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Mike Pirtle: What is wrong with out state legislature?



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By: MIKE PIRTLE, Post Publisher
Posted: Sunday, January 17, 2010 7:02 am
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After spending what seemed like all of last sessions dealing with gun bills, trying to make sure anyone can carry any gun anywhere, the legislature apparently now is going to protect the rights of red-light runners.

Are you kidding me?

At least with gun bills the legislators have the Second Amendment as a foundation.

But, do Tennessee motorists have some inalienable right to run red lights?

Why would elected representatives be worried about them?

They are scofflaws, threats to the health and well being of others, disrespectful, selfish and, well, stupid.

Look we all run a light at times for any number of reasons, some understandable as we are all human and some not.

The practice, undoubtedly, is dangerous. Our roads are only as safe as our general compliance with the laws of the roads. If everybody gets to set their own rules or follow their own rules, chaos, death and suffering result.

But, a few East Tennessee legislators are pushing bills to restrict enforcement of red lights with automated cameras, coming up with a bunch of duffus reasons why they shouldn’t be used.

Since the legislature should be promoting safety and the general well-being of state citizens, how exactly is thwarting efforts to make roads safer and keeping people from breaking traffic laws serving the public?

Some wackos, and understandably a large number of camera-ticketed, red-light runners, claim red-light cameras are just a means of taxing by local governments.

Pooh.

Murfreesboro, and other cities with red-light cameras, can’t collect a dime if no one runs a red light.

Exactly how do we enforce traffic laws?

We don’t put people in pillories.

We don’t whip them.

We don’t even jail them unless they are blatant and malicious in their traffic transgressions.

No, we enforce traffic laws with fines.

No one has to ever pay a traffic fine.

All anyone has to do is just obey the rules.

Around here way too many of us ignore traffic lights. Now we don’t go blasting through intersections willy-nilly.

But, lots of people go ahead and go through a red light after it turns.

Sometimes milliseconds after the red pops up, other times seconds after when traffic has begun to move the other way.

That’s when accidents occur, and the most dangerous T-bone collisions.

One assumes East Tennessee doesn’t have much traffic, or really obedient drivers.

One knows the East Tennessee legislators trying to end red-light cameras have never driven around here, don’t have a clue about the vast majority of people who want the flagrant runners stopped and don’t have enough common sense to realize they don’t have any business telling us how we should be policing our streets.

Maybe, just maybe, the legislature should be concerned with improving state education without being forced to act at the last minute because of some federal mandate.

Maybe, just maybe, the legislature should be producing some answers to the monsterous state budget deficit that is going to greatly impact the lives of all us when the cuts it will require are made.

Maybe, just maybe, the legislature should be doing something for us, not to us.
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Tags: Just Sayin', Mike Pirtle, Voices
Member Opinions:
By: Hayburner on 1/18/10
I'm writing this from LA to warn you citizens in Tennessee about what your camera programs will turn into.

Here in California there weren't enough straight thru violations to pay for the cameras, so they began to ticket for rolling right turns. That was five years ago, and now rolling rights are the majority of tickets issued by some cities. Emeryville CA is an example. Emeryville is right across the bay from San Francisco, and has a popular regional shopping center visited by unwary people from out of town. If you have been on the freeway or the bridge, your final approach to the shopping center involves a right turn at the corner of 40th and Horton. These bar graphs for the camera at that intersection http://highwayrobbery.net/TrcDocsEmeryLateTime200840ho01.pdf , which were produced by Emeryville's camera vendor, show a large number of long Late Time violations in the curb lane (Lane 2 in the graphs), consistent with heavy ticketing on right turns. In fact, the total number of tickets in the curb lane is approx. 65 times the number in the thru lane (Lane 1 in the graphs). These tickets are about $450 each, by the way.

There's a hackneyed - but true - expression: Those that can't learn from history are bound to repeat it. I assure you that you don't want a repeat of what we've got in California. Learn from us. Call your legislators.

By: Jim_Brown on 1/18/10
Hey Mike, I am damn glad you were not a founding father. How can you give away our constitutional rights so easily? People like you who think the government can do anything thing they like, anytime they want to is leading our continual slide into a police state. If you do a little RESEARCH you would find the arguments that the cameras made the roads safer is complete BS. The process by which the citations are issued are unconstitutional and blatantly unfair. Every time this issue has been voted on by the people the scameras have been defeated

"They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."
--Ben Franklin

He's talking about you Mike.

Why aren't points added to the driver's record when the citation is issued by the scameras? If it's really about safety?

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