Jon Baliles has an excellent solution for how the state can meet its abuser funding goals and at the same time, teach Richmonders a few basic rules of the road:
Send police to any stoplight in Virginia (especially Richmond) when a storm comes through and kills power at the intersection (or just cut it off for kicks). You can write tickets and issue fees all day long and raise enough money to pave over the entire state.
I saw so many idiots blow through inoperable stop lights yesterday (at just three intersections) rather than do what the law requires, which is treat such a light as a four way stop. People would blow through at regular speeds, some would think about stopping but keep going when Joe Moron flew on by, then the cars behind would keep the train rolling.
Responsible drivers trying to get through waited out the idiots. It was like the last few seconds of a bumper car ride as they tried to nudge through. At Leigh and Boulevard some yo-yo almost T-boned a big Dominion bucket truck at 45 MPH and another intersection there was an accident but didn’t look serious.
This happens all the time because people don’t know driving laws and regulations. And now our leaders say they are going to build roads based on a law that (in part) depends on us continuing to drive like the big final scene in the The Road Warrior.
I saw the same sort of behavior on the way home. At the intersection of Cary and Malvern alone the abusive driving fees could have funded the end-to-end paving of Hanover County (by this morning, someone had placed a single stop sign…pointing only at eastbound traffic).
And it’s ingrained behavior, too. God help you if you were on city streets after Isabel smashed the local power grid in 2003. Crossing an intersection required a leap of faith, nerves of steel and drag racer-like reflexes.
If abuser fees were in place for just that week, the state could have built an eight lane highway to Mars.