I'm not kidding. Mark Hemingway at the Corner reports ("Liberals Want to Neuter Your Cars"):
I don't know what Matt Yglesias has against cars, but they seem to be a major impediment to creating his nanny state utopia:As you've probably noticed, there's just about nowhere in the United States where you're allowed to drive faster than 80 miles per hour. And yet cars can drive much faster than this.
And of course the reason you're not allowed to go super-fast is that it isn't safe. A large proportion of car accidents are related to people driving too quickly. Thus, via Ezra Klein comes Kent Sepkowitz's suggestion that we design cars so as to make it impossible for them to drive over, say, 75 miles per hour. This seems reasonably sensible to me.
This seems reasonably sensible to no one, once you've thought about it for more than a few seconds. If you're going to allow cars to drive at 60-70 miles an hour, you probably need to allow for the fact that there are innumerable situations where safety dictates you depend on reserve power to drive faster than the prevailing speed...
Matt Yglesias (no relation to Julio, I presume) is full of crap. I drive a fast car. Car and Driver says it tops out at about 155 MPH. However, I never drive it over These holier-than-thou asshats inevitably drive in the left lane of the expressway, intentionally limiting speeds to ensure their little section of the highway ain't excessively polluting. What magic dipstick slapped them in the forehead and turned them into Vice President Gore?
The biggest portion of car accidents are caused by the numbskulls who don't know the rule Left Lane Is For Passing Only.
If I were in state government, I'd require anyone convicted of this offense to have the phrase branded into their dashboard. And on a second offense, branded into their hood. Third offense? Don't go there.
Hat tip: Larwyn
So it's ok to break the law. So it's ok to endanger the rest of us on the road because you are too frigging addicted to reckless driving! You are probably texting at the same time too.
ReplyDeleteIt is no wonder people seem to love speeding, just look at car ads on television. They really push the notion of
fast and faster as though it were a good thing. I guess they like goading us into killing ourselves because it seems to cater to our desire to be bigger than we actually are. This is not theater not hollywood there is no happy ending. The way we think about cars is delusional! Highways are not the Indy 500 or Daytona Speedway. Whoever said it was cool to drive faster than the speed limit is selfish beyond belief. Come on people we're not living in the 1950"s.
Advertisers might say that cars don"t break the speed limit people do. I say why are they giving addicts enough rope to hurt other people with only because they think it's OK for them to be reckless. Manufacturers and their Advertisers say they are only giving the public what they want and what they want is to spin doughnuts in the parking lot and burn down the road at 100 mph. What the "F" are they selling. The public obviously can't stop driving over the speed limit alone, they need cars that cannot exceed speed limits!
Also,if we really want to reduce our dependance on foreign oil we might want to consider the idea suggested above. If we really want a cleaner environment and reduce global warming we must rid ourselves of the need for speed.
So it's ok to break the law. So it's ok to endanger the rest of us on the road because you are too frigging addicted to reckless driving! You are probably texting at the same time too.
ReplyDeleteIt is no wonder people seem to love speeding, just look at car ads on television. They really push the notion of
fast and faster as though it were a good thing. I guess they like goading us into killing ourselves because it seems to cater to our desire to be bigger than we actually are. This is not theater not hollywood there is no happy ending. The way we think about cars is delusional! Highways are not the Indy 500 or Daytona Speedway. Whoever said it was cool to drive faster than the speed limit is selfish beyond belief. Come on people we're not living in the 1950"s.
Advertisers might say that cars don"t break the speed limit people do. I say why are they giving addicts enough rope to hurt other people with only because they think it's OK for them to be reckless. Manufacturers and their Advertisers say they are only giving the public what they want and what they want is to spin doughnuts in the parking lot and burn down the road at 100 mph. What the "F" are they selling. The public obviously can't stop driving over the speed limit alone, they need cars that cannot exceed speed limits!
Also,if we really want to reduce our dependance on foreign oil we might want to consider the idea suggested above. If we really want a cleaner environment and reduce global warming we must rid ourselves of the need for speed.