Do you stop at stop signs?

[Frank Lee]

If enough people refuse to follow ridiculous laws... they'll put up cameras and rake in the profits!

[Kodak]

I'm afraid the only legal recourse with the potential to address the issues is to drum up enough support at local town hall meetings.

It might be hard to convince officials that their attempts at increased safety are simply not working as planned.

[roflwaffle]

I try to. It's just not worth ~$700+ if I get tagged with a ticket.

Originally Posted by Frank Lee

If enough people refuse to follow ridiculous laws... they'll put up cameras and rake in the profits!

They're finally starting to cut that crap out in CA, all it did was make the red light camera companies rich. I even got nailed for running a red .6s after it turned. It takes a light anywhere from .1-.35s to turn, and another .5+s for a driver to even process that info and react, so that's something that no cop would bother with, but the red light camera company still tried some sneaky **** to collect some cash.

[Christ]

Originally Posted by Frank Lee

If enough people refuse to follow ridiculous laws... they'll put up cameras and rake in the profits!

On the same note, they thought the ez pass lane would make more people take the toll roads, and make more income via tolls...

Once people figured out that running the ez pass lane wasnta traffic offense, and didn't affect your license or registration, they just started running through them. Not everyone, but thousands of dollars a year in estimated tolls.

[Frank Lee]

Minneapolis tried red light cams til they got sued and had to refund a pile of bogus tickets.

[Fat Charlie]

Dumb laws increase disrespect for laws in general, increasing lawlessness. Dumb lawmakers pass dumb laws. Dumb voters vote for dumb lawmakers. Dumb citizens don't even bother voting. Sadly, we get the government we deserve- not the government we need.

This civics stuff is boring. What's on TV?

[Kodak]

Your logic is sound Fat Charlie, since we have a republic in which the majority essentially wins.

Unfortunately we all get the government that the majority of people decide on, but not everybody necessarily deserves the policy decided upon.

[Arragonis]

Originally Posted by Fat Charlie

This civics stuff is boring. What's on TV?

Some cr@p that involves either the word "talent" or "idol" - which I assume is a failed attempt at irony in both cases.

[Christ]

TV stole all the reality... There's nothing real to be found elsewhere anymore.

[taredog]

I haven't been around for a while. I bet no one except the bot that sent me the e-mail missed me.

Oh boy, a poll. Wait, answers are too defined. Depends on what a "stop" is defined as. In some jurisdictions I have driven in it meant all wheels stopped, weight of vehicle motionless on springs. With some of the cars I drove in the day, that could be five minutes.

When I first started reading this, I thought it was going to turn in to the typical sanctimonious pedal bike person "I don't have to obey any rules because I don't have to have a license but you have to treat me like a motor vehicle and I deserve it because I am single handedly saving the earth" thread. Almost at one point but it went back to what I beleive was the OPs intent. While driving vehicles powered by other than human power.

Many, many valid points here. I agree many of the stop signs should be yield signs. Many of my fellow driver's seem to think yield means ignore and stop means other people. You can't stop self centered arrogance.

I am guilty of not completely stopping at some stop signs and red lights, only if I am making a right turn. (OK, left turn on one way streets) I am going so slowly I could stop almost instantly if needed. So I guess the answer to the intent is yes.

My limited hypermiling techniques have gotten me rear ended at a red light recently.

I was in the left lane. I passed a broken down vehicle in the right lane approx 200 feet from a traffic light. No vehicles behind me. The light turned yellow. No sense accelerating, it would be stupid. About that time a vehicle in the right lane swerves to avoid the broken down and tags me lightly in the rear. The person in the vehicle that hit me doesn't miss a beat, gets in to the left turn lane and runs the light. I was all ready out of his or her way due to being pushed toward the red light. Minor damage but if I had been driving like the "normal" person here does, I would have accelerated in to the red light and then stopped or continued to accelerate through the yellow/soon red, and the accident would have been avoided.

Maybe I got hit by a hyper miler person who didn't want the FE to suffer. Maybe not accelerating to beat the light makes it my fault. Trying to save a few 10th of MPG in my gas guzzling pickup.

Bottom line, be aware of and stop at traffic signals. Always. If you get hit for stopping, hopefully the damage will be minor. If in a large metropolitan area, don't bother to report it as the cops don't have time. Around here there was likely no license, registration or insurance applicable to the other driver anyway.

The person who hit me was likely not distracted by their scan gauge.