Whether it be a law preventing motorcycle lane-splitting, or an archaic rule preventing right turns on red, there are certain traffic laws that I’ll bet you’d like to see go the way of the 55 Mile-Per-Hour speed limit.
Oh sure, most of our current rules for the road make total sense and chaos would naturally ensue if, say the regulation delineating direction of travel was suddenly lifted. But that doesn’t mean that some arguably arcane laws couldn’t be rethought.
That’s what we’re interested in today. Is there a particular traffic law that burns your biscuits and which you would truly like to see go away?
Image: Wikimedia
Hooniverse Asks: What Motoring Law in Your Area Would You Really Like to See Go Away?
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47 responses to “Hooniverse Asks: What Motoring Law in Your Area Would You Really Like to See Go Away?”
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Big, white, boxy RVs are allowed on roads. They need go to the bottom of the sea or the top of a big fire.
Did I interpret that right?-
There’s a caddy owner ’round these parts that might want to have a word with you…
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You should have CCC’d him.
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I know, I know. But I assume he has the experience and skill to pilot his box in accordance with road and weather conditions. Around here, it seems that 90% of RV drivers take the wheel one week a year, necessitating a speed of 1/4th the speed limit the instance there’s oncoming traffic/a corner/a bird in the sky.
Anyway, stuff like that is being uttered with a smile in my eye, I guess that’s possibøe around here with so many regulars.
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Having felt the long arm of the law in my youth, I’m still not a big fan of MN 169.011, 14-02: Exhibition driving
http://farm9.static.flickr.com/8362/8265209073_71fecfcf12_m.jpg -
Tickets for modifications seem to be a bit of an over-extension of power…
Would also (obviously) like to see speed limits go away, and 18-wheelers banned from the left lane…and below-flow-of-traffic drivers in the left lane be ticketed in every state…
I could go on and on and on and on…-
And personally I don’t find the enforcement of vehicle codes in the United States nearly strict enough considering the endless amounts of rock pelting brotrucks with tires poking beyond the fenders, no mudflaps and headlights at blinding height levels or non-DOT approved LED bars mounted on them, the thousands of dangerously stanced cars or all those with illegally vision impairing tint. You could go on a field day of violated vehicle codes if you went on the average US highway for just a single shift. Then again I don’t know why this concerns me, I don’t even live there. I just think that safer cars and driving would allow for more lax speed limits.
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In addition, we’d be well-advised to make the requirements for getting a license more stringent than having a pulse & being able to hold a steering wheel before raising speed limits.
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OK, I’ll agree with that. When modifications blatantly harm the environment or disrupt the general public– that’s a no-go for me. Even loud exhausts have their reasonable limits. Stanced cars will eventually be blowout-prone and endanger innocent drivers/bystanders…but all in all I agree with your point and stand by mine, if that makes sense.
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The ability of any half-wit able to string together two syllables to get a driver’s license.
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Came here to say the same thing.
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The ability of any half-wit able to string together two syllables to post on [redacted].
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I’m glad I can get one. Driving without one would be stressful.
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Yes, but I’ve met you in person. You’re tri-syllabic, minimum.
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So, at least a three-quarters wit? Better than most of the drivers on the road by 50%.
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Unfortunately here in SoCal, giving everyone a driver’s license is the method they used to avoid (re)building decent public transportation.
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Pedestrians having the right of way. I have mass and physics on my side. Pedestrians beware.
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Lane splitting seems like something that would have and instant impact on motorcycle injuries and deaths. I know some people would have hurt feelings but I don’t think that really matters in the end.
Just make reckless lane splitting a massive fine and hire more bike cops.-
Apply absolutely draconian penalties to drivers who attempt to block or clip lanesplitters. They can take their idiotic butthurt & go to hell. Using a car as a weapon = go straight to jail.
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I would figure it would at least be assault with a deadly weapon up to murder.
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It absolutely is, but rarely prosecuted as such. You know, because motorcyclists are “dirtbags” or some other horseshit.
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I’m fine with lane-splitting, but some of the worst examples I’ve seen of it has come from cops.
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I’d love to be able to lane split. I’d also love if cops would lane split and sneak up like a ninja and hand out tickets for using a cell phone while driving. People are good about hiding it in traffic where they know cops generally hide, but put a few 5-0’s on zero’s or super quiet motorcycles and maybe people will finally put the damn phones down. It is like people are now living in their phones, and enjoy being at a dead stop so they can use them, very often i see people not moving at stop signs, or stopping multiple car lengths early at lights to get to their phones that much more…
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The fact that California has changed nearly every intersection into a “left turn on green arrow only” setup. So even if there is no oncoming traffic for a mile, I can’t be trusted to make a left turn without an arrow to tell me to do so. Other states have figured out an alternative:
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There are some places in California that have adopted the ‘left on flashing yellow’ signal (we live in one of them). The real problem is that drivers are largely-unfamiliar with them and have no clue how to react to them, and the sign attached to the light that reads, ‘left on flashing yellow arrow OK’ seems to go completely unnoticed and unheeded.
This city is either bordered or bisected by three converging freeways (one of which dumps straight out into the South side of the town at its end) and also has a light rail line cutting through it. The amount of traffic chaos one unobservant driver at a flashing left-on-yellow can cause is staggering.
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I’d like to repeal the marker obligation of the “Fünfunddreißigste Verordnung zur Durchführung des Bundesimmissionsschutzgesetzes”, “35 BImSchV” for short, or in other words “Feinstaubverordnung” or “particulate matter ordinance” in English. It regulates which emissions classes of vehicles get access to certain city centers which have emissions based access restrictions in place, which is all reasonable and so on and so forth, however the utterly retarded part is that even drivers whose vehicles do have the correct emissions class still get fined 80€ (that’s more than most speeding tickets) simply for not having the ugly green sticker glued to the windshield, with zero chance of getting the ticket thrown out even if they do prove their emissions compliance.
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I once wrote an article for the local newspaper recommending the German system in order to avoid inversion pollution in Bergen. This picture followed my article:
https://u.polotreff.de/forum/76/71/21/3bb59fc4a7d3b13d4b861bf6e5555ddce5_large.jpg
What I didn’t mention and, sort of, assumed that the editor would get without any help, is that this sticker isn’t official. Well…he didn’t get that.-
Yeah, but there’s a perfectly suitable empty spot on the front license plate now that we only need inspection stickers on the rear plate anymore, so why disgrace the windshield with such a palm sized atrocity?
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No Left or Right Turn Between XXXX time. These signs can be confusing to decipher at 25mph. Most drivers will never see the sign and police departments heavily patrol the area looking for outsiders who are not familiar with the lay of the land. $$$Revenue and or Quota$$$
Photo Red Light Intersections – Some of these intersections are paid for (Installed) by a private corporation that receives a percentage of all ticket proceeds.
http://worldjusticeproject.org/blog/3-private-companies-making-money-red-light-tickets
Bicyclist’s that are not paying registration (Bike lane infrastructure is NOT free) or insurance (Some cyclists like to believe that traffic laws do not apply to them).
The cost of a five-foot bicycle lane can range from approximately $5,000 to $535,000 per mile, with an average cost around $130,000. The costs can vary greatly due to differences in project specifications and the scale and length of the treatment. More detailed cost information is provided here –
http://www.pedbikeinfo.org/data/library/casestudies_details.cfm?id=4876-
I’ll add a (dis)honorable mention for a particular variant of the photo red light intersection: intersections outfitted with red light cameras which trigger regularly, regardless of whether someone has actually run a red. There’s one intersection in particular near me whose cameras (and flashes) are constantly going off even during normal traffic flow. I’m not sure whether it’s getting triggered by false positives from people turning right on a red, or what, but apparently-uncalled-for, bright white flashes going off at people legally turning through a busy intersection, especially when the surroundings are dark? Sure, what could go wrong?
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Having been on the other side of it, it’s annoying as hell to be in a lane you know has no left turns, just to be caught behind someone who doesn’t see, or doesn’t care that those turns aren’t allowed, and doesn’t get the message with a symphony of horns. Those people deserve all the tickets they never get.
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A judge just overturned all Chicago red light tickets since 2003. It seems to be on a technicality, and I’m sure is going to be appealed, but it’s still good news.
http://chicago.suntimes.com/chicago-politics/7/71/1345175/judge-declares-red-light-speed-cam-tickets-void-city-violated-due-process -
Here’s another sign. This one is so confusing the sign-writers got it wrong themselves (the first line should be all am times).
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More of a change than a repeal: where 2 lanes combine into one, right-of-way should go more to the vehicle further forward (regardless of which lane it is in) rather than defaulting to the vehicle that is in the lane which isn’t ending. The problem with the current system is that traffic in the lane that continues has no reason to let the ending lane’s traffic merge, decreasing the throughput of the roadway.
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I think HOV lanes are stupid, but that’s just me
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I’d actually be really interested to know whether HOV lanes have significantly increased the prevalence of the behaviors that they’re supposed to promote (ridesharing/carpooling). I get what they’re trying to do, and it’s a reasonable enough cause, but for some of us (quite a few of us, if the typical freeway around here at commute time is any indication), ridesharing isn’t really practical — and whenever I look over at the HOV lane in the middle of a traffic jam, I can’t help but think about all the wasted bandwidth.
…then again, I wonder how much having another regular-use lane would really help alleviate jams, too.
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I’d like the California legislature to pull filtering (splitting) out of its legal grey area already. I thought the 50/15 law was Ok, and I don’t think the enforceability issues were a problem. I see two classes of riders out there splitting: those filtering through traffic and doing a reasonable job, and the werewolves running down the line at triple digits in free flowing 70-80mph traffic. The law already does a decent job of outlawing the latter, and it would pull the former (safe) practice out of its grey area. Any enforcement issues are ones we already have, because you have to catch the guy doing 100+ on a sport bike, and the non-problem splitters are generally following the 50/15 guideline already (at least in the Bay Area, I would imagine LA isn’t that different).
For that matter, I’d like the rest of the US to legalize filtering as well, as it would be fun to venture out of state some day. -
Speed bumps kill more people by delaying ambulances than they save by slowing down traffic.
http://holeinthedonut.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/Speed_Bump_Bacalar.jpg-
Yeah, they’re awful, but citation please.
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The requirement to have a front plate. Is utterly retarded.
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They’re terrible, aesthetically, on some cars, but far less offensive than your choice of epithet.
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Ontario is steadfastly stuck on a 100km/h(62mph) limit even on our biggest highways, insisting that the masses that currently flow at 110-120 (I mean, when not caught behind that self-righteous douche doing 101 in the passing lane, with the sanctimonious belief that they can break one law because they adhere to another) will go mad with speed, and our roads will devolve into something out of Mad Max. Meanwhile, most of the rest of the country (continent even) seems to survive with a just outrageous 110km/h(70mph).
It’s almost like there’s a speed most people feel comfortable driving at which is perfectly reasonable, and they can’t make money if they set that as the limit. -
I recently discovered that the law in Ohio states that freeway traffic must yield to traffic entering via on ramp unless there’s a yield sign on the on ramp. Seems absolutely backward to me, especially given the number of folks going 52 MPH at the end of the ramp trying to merge into 70 MPH traffic.
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I like the law for 30km/h in school zones.
I do think that my old elementary school should get an exception. It’s a rural school on a highway. Everybody is bussed in, since the nearest student lives two miles away.
Therefore, it is just stupid to have to slow down from 100km/h to 30km/h, just to speed back up to 100km/h.
I personally believe 50km/h would be much more reasonable.
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Over here, the sign says: http://theexpiredmeter.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/School-zone-speed-limit-sign.jpg
Which is pretty nonsensical because a) 20mph is absolutely crawling, and b) this is southern California. All schoolkids are bused or picked up by SUV because the world is so “unsafe” these days. Hence there never are children outside…-
I once got off of a speeding ticket (35mph in a 25mph school zone) because it was issued at 11.30pm on a Saturday and no children were present per the requirements of the 25mph sign. Didn’t say a word to the cop who wrote it about that – just took the court date, turned up, watched the cop do his ‘I am a law enforcement professional’ dance in front of the judge, and simply stated my side of it. Instant dismissal.
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