The Present in Plain Text

I'm Thankful for Cops

..for keeping our highways safe.

On the way home from work today I was stuck for 15 minutes on the Thomas Johnson Bridge -- the one artery connecting Calvert County (Maryland) with the Pax River Navy Base in St. Mary's County -- because there was a pile of broken glass and plastic on the roadway, apparently from an earlier accident.

This bridge is the only straight shot across the Patuxent River from Calvert to St. Mary's (unless you can boat to work), so suffice it to say it's always busy. If our local and state politicians would ever get around to building another span on a bridge that is presently a two-way road, commuters wouldn't have to waste time every week sitting in congestion that has been caused by steady (and predictable) population growth over the years.

The fact that lawmakers should privatize the bridge so its improvements would occur more rapidly and expenses would be incurred only by those who use it is beside the point. Normal traffic is bad enough, and if there's an accident you might be stuck for an hour or two while you're trying to get home. The sheer volume of traffic alone accounts for most accidents, which seem to occur every couple weeks or so.

So it's really helpful when something as simple to clean up as a pile of glass shards is just left to lie around on a bridge. After all, I did mention it's a two-way road, which means drivers need to swerve into oncoming traffic to avoid popping tires.

My question is, Where the hell are the cops now? They spill out of the woodwork when they want to set up DUI checkpoints on the bridge on weekend nights. You can barely avoid them on your way to work as they sit in front of the bridge shooting radar. And if the entire (laughable) concept of sobriety checkpoints and seatbelt usage and speed traps is to prevent accidents from occurring in the first place, you'd think making sure a bridge is free of head-on-collision-causing debris would be right around the top of their list.

LRC: The Trouble With Speed Limits

This morning's edition of Lewrockwell.com features an article by yours truly on my frustration with and hatred of speed limits and the highwaymen who enforce them... intermittently.

It's long and painful and not my best work but was something that definitely needed to get off my chest.  The incident in recounted there literally had me on the verge of hysteria by the side of the road as I could see myself without any recourse to taking care of the beaurucratic nonsense without massive intervention by either my wife or one of my co-workers. 

I think all of that pleading did get the cops who dealt with me to allow my vehicle to be towed to my choice of destination and not to the impound yard.  At least they had that amount of humanity left in their hearts.  The tow from Ft. Pierce to my apartment in Palm City was over $140 dollars.  $207.50 for the speeding ticket, $76 for the expired license, $35 dollars for traffic school and $15 dollars for the license renewal.  All for sitting around and getting fat and diabetic.

BTW, I literally walked in my apartment, sat down in front of my computer and renewed by license less than 60 seconds after I unlocked the door.  One of the e-mails I've received today couldn't have sympathy for my expired license... whatever.  The response by the State of Florida is wholly inappropriate to the level of infraction.  By that same logic, they should pull over everyone with a headlight out b/c they are, as well, knowingly allowing that driver to commit a crime, the justification for taking my keys and having my car towed.

People call us libertarians kooky over things like road privitization but if those same people would just stop and think of the mechanisms unleashed by the system currently in place and the potential for abuse it represents it seems to me kooky not to want to dismantle it.

Ta,