Speeding

I have a feeling this is going to be a somewhat political post here. This past Tuesday there was a horrible accident on highway 41, just south of Neenah. It was kind of a chain reaction turns into 2 people dying kind of thing. A station wagon was trying to get into the left lane (this particular stretch of road is two lane, divided) to avoid some highway workers who were patching asphalt. The station wagon got hit by a semi already in the left lane, and was pushed into the truck the workers had parked along the shoulder of the road. The semi continued to skid off the road, hitting the two workers and killing them.

This particular accident has created quite a bit of discussion about a few different topics. The most prevalent is speed. Everyone knows that people speed. I myself usually go about 70 or 75 whereas the posted speed limit is 65 - and there are people passing me. This accident has given people fodder to propose lowering the speed limit to 55. Now, come on people. What good would that do? The speed limit now is 65. I don’t follow it. 99% of the other drivers don’t follow it. You could have a speed limit of 100 mph and I’m sure there would still be people driving faster than that. The number posted in black on that white rectangular sign is just a guide so you know where you can set your cruise so that cops won’t pull you over. (The magic number is 7!) I know, this is not the attitude to have about this kind of thing because it can be the difference between life and death, but this is how most people look at it. Lowering the limit would have no effect on the flow of traffic.

So, since lowering the speed limit wouldn’t work, people would like to make the stretch of 41 between Appleton and Oshkosh the biggest speed trap ever (or something like that.) There are certain places that are almost guaranteed to have cops lurking, waiting to bust someone. Thing is, they never bust the people they should be busting. I’d love to have a button on my dash that I could push when I see some dumbass driving crazy. Kind of like the bat signal thing used to call Batman when help is needed - shine the silhouette of a hunky cop up in the sky. There are a lot of people who just shouldn’t be driving. People in Wisconsin suck at it and that’s especially scary considering how many days of the year we have not-so-good driving conditions. Anyway, back to the speed trap. I also don’t think this would be very effective. I’ve never been pulled over for speeding, so I don’t really speak from experience, but my guess is that people who get speeding tickets are freaked out and very cautious for a while after the incident, but soon fall into their old speeding ways. Until there’s a car that can be programmed for the current speed limit and not allow the driver to accelerate above that speed, you can’t stop people from speeding (hmmm, do you think I could sell that idea to an inventing place and make tons of money?.) No amount of fining is going to stop it completely. And how would it be possible to stop and fine everyone who was speeding. Since I’ve already stated that 99% of the people out there are speeding, that’s a hefty group of cops needed to get them all. Doesn’t really seem like good allocation of resources. Although if all the police are busy pulling over speeders, drug dealers and thieves will have a much easier time.

Plans are already in the making to convert this part of the highway into 3 lanes. I’m not sure how this would solve the speeding issue, but it would make my morning drive a whole lot easier. These plans have caused uproars of a different kind, mostly from businesses that are due to be replaced by the new highway. Understandably, they’re not exactly the biggest fans. The city has a history of low-balling the people they buy land from. Anywho, this project is part of some huge road bill thing passed a little while ago. We’ll have to see if it actually happens.

And thus ends my mini-essay on speeding on Highway 41.