Scofflaws
Will the new Steer Act be effective? We shall see.
Here’s an article in the Washington Post that is one more example of a broken system.
Unfortunately, this is becoming quite common, an expensive, luxury vehicle, often one of those demonized by the Left SUVs, colliding with a pedestrian. This time it was a Land Rover. They don’t just make those off road utility vehicles, that you see in TV programs about African safaris, or on reruns of “Mutual Of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom.” Land Rover prices can run over $200,000 with enough luxuries, added onto the street models. They are not working class/lower middle class automobiles.
A driver hit a 12 year old young lady with a black Land Rover in a crosswalk. She was in the crosswalk with the walk sign on. She was doing everything right. A witness told police, and later The Washington Post, that the driver did not stop in time for the red light. After he hit Paisley Brodie, the 12 year old girl, witnesses said, the man berated her for being in the crosswalk, claiming she had a red signal. Of course. With scofflaws, it’s always someone else’s fault. The driver had the red signal. The young girl, Paisley, unable to walk, was taken to Children’s National Hospital. The driver left with a citation for colliding with a pedestrian, which can lead to up to 30 days in jail. Will he serve any time? Doubtful.
According to the Washington Post article, as of time of publication, the Land Rover has 94 unpaid tickets worth $19,770 from D.C. traffic cameras, six for speeding just that month and four for running red lights since July. Notice I said the Land Rover, not the driver. Camera tickets go to the vehicle, not the driver. Therefore, no points on the license. There is no way the ticketing authority can prove who was driving the car. Drivers know this, and so do their attorneys. So do the lawmakers.
“Some change is coming. A D.C. law taking effect next month, the Steer Act, requires people convicted of speed-related crimes to install devices in their cars that prevent them from going over the limit. Cars with multiple speed camera tickets will be eligible for towing whether or not the fines were paid. Also, the attorney general can sue the owners of out-of-state vehicles.”
It’s about time! I don’t know if the part about being able to tow vehicles if the fines have been paid, will hold up in court. We shall see. I’m all for it. It is a move in the right direction. There is only one way to deal with scofflaws. You throw the book at them. It’s the old, “We can do this one of two ways. We can do this the easy way, or we can do this the hard way. Your choice.” In other words, if you get a camera ticket, pay it. There are no points on your license. It’s the fee that you pay for being an asshole.
COVID changed a lot of things. For one thing, we became a much more aggressive society, including our drivers. I notice it all the time on Route 1/Rhode Island Avenue, from North East Washington, DC, into the inner and middle-ring suburbs, where I live. It even goes outside the Beltway. People are becoming unglued, which means society is becoming unglued. Look at the number of road rage incidents that are occurring on a regular basis. Don’t get me started about carjacking either. We are becoming tribal, and that is not a good thing.
There is a subset of our population that believes society’s rules don’t apply to them. The COVID lockdowns, triggered some sort of switch in their brains. Yes, you have your murderers and bank robbers at one end, but you have the more and more commonplace, scofflaw at the other; that would be the one who’s car has $17K worth of tickets on it. When was the last time you rolled through a stop sign? Would you have rolled through that stop sign, if there was a ticket camera on it?
I have no problem with traffic enforcement cameras. The cops can’t be everywhere. That being said, I would like to see a lot more police enforcement too. There is pretty much only one way to get bad drivers off the road, and that is points on their license. You don’t get points with camera tickets. You do with police citations, if you plead guilty and pay the fine, or go to court, plead guilty or are found guilty. Points means your insurance goes up too. Get enough points and you lose your license and/or insurance. Driving on a suspended license? Go to jail. It’s that simple.
I wish Paisley Brodie, Godspeed in her recovery.