That piece of brilliance was part of a long article in the Sunday issue of the FORUM!
Did we know this already? Was that the reason the police set up days of stopping speeders and issuing hundreds of tickets just a few days ago? Duh!
The article was filled with such “information”….reasons for setting different speed limits in neighborhoods and commercial zones….possible hinderances to speeding other than the occasional (and largely ineffective, after they are over,) days of heavy traffic enforcement. Yes indeed, people tend to exceed the speed limits!!!!
They do it in town, on city streets, and out on the highways and freeways. Neither signs or enforcement seem to be effective ways of stopping speeders.
People will speed…not just 5 miles over a posted speed limit but 20-30 mph over the limits if they think they can get by with it. It is what you see on Highway 10 and Interstates 29 and 94—–speed limits posted anywhere from 65 to 75 mph and you will be passed cars driving 80-90 mph. It is so common that only getting rear ended by one of these Nascar racing “wannabes” might make you notice.
The really bad thing about such speeders is that so many of them think they are so competent while speeding in great excess over the speed limits posted so plainly along the highways and byways, that they can also talk on cell phones, read a book propped on a steering wheel, put on makeup or comb out their hair….on adfinitum…..that if you are one of the few obeying the speed limit you are probably in danger of being in their way!!!!
This morning, on icy, sleet- covered roads the speeders were out doing their thing……driving in the left lane that had not been sanded, yapping on cell phones and losing control of their vehicles and sliding into ditches after barely missing a bridge abutment on I 94 between Fargo and Moorhead I (actual event about 8:35 this morning) Speeders have no common sense, they have no respect for other drivers—especially for drivers that might be driving according to the prevailing conditions, as in ice covered lanes.
So all the attempts by law enforcement to slow down the traffic violators with fines that don’t make a bit of difference for real dedicated speeders,what is there left to do? Some cities have built traffic circles where drivers have to enter the circle, slow down in order to navigate it, and then come out on the other side where they can speed to their heart’s content once again.
Maybe large speed bumps every half block would do enough harm to speeders’ vehicles to make them slow down to avoid costly chassis repairs…..but there would be a reason not to do that……too costly I would suppose would be one reason plus the excessive whining of those who believe they have a right to speed and mow down anything that gets in their way.
I think it might be better just to take the speed limit signs down in cities and on open highways. My prime example of this would be the 55 mph signs just east of Glyndon onHighway 10 at the intersection of MN 9 and US 10 where there have been more fatal accidents than one can keep track of. Nobody slows down in that zone—-ever. I have never seen any enforcement in that slow-down zone so why not just take the signs down and let the speeders do their thing. They are already doing it are so it is no big deal…. is it????? We could use a few more flower tributes and crosses at that intersection anyway. It brightens up an otherwise dull landscape.
I got a forward on e mail from our nephew in Missoula,Montana and it was titled “Speed Signs in Rural Montana”. There was a real picture of a hand made sign put up beside a small gravel road as it passed somebody’s humble country home. The sign said “SLOW DOWN, YOU SONS OF B ——s!!!!!”
I wonder if it worked.
What would be the consequences of putting up some of those portable showy electronic billboards along the streets and highways of MN and ND towns, cities and open highways with the same admonition as was on the Montana sign??? There would surely be lawsuits of a politically correct nature. Even though that is the manner in which a huge majority of today’s population talks …..the worst of the Cursers might be “offended” by such a sign blinking at them while they go tearing by at 15-30 mph over the speed limit.
