kosmo

the problem i have w/ impounding is that it doesnt get at the root cause- THE DRIVER. Put idiots in the jail. GOvt taking private property is a slippery slope.

Alan Smithee

Time to review the differences between infractions, misdemeanors, and felonies.

utkinpol

yep.

that is how towns make money now, based on old laws from 70s where speed limits were enforced to conserve fuel.
it is beyound stupid considering what modern vehicles consume and conditions of pavement. but, rules are rules, majority wins, not every country is Germany, so, it is what it is. But Canada is indeed 'ahead' here with their 80 km/h speed limits everywhere.

fanny bay r1

The speed limit on this particular highway is ridiculous, nearby on Vanouver Island the sppedlimit if 110 KPH and you can drive at 125-128 KPH without fear of a ticket (so 85 mph). This particular road has been upgrade at tremendous expense for the 2010 Olympics yet the limits stayed as before. You can drive 90 in an 80 in bad winter conditions and not get a ticket but go 120 kph in dry summer conditions and they'll impound the vehicle - stupidity at it's finest!!

Zeus993

1+

AceOfAces

The impound is quite uncalled for IMO. They'll definitely be eyeing Porsches on the Sea to Sky highway over the next while, I won't be on there anytime soon

Zeus993

I was up early Sat am... Police all involved with the Sun Run in the city. No sign of anyoneetc... So a clean run up and back... At the speed limit of course.

Edgy01

Having just completed a 1800 mile plus run up and down California and Oregon I can testify that drivers are no better than they ever were. The skill levels of drivers justify the ridiculously low speed limits, as does the condition of many of the cars that are on the road. State agencies used to do very comprehensive vehicle inspections prior to issuing plates but that stuff fell by the wayside with budget cuts. Many drivers on the left coast have no idea that the left lane is for passing and are frankly simply too lazy to drive in a proper manner--staying right except when they are actively passing a slower vehicle. There is very strong sense of personal entitlement (I don't know what else to call it) when it comes to drivers simply sitting in the left lane and holding up faster traffic. A few of us have come to tag them as "Left Lane Vigilantes" because they do the indicated limit (and assume their speedos are correct) and then simply sit there. Everyone else has to go around them. It creates an extremely unsafe situation for others both faster and slower who wind up darting through traffic to get around these characters. I learned recently that many new to the North West went through private driving schools where they were incorrectly advised to simply get on the freeway, move to the left lane, and then stay there for the duration of their journey.

So long as there are poor, complacent, and lazy drivers (it's cultural and social) there will be no reasonable lane control and the police authorities will be forced to impose ridiculous speed limits on the masses because the masses are in general such poor drivers that they can't be trusted to drive any faster. Germany also puts considerable effort into highway maintenance and standardization. Virtually every autobahn entrance/exit is a mirror image of the next because when you are driving very fast you don't need to be surprised by something new in highway design. Their geography allows for much of that, as well. (In the USA there are often left exits or left entries into the high speed lane because they were simply too cheap to engineer the roadways properly in the first place.)

Culturally, Europeans, particularly the Germans, are much more suited to higher speed travel, due to better training, higher maintenance levels on their autos, and a culture that concludes that you are entitled to drive faster provided that you took the driving schools, maintain your auto(s), and can use the highways with due regard for others.

Unfortunately, it's too late to turn this trend around in the USA or probably Canada. Closing the barn door is a waste of time.

82_930

Jail for speeding? They were not even going that fast.

Plus I am sure that the guy on the road who is driving like the biggest jerk is probably an off duty cop (who is immune to tickets).

sandwedge

I don't think this is a left coast or right coast problem but a cultural problem that spans the nation. I've taken driver's license tests in four states and never saw one word printed addressing this issue. I've also driven in states coast to coast and never saw a difference in left lane behavior. Which seems to suggest that an American driver who's never been exposed to the rules of the roads outside the US would have no way of knowing that the left lane should be vacated quickly once past slower traffic.

Probably. I don't give Florida credit for much in terms of constructive legislation but at least they tried to tackle this seven years ago. The logic used to strike the bill down has so many flaws in it it's hard to decide where to start.

Edgy01

Monetarily shortsighted. States will now be forced to add additional traffic lanes to deal with poor lane control. Isn't it amazing that the majority of Germany's autobahns are only two lanes wide in each direction? Yet, with their traffic, things seem to flow quite well. It's all about lane control.

Unfortunately, I believe a large part of this has to do with the psychology of drivers. I believe that many don't want to give up the left lane for anything.

Minok

In addition to the driver education and responsibility (lane discipline, using indicators and mirrors properly, etc), there is the problem of infrastructure.

Up here in the Pacific Northwest, the presumably US DOT approved on-ramps typically have zero acceleration lane. The onramp proceeds along at a much more direct angle into the interstate and you typically have almost no room in which to merge into the flow of traffic, rather than being parallel for several hundred feet where one might speed up or slow down and merge, you have to do it within about 2 car lengths.

This road design means those entering the highway have to assume that drivers on the interstate or highway will readily yield, because the merging party, thought legally required to give way, cannot equally get to highway speeds AND be able to stop and yield to a full right lane at the same time (possibly stopping at the end of the on-ramp).

Because of this need to allocate much more room for merging traffic, the drivers here naturally have adopted the behavior of not driving much in the right most lane, and as a result, most highways with controlled access effectively loose most of the right lane as everyone heads straight into the center or left lane form the onramp.. frequently in one fell swoop.

To fix things in the US would require not only a massive improvement in driver training and vehicle inspection. It would also require a massive amount of infrastructure work to rebuild roadway on-ramps, off-ramps, put up signs (its quite common in my area that you cannot see the off ramp sign until you are right at the off-ramp, if behind a vehicle in front of you which effectively screens visibility of the sign from traffic closer than 50 yards behind). That and resurfacing so much roadbed, and making it more drivable (adding curves, or adding super-elevation banking). Lets not even start with the left hand exit ramps.

AceOfAces

Just in the wrong place at the wrong time, it's unfortunate . Do some of the club members have radar detectors active on these runs? From the news I've been reading it looks like the officer "eyed" your relative speed (a trained eye also can be very wrong, and isn't a concrete form of evidence!!)

I feel bad for the PCA club members who got pulled over, could've been anyone. I've heard nothing but good stuff about the club members, via forums and from members in the club.

But like all things here in this great province of ours, tickets and impounding are a great source of revenue. It also seems like the officers know when the club does the BBC runs, staying low for awhile will get you guys of the radar.

I myself drive very responsible, at times I will push the car and go for a "spirited" run on an empty stretch of highway, who doesn't if it's safe enough? The exhaust note, the feeling of your soul leaving the body when you hammer down the throttle, it's heaven on earth!

Wishing you guys good luck for future runs, hope to make it sometime to get in on one of these runs myself. You guys seem like an awesome bunch! Cheers mate!

AceOfAces

+1

The government would never fully suspend your a licence or throw you in jail as that makes no sense for them resource wise. Sadly, they'll keep ticketing to keep the revenue flowing, its a broken system we live in.

Living in Canada where privacy is a big thing, I'm surprised the impounding the car law for 40+km/hr passed. Double standards perhaps?

There are many drivers who shouldn't be on the roads, everyday we all deal with (drivers who don't signal and swerve into your lane, drivers with no speed perception and cut you off getting onto the roads, people on their cell phones) there should be a way to get these people. Slight speeders are the least of the problems on the road...

Devil Boy

I was amazed at how bad California drivers were at clogging the left lane. In central Missouri, I am equally amazed that drivers actually move over to let you pass. It's actually quite refreshing when motorists respect the left lane.

What I would really like to see is better enforcement of people talking on cell phones while driving. I was in Columbia, Missouri (college town) and it was crazy how many young women drivers with cell phones plastered to the side of their faces just driving mindlessly along.