h a l f b a k e r yExperiencing technical difficulties since 1999
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With all the death and destruction on the roads today, all sorts of people have come up with all sorts of methods of making people slow down. Therein lies the problem. You can't sell someone a car that does 300kph, and then 'MAKE' them drive at 50. A large percentage of people will drive as fast as
they can get away with. So Coercing people with fines and wotnot is doomed to failure. A method needs to be devised where people WANT to go slower. My idea is this.
All over the place there are speed cameras. Some fixed and some mobile. Now we all know that the best thing a speed camera does is collect revenue for whoever is operating it. fair enough. But they don't seem to stop people going too fast. Now what about if every day, one motorist, chosen at random, who was travelling WITHIN the speed limit was rewarded with cash. Say, $100. Then every week another randomly chosen law-abiding citizen was given $1000. A monthly prize of say $10,000 and a yearly millionaire. The infrastructure is already there, the operating costs would be minimal, and before you know it everyone would be cruising around smiling at each other rather than hurling abuse. Rewarding people for good behaviour has got to be more effective than punishing them for bad. at least when it comes to driving....
ICBC
http://www.icbc.com.../insura_savemo.html
I only wish they'd exempt accidents caused by trying to pass Albertan Winnebagos. [rapid transit, Oct 05 2004, last modified Oct 06 2004]
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Put a camera in my house, and with the thought of winning all that money, I won’t drive at all! But seriously, Brian, and sad to say, this idea really can’t work. I would explain why, but the bartender says that I have to leave now... |
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You seem to be assuiming that the monetary gain is what makes driving slow attractive. However, I would have to ask what person who drives a car that goes 300Mph cares about a $100 speeding ticket? More to the point, statistics show that the people who gamble their money have the least of it to begin with. Your system is in effect gambling since you are hoping to be the "lucky winner". Therefore, people who drive slow crappy cars will slow down. People who drive fast cars will move on. Its charity. I would be insulted. |
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You reckon it wont work and you wont tell me why. And someone gave me a bun ( an event in itself!) and they havn't told me why. |
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Its not charity. Its reward. Its not coercion, its incentive. Its not stick, its carrot. its not working, fix it. |
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I gave you a bun,because i'm sick and tired of bloody dangerous,wreckless drivers ,you only have to look at road toll stastistics as of late mainly due to speeding drink driving leading to speeding etc.I don't drive i ride motorised variety,in other words any idea which would help improve road safety i'm up for..taboot. |
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Sorry i did'nt mean to rant on your page here, you can delete this if you so wish. |
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Suppose the reward is high enough to make people want to drive the speed limit. Wouldn't that just cause people to drive more, just like a radio cash contest causes people to jam phone lines? |
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thanks skinflaps. I used to ride an ol' enfield bullit around in india, so now i think i can guess where your moniker comes from.... |
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Those things rattle the hell outa ya. |
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I like the idea, but it needs some work. This proposed system would have to keep track of EVERY SINGLE car that drove through an area in a given day/week/month, regardless of whether they were speeding or not. That is an incredible task, even for today's cameras. So, to get this to work, you would have to have a large number of cameras over a certain distance, and all the appropriate computer power to keep track of hundreds to hunderds of thousands of cars, everyday. That would cost an incredible amount of money. Furthermore, if you went through the trouble of tracking the speed of every car in an area, then you might as well fine EVERY SINGLE speeding car. That way, people would know for a fact that if they speed, they would get a ticket and fine. That would be the best deterant ever. Your idea is still a very intriguing one. Peace! |
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And the winner is... the Traffic Supervisor's cousin! |
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No reason to keep track of every vehicle. Just one, at random, once a day. doesn't sound so difficult to me. I'm sure there are 1/2 bakers just queueing up to find holes in this tho'. they just havn't arrived in the time zone yet. |
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In that case, I like it. I should have realised it, but it's late where I am. Great idea. |
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Annoying if the winner was Mrs X, the 83-year-old grandmother who drives everywhere at 15 mph, causing massive tailbacks in her wake. She's driving within the speed limit, just not safely! |
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So we put a speed camera on some popular road. It is programmed with two intervals M and N. Every M minutes it starts looking for a speeder. It photographs the first speeder it sees and then waits for the next interval to begin. Every N minutes it starts looking for somebody going more than speed X but less than speed Y. Again, it takes a photo and waits for the next interval. The prize can be a fixed amount or a fraction of the total speeding fines for the day. The technology is amazingly simple and straightforward. |
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No, it won't force anyone to follow the speed limits, but it will encourage many more people to obey them most of the time. The payouts need not be huge, but should be enough to at least buy dinner for two at a fancy restaurant. The payouts should be frequent enough that everybody personally knows at least one of the winners every month. That will help people believe they actually stand a reasonable chance at being rewarded, and that the reward will be significant. |
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It seems like I almost always disagree with you, [brian], but I think this is a really good idea. None of the criticism levelled at it so far holds any water, either. |
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//Statistics show...// Please, spare me. You can use that phrase in defense of almost anything. |
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While you're at it, how about a 'break it into paragraphs' incentive? |
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This is baked (in slightly different form) in some areas of the US. The police in some jurisdictions will give "positive tickets" to people for behaving correctly in traffic. I know New York City used to do this when Sam Schwartz was traffic commissioner. Usually these tickets are redeemable for some prize provided by sponsoring organizations. Hasn't widely caught on though. |
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I don't think people should be rewarded for doing what they are supposed to be doing anyway. Punishment for breaking laws does not and should not equal reward for adhering to it. Fishbone. |
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But rewards for obeying the law are everywhere (if you live in a moderately safe and clean area, anyway). |
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I'll need some clarification on that one, snarf. And to be clear, my reference to reward is in the sense of this idea - cash prizes for not breaking the law. I'm not talking about peace and harmony with fellow man. |
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I was implying that we, as a society, enjoy things like safety and clean streets when we don't rape and litter. But now that I think about it, people get to enjoy safety and clean streets even if they do rape and litter. So I guess not breaking the law is just its own reward. |
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Your point is well-taken, waugs. Paying people not to commit crimes (which this idea in its essence is), is perhaps a dangerous precedent. |
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All said and done tho', going at 100mph isn't gonna kill anyone. Its extremely sudden stops that kill. Perhaps we should make it illegal to stop suddenly?
mrdata. I drive a car that goes BLOODY quickly should I want it to. I usually dont. But at the speeds I usually blat around at, the brakes of wich are designed to stop a BLOODY fast car really efficiently, can stop me before I hit something. Cars that only just manage to maintain the speed limit are usually driven at their limit, so when they have to yank up in a hurry, they can't 'cos the brakes don't cope. so therefore I beleive a fast car driven sensibly is safer than a slow car driven fast. Sooo, thats why we need an incentive, not a reward not a bribe, just an incentive, to drive a bit slower. Or, we can just carry on as we are, of course. That works
And as far as paragraphs go.. well I press the right buttons but it doesnt seem to do any good. think of it as attention span training. |
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I'd be for an incentive that gives young drivers (easily the most dangerous and inexperienced) an incentive to drive safely. I would give a cash bonus to high school seniors who graduate from school without any speeding tickets. |
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Lack of speeding tickets are no measure, I've never had one in seventeen years. Not been caught, see. |
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Speed does not kill. Inertia kills. If you or your vehicle can't handle momentum in a manner appropriate to the circumstances, don't speed. |
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BTW, I've never burgled or raped anyone. Do I get a reward for that? |
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/I agree that speed is only a problem if it is innapprioate.// |
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/a special prize for the highest clocked speed// |
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I'm having trouble reconciling these two statements. Care to elaborate? |
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Ah. So your answer to the speeding problem is deliberately to make roads difficult to negotiate and then offer a prize for the fastest driver. Ever been go-karting? |
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herein lies the problem, people know where the cameras are and what they look like, so when i have a bunch of time to waste one night i drive at the speed limit by that one place 480 times, lets say that it takes me 30 seconds to make the circuit, so that would take up only 4 hours of my time, oh and i do this multiple nights a week(lets say 3), so i rack up 1440 entries in the weekly prize, 6480 entires in the monthly prize, and 74880 chances at becomming a millionaire once a year; and then i go drive as fast as i can everywhere there isnt a camera to make up for the time that i am driving slowly by the camera (which i already do for the speed sensing tubes that they sometimes lay across the road here to determine where to put speed traps) and then the authorities give me a million dollars for doing this, wow what a great idea |
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btw, i dont advocate the school zone at the local high school being on for 2 hours at lunch so that some of the kids can safely walk across the street to go smoke pot by the houses across the street, in fact sometimes i dont even pay attention to the road when im driving through it, i just stare at my speedometer to ensure that im going close to the speed limit so that the cop who is there only to catch "those wild high school drivers" (which btw the "wild" ones dont make it out of the parking lot without a wreck) doesnt catch me instead as im trying to be on my way runnign errands and the sort, so i hope that i do hit one of those pot smoking kids while the officer is watching me drive 5 miles below the school zone speed limit of 20 miles per hour, oh ~and~ i hope the get severely injured, and i hope that their friends laugh at them |
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its been proven that rewarding for good behavior works better than punishing for bad behavior, however my reward is that feeling in my gut when i jam the accelerator on the floor while driving up the entrance ramp to the highway, so that i can only get in the left lane and refuse to move out of it until the person in front of me moves over and lets me pass cuz the left lane is for passing only, and then when i pass them and move over beacause the left lane is beautifully free of traffic they get back over, and then i move on to the next guy, who is driving in the left lane between the speed limit and 5 over, and then i finally get over to pass him and it turns out to be a cop in his personal car, you know what i did? |
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the cops need to learn the laws and obey them as a normal law-abiding citizen would |
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just give me my roads and take the stupid-proofing out of the speed limit |
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by far one of my best ideas for a charitable civil service... i made a sign the other day that says "SPEED TRAP AHEAD" and is nailed to stakes and is in the back seat of my car right now, the next time i see a cop, ill go back to a place slightly before his speed trap and leave my sign as a good gesture to all other motorists :-) |
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I like Big Brother's idea except we should catch and fine every speeder (with mobile hidden cameras)and re-distribute the money to all the cars that didn't speed. That way if you speed you know you're going to pay a fine and if you don't you know your going to receive a reward. Perhaps this is too idyllic as most laws tend to benifit the government issuing them and not the people that the government is supposed to represent. |
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and [rich966]: maybe if you smoked some pot you'd drive slower and more carefully through the school zones. I know I do. btw: wonderful civil service! |
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The Insurance Corporation of British Columbia (hereinafter referred to as ICBC or "The Devil") already has a system like this in place. It's a bit more practical than this though. Basically, it just rewards you with lower insurance rates (up to 40%) if your driving record stays clean, and you don't initiate any accidents. In addition, if you have 9 years of driving experience fault-free, then you save more. |
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It's a pretty obvious concept, so I'm sure it's implemented elsewhere. For those that want an example of the system, look to the link above. |
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We get that too in the UK, if you are caught speeding, you get fixed penalty points on your licence which you must - by law - declare to your insurance company, who then increase your premium, punishing you for your heinous crime.
Therefore, if you don't speed, surely you automatically win the prize by not getting fined? |
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I read this as "go slow invective". Of which I have plenty. |
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Bring back the horse and cart I say, damn those motorised velocipedes...... |
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[briandamage] I'd give you a bun or a fishbone.. but this must be some kind of a new record for most annotations without a single bun or a fishbone :-) ... so I will not be the first to wreck it |
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Tottal yearly payouts, 1088500 dollars. Hardly nothing. |
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