, please chime in.

 

Some departments only equip the parking enforcement with these.

Others put them on every cruiser and just troll around until the very expensive machine goes bing! theoretically indicating that a lookup has found an expired registration or a linked warrant.

 

No offense; but I suspect they enforce parking rules on a daily basis.

Well my state still uses tags and every year I seem to be seeing more expired plates on the road.

 

You are waayyy behind. They aren't just on cruisers anymore, they are on highway overpasses and ramps and poles and streetlights too. Just some samples:

https://www.aclu.org/issues/privacy-technology/location-tracking/you-are-being-tracked
https://www.eff.org/pages/automated-license-plate-readers-alpr
https://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/publications/2021_st_alprfactsheet_20210105_final508.pdf
Automated License Plate Readers
https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/automatic-license-plate-readers-legal-status-and-policy-recommendations
Police License Plate Readers | Law Enforcement Products

 

I rarely, if ever, see expired tags around here. But practically every day, I see at least one car with no license plate and no temp tag. Makes me wonder if they are driven by used car mechanics like me who have, like me, gone for a test drive and forgotten to put on a dealer plate.