driving annoyances away 19 july 2002 by johnmichael patrick monty monteith

Every so often I have to write about something that has absolutely nothing to do with the technology world. Why? Oh, I don’t know. Something in the world annoys me enough that I simply must write about it. So, the bright side to this is that you do not get these non-tech rants too often. Even geeks need to chat about something other than DNS and DHCP all day long. So, this year’s non-tech article? Driving laws. And, really, driving laws is a topic of conversation we all have opinions on. Unfortunately, I think it is also something we all disagree on. Still, I’ll have a go at it, just the same.

Rather than complain about Seattle drivers, which I easily could bore you with, I am going to focus on the ludicrousness of some United States driving laws. Every country has stupid driving laws, and I certainly welcome hearing from readers about silly ones in other areas of the world, however I will focus on our own.

Let’s start with the premise of my annoyances: Laws are created to protect citizens from harm by others or other things. While it is illegal to kill yourself in this country, laws are usually not made to protect us from ourselves. If they were, it would be illegal to do anything that could potentially cause us harm, such as sky diving, or bungee jumping. Fortunately, our laws say we can put ourselves in harms way all day long, however no person or company can try to cause us harm. So, when I consider laws, I consider them under the premise that a law should serve no purpose other than to keep someone or something from hurting me or my family. If you disagree with this premise then you should probably stop reading now.

Do keep in mind that driving laws are set by each State, so not all of these issues pertain to every state, but they all are true in the State of Washington and Oregon. So, with that in mind, let’s look at the top ten stupid driving laws, or lack of laws that should be there:

Number One: Tinting Laws

Tinting laws say that windows in a car can only be tinted a certain percentage before the tinting becomes illegal. This law is mainly in effect so that State Troopers can see inside an automobile to know what is going on. In fact, the most important element of this one is for carpool lanes where the Fuzz need to be able to see in the auto to know how many people are inside the car.

What is wrong with this law? Well, the fact that most states more or less leave trucks, vans, and SUV’s immune from this law. Most vans, trucks, and SUV’s driving around in Washington have extremely strong tinting, to the point where you can not see in the back of the vehicle. In fact, most auto manufacturers ship their vehicle with this high level of tinting.

Here is the problem: These huge vehicles have a level of tint in the back window so strong that you can not see into their vehicle. That means that we can not see through the vehicle to see what is going on in front of them, thereby causing a driving hazard. Of all the vehicles on the road that should have no tinting at all in their back window, it would be any vehicle that you can not see over. So, by leaving these large vehicles exempt, our laws are actually the cause of accidents.

Solution One:
No tinting should be allowed in the back window of any vehicle. All tinting laws needs to be applied equally to all vehicles on the road, and need to be retroactive to all vehicles currently on the road.

Number Two: Separate License for Motorcycles
There is a separate licensing program for motorcycle drivers. The premise being that these small vehicles have different driving issues and they therefore must be licensed differently.

Anyone who has driven a large pickup or SUV realizes that driving these vehicles is as different from driving a car as a motorcycle. However, if I screw up driving a motorcycle, the only person I will hurt is myself. If I screw up driving an SUV, I could potentially take out five other vehicles. Therefore, if we should be licensing any vehicles separately, it should be large pickups and SUV’s.

Solution Two:
Separate licensing should be done for large vehicles to reflect the differences in the vehicle requirements and reflect the laws that are different for that vehicle. (See the next item.)

Number Three: Separate Laws for Vehicles

Most states have different laws that a motorcycle must follow. In addition, we all know that lories (semis) have separate laws as well. In fact, there are usually posted speed limits that are different between lories and automobiles. However, different laws need to be set up for large pickups and SUV’s as well. I can not tell you how many times I have a Ford Excursion pass my little Honda. This goes beyond just aggressive driving into the category of reckless. (I will ignore the fact they are almost always talking on their cell phone as well.)

I do not know exact statistics, but I guarantee you that when we factor in vehicle weight, stopping distance and the rest, that a small car is safer at a hundred miles per hour than a large SUV is at sixty. Then there is the issue that a large SUV is simply much more dangerous if it gets into an accident than a small car. Let’s have our laws reflect these differences.

Solution Three:
Large vehicles needs separate speed limits, driving distance laws, etcetera, to reflect the differences in these vehicles from automobiles.

Number Four: Seat Belt Laws

Why? Of all of the safety issues in the world, why must we have these ludicrous seat belt laws? How is buckling my seat belt going to help someone else? If someone wants to drive around without a seat belt on, let them. It is certainly no more dangerous than sky diving, and that is legal. And, most importantly, no one else is in danger because someone is not using their seat belt. The only reason these laws were passed was to give law enforcement another way to pick up a few dollars.

Solution Four:
Eliminate seat belt laws. Law enforcement needs to focus their energy on items that will actually protect the public.

Number Five: Driving Without Insurance

If there is an area where our driving laws need to be strengthened, it is those laws that deal with driving without insurance. In my first three years in Seattle I had two vehicles totaled by uninsured motorists, and my brother had one. Two of the drivers had prior uninsured accidents, and two were drinking alcohol. A year later, an uninsured motorist hit my parked car in my driveway. Parked car.

There are a reason that these people do not have insurance. Insurance companies will not carry these people because they are too much of a risk, and simply should not be driving. Our laws should keep them from doing so.

Solution Five:
If someone is caught driving without insurance, take away their vehicle, and suspend their license forever.

Number Six: Headlight Laws

I do not know about everyone else, but high beams are a welcome relief from the constant blinding I get from SUV’s and high-intensity bulbs. To make matters worse, many of the SUV’s being released now also have high-intensity bulbs installed, giving twice the blinding power in one vehicle.

As you probably know, SUV’s and tall pickups have headlights higher than in automobiles, and as a result those of us in cars are easily blinded by their lights. Adding to the headlight problem on the road are the use of high intensity bulbs by manufacturers, most commonly seen on luxury vehicles, which seem to have many fold the blinding power of traditional bulbs.

The only way I can think to combat the headlight problem is to be join it. I know it seems silly, but I certainly understand anyone shopping for an auto today spending the extra grand to get the high intensity bulbs. If you are going to be blinded, you might as well see the road better while it is happening.

Those of you considering the can’t beat em, join em approach need to be aware that it is illegal to add high intensity bulbs to a vehicle that originally shipped with standard bulbs. Yes, the logic here is that the rich should be allowed to blind the poor. I suppose the thinking is that high intensity bulbs cannot be installed properly in an older vehicle. I find this solution comic since it means the only people adding these blinding bulbs are closet dealers that do not know how to install them properly.

Solution Six:
Either we need to outlaw high intensity bulbs entirely, or open it up to everyone so that reputable dealers can install them in their customers vehicles. In addition, manufacturers need to be forced to place headlights of large vehicles at approximately the same height as their location in automobiles. Yes, it will make these vehicles aesthetically less pleasing, but will eliminate accidents.

Number Seven: .1 versus .08

Throughout the country the drunk driving laws are getting tougher. However, numerous studies have shown that the change does not make our roads safer. According to some of these studies, someone talking on a cell phone is nearly twice as likely to be involved in an accident as someone with the new .08 blood-alcohol level. These studies show that nearly all fatal drunk driving accidents happen with drivers that are way over the legal limit, and that moving the limit lower will not have any effect on fatal accidents on our roads.

Solution Seven:
We need a no-tolerance policy toward drunk driving, while being realistic about having a drink with dinner. For those people that are clearly driving under the influence (way over the ‘legal limit’), they should never be allowed to drive again – and their automobile should be taken away. However, we should not make criminals of people that had one glass of wine with their spaghetti. Change the legal limit back to one tenth of a percent for the blood-alcohol level, and set laws that take away vehicles forever when a person is way past the legal limit.

Number Eight: Driving Age versus Drinking Age

I might be a minority on this one, but I think our country has our driving and drinking ages reversed. Currently the driving age is sixteen, and the drinking age is twenty-one. That means that about the time a person buys their own car and starts driving fifteen thousand miles a year is when they will be learning how to drink. Does this strike anyone else as silly?

Lets go back to the premise that laws are here to protect us from harm from others. Which is most likely to cause harm to others: driving an automobile, or drinking alcohol?

Solution Eight:
We need to teach teenagers (yes, teenagers) how to drink responsibly. Let them get their ‘drunk’ days out of the way before they get behind the wheel of an automobile. Then, lets make certain that people are learning to drive a few years after they have already learned how to drink responsibly. This likely means moving the drinking age to sixteen and the driving age to twenty-one. Not a popular statement in the land of American Graffiti, but if our goal is to make our streets safer – it is the right course of action.

Number Nine: Cell Phone Use

Make holding up a phone to the ear while driving illegal. Hands free cell phone use is a semi-acceptable compromise to those that need to chat on the phone while driving. However, losing the use of an arm for the length of a conversation is far too dangerous on our roads. You need only ten minutes on the road in the Seattle area to find someone making a driving mistake while talking on a cell phone.

Solution Nine:
We can save far more lives by banning cell phones than we can forcing the use of seat belts or lowering the blood-alcohol limit. Let’s get our priorities straight.

Number Ten: Emissions vs. Petrol Use

We have many laws that deal with the compounds coming out of the tail pipe of our vehicles, yet none that govern the amount of petrol being used in these vehicles. As a result, auto manufacturers are making vehicles that get far worse gas mileage today than they did ten years ago. Yes, ten years of technology to make our vehicles more efficient (variable valve timing, light weight materials, continuously variable transmissions, hybrid electric engines), and the amount of petrol these vehicles consume continues to rise. What’s the deal?

The auto manufacturers are simply building what people want. We want huge SUV’s that average fifteen miles per gallon or less. We want sedans with engines that have far more power than we would ever need (and we justify it by telling ourselves “at least it is not an SUV”.) All the while, our laws continue to address only the pollutants. The only way to solve the problem is to change attitudes by hitting the pocket book of Americans.

Solution Ten:
I recommend a significant increase in the price of petrol. Place a nation-wide one dollar per gallon tax on petrol. The money that is raised will be returned to each taxpayer evenly in a lump sum. (Commercial trucking companies should have a way to recoup all of their payments, for obvious reasons.) Those people that drive efficient vehicles or take public transportation will actually make money in the deal since they will receive the same amount back as everyone else. Those that spend two hours a day on the road in a Lincoln Navigator will likely be considering trading it in for a Honda Insight.

Yes, I heard the chorus of groans after each solution was read. It was deafening after the dollar per gallon tax on petrol idea. Talking about auto laws is nearly as dangerous as talking politics. Still, you can rest easy knowing that it is highly unlikely that any of these solutions will be enacted.