Marsha gets me going

Marsha is a friend who blogs; she really puts a lot of work into it, and shows everybody how you are supposed to do it.

Well, Marsha, I can't hope to match the excellent quality of your Blog, but your latest experience getting a ticket you describe at
http://scatteredthoughts-m2.blogspot.com/
finally got me going. I can't clutter up your Blog with this much stuff.

I thought you and I might be a victim of an over-bearing Federal government. I seem to have come across pretty good evidence. And a lot of things REALLY BOTHER ME about this.

First, take a look at this item:

http://tinyurl.com/2jd2we

I'm sure a good researcher could find something more up to date, BUT:

Amongst NHTSA recommendations made in 1999:

# Make Federal grant money available to jurisdictions that encourage legislation permitting the use of technology to fight aggressive driving.

# Provide Federal funds in the form of local grants to support innovative initiatives submitted by law enforcement entities.

I hardly know where to start. More on this later.
As for Marsha and I getting hit by the same sting, tell me this news story is not related:

http://tinyurl.com/39ezy5

Since this link will eventually disappear from the web, I'll save it completely below.

note this: "Aggressive driving is not just road rage, police said. Behaviors include speeding, tailgating, unsafe lane changes, running red lights or stop signs, and using the shoulder to cut past traffic." [emphasis mine]

Now here is what really bothers me. A list.

*The federal government wants to be, as my wife Sue says, our Nanny.

*The Media cooperates fully, completely, absolutely. Of course they are getting a piece of the action, because the Feds make sure money goes for ads in the paper, radio, TV. Before I got my illegitimate citation [so ruled in a VA court] I was listening to the radio, and sure enough, there were ads warning aggressive drivers they were targeted and "sliding through stop signs" was one of the things mentioned.

*Like regulations that are to "protect the children," boy does it sound good. I think I thought "bad boys, bad boys, whatcha gonna do?" when I heard that radio ad. We'll be protecting the children!!

*Neither we, nor the Media, stop to ask "why are the Feds getting involved in local traffic regulation?"

*Neither we, nor the Media, stop to ask "hasn't this always resulted in a review of the ironical statement "I'm from the Federal Government and I'm here to help you!"

*Lo and behold, what BS regulation is easy to abuse here? Yes, indeed, the way almost all of us deal with stop signs these days, is technically a bit incorrect. Yep, if you wanted to, you could rake in the dough writing up tickets like crazy. Wasn't a problem before!

*Sure enough, seemingly rare if the local government is not prompted to do so, the only two incidents I am aware of, Marsha's and mine, are the worse kind of thing that you just hate to see: ordinary citizens harassed by the government over a Nanny issue. And I sat in on a whole day of court, a multitude of cases; I didn't see anybody getting nailed for "aggressive driving" issues [besides already targeted speeding cases] except for more of some upstanding looking citizens cited for this business of how they went through a stop sign or used right-turn-on-red.

More on this later. Much more. Repeat: you've got me going on this.


>>>>>>>>>>>

http://www.fredericknewspost.com/sections/news/reporters_notebooks_display.htm?StoryID=60917