Politicians need to block radar changes
To the Times:
The radar information the public gets comes from people who profit from traffic enforcement. Safety does not figure into their radar equation.
If safety is the goal, the Legislature must pass a law setting all speed limits in Pennsylvania at the safest speeds. The safest speeds are the 85th Percentile Speeds, the speeds 85% of drivers routinely travel.
People drive a speed they feel safe, regardless of the posted limit (Federal Highway Administration data). Right now, posted speed limits are 8 to 16 mph slower than the safest speeds, i.e., 8 to 16 mph slower than the average person drives, making it easy to give tickets to safe drivers who are endangering no one. This type of mass ticketing is the key reason the radar interests want their guns in the hands of municipal police: profitability.
The 2% to 5% of truly dangerous, actual speeders (NHTSA statistics) can easily be dealt with by the police without resorting to radar.
Urge your representative and senator to stop all radar legislation in its tracks: it speaks to an enforcementf-or-profit-not-safety racket. Radar, along with too-slow speed limits, will be a mass tax on all drivers in Pennsylvania: it will not improve highway safety, it will only raise money. Tom McCarey Member, National Motorists Association.
Dear Dems
To the Times:
This is an open letter to all 24 candidates running to become the Democratic nominee for president. On the debate stage, except for Joe Biden, all of the other top tier candidates, Kamala Harris, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren were very eager to display their progressive bona fides. Make no mistake that their far-left policies and rhetoric may appeal to a segment of the Democratic primary base, but they surely do not align with most of the general electorate. The body politic is not well-represented by those who are the most frequent left-wing pontificators on twitter. Such proposals as “medicare for all,” “wiping out student debt” and “free college” make for great bumper stickers, but not for sound and practical policy.
We need to remember that Donald Trump is a master brander and media manipulator. We must not give him the ammunition to brand the Democratic nominee as a dangerous, highly radical socialist, seeking to undermine our fundamental capitalist values and ideals. Trump is totally capable of doing just this and he would love to make this his core anti-Democratic message in 2020. It would be best for the Democratic nominee to moderate their views now, or risk spending the next presidential term repenting for their rhetorical excesses.