Guest Post by Eric Peters
It used to be that roadside mulctings were primarily, even exclusively, motivated by simple money-lust. Traffic enforcement as a kind of random tax-raising effort.
Many towns and even cities in the United States are extremely dependent on the “revenue” – as it is styled – which is generated by the fleecing of motorists. This is why there are so many “infractions” – and it is why many of them are deliberately contrived so as to assure almost every motorist will be “guilty” of at least one “violation” every time he drives.
Examples include absurdly under-posted speed limits that are often functionally impossible to comply with – unless you want to get run over. And pedantic requirements about exactly where one must stop at a stop sign – and how long one must stop. The touching of a yellow line, etc.
But now the object now appears to be to punish driving as such. In order to discourage driving as such. To make it so teeth-grindingly unpleasant – and impossibly expensive – to drive that people will give up driving in favor of government/corporate controlled collectivized driving schemes.
Electric/automated cars are intended to play a major role in this “transition.”
People are soothed with images of a carefree future in which they’ll no longer be mulcted; in which they’ll be smoothly/quietly and speedily whisked to their destination, sleeping in transit if they want to.
And the check’s in the mail.
Is it a done deal? It may well be.
My sense of things is that car culture is in the same general back alley as being interested in the crazy ideas put forward in the Declaration of Independence and the entire backdrop of Enlightenment/humanistic thinking which preceded it.
Yes, of course, there are still people – including some young people – who are interested in cars and driving; who are not interested in becoming meatsacks gaping at cell phones while being transported by a pod under the control of the government/corporate nexus.
Who are as appalled by the idea of it as they are by the idea of being “assisted” in the bathroom.
There are also still a few people who believe in that old-timey idea, the pursuit of happiness – but don’t believe they have a right to have happiness or anything else at someone else’s expense. That they are owed happiness – and health care and housing, a college education, a “living wage” and maybe sushi once a week, too – by the beneficent Oz styled “government,” which gets them all those things by serving as a middleman-at-gunpoint, stealing the funds from others then redistributing them while keeping a portion for itself (along with the far more valuable prerogative to steal at will, legally).
Both species – the car guy (and car gal) and liberty guy (and gal) appear to be in the minority – which is very bad news when “rights” are a function of the vote.
Worse, though, is the daunting indifference to both cars and liberty.
A kind of paralysis of inevitability has set in. Both as regards driving (and its end, as an autonomous activity not under the control of the government-corporate nexus) and the mopping up operations directed at our remaining freedoms-of-action (including being free to speak and write our minds, decide for ourselves whether to be “covered” by health insurance and so on).
This is understandable.
As regards driving and cars, because it is no longer much fun to drive. Fun – these days – requires being furtive because most of the fun things you can do in and with a car are illegal and subject not only to a mulcting but to a Hut! Hut! Hutting!
What fun is it to drive a Corvette that you can’t legally drive any faster than a Corolla? You’re paying four times as much to go just as slow.
It’s still possible to have some furtive fun. Cameras aren’t everywhere yet. Just almost everywhere. What happens when they are everywhere? When it becomes impossible to have even furtive fun? What will be the point in owning a Corvette – or even a Tesla S, for that matter – when every single deviation from The Allowed will be immediately seen and automatically punished?
“Ludicrous Speed” isn’t going to be legalized, by the way. That is just a marketing ploy to sex up the EV – in order to further the objective of getting people out of their non-EVs.
At which point, of course, “Ludicrous Speed” will be programmed out of the EV.
People are deluded if they buy into the con that they’ll be meatsacking around at high speed, that speed limits will be raised – or even abolished – when we’re all nudged into automated electric cars.
They miss the point.
And as regards the rest – well, it’s hard to stay focused on the pursuit of happiness when you are required to provide for the happiness of others, at gunpoint. When the beneficent Oz styled “government” won’t leave you free to pursue your own. And makes it all but impossible for just that reason.
Might as well sign up for some “free” sushi, too.
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Yesterday as I watched some college football I was subjected to a series of Allstate commercials for their Drivewise smart phone app. Apparently other auto insurance companies have similar apps. The apps record your speed, incidents of hard braking, and all the other things that one does when driving, usually when driving in an enjoyable manner.
That fact that people actually use these and freely let the insurance companies access their driving history demonstrates the absolute stupidity of many Americans. Oh sure, today the insurance companies say that the data will only be used to lower your rates. But tomorrow, the data will also increase your rates. And the next day, the government will use the data to automatically issue you citations for driving over the speed limit, or not coming to a complete stop at a stop sign, or going over the double yellow line to pass an old lady going 30 mph on a high-speed highway.
So for all you young computer geeks out there, forget about designing games. If you want to make some real money in a few years, create hacks that disable these driving monitors. Or, better yet, create hacks that send false driving data to Big Brother. Now that will be a promising career field.
Vehicle ECM’s are already recording all of this information and I imagine, in a couple of years, government will have full access to this data. How else will they be able to charge us a per mile tax?
At the end of my dad’s small plane flying, he went to a meeting where they were talking about charging air miles for small private planes.
Yes.
Starting January 1, 2020, you must be equipped with ADS-B Out to fly in most controlled airspace.
Mandated by the FAA.
(ADS–B) is a surveillance technology in which an aircraft determines its position via satellite navigation and periodically broadcasts it, enabling it to be tracked. The information can be received by air traffic control ground stations as a replacement for secondary surveillance radar, as no interrogation signal is needed from the ground.
And… the costs for applying this piece of avionics are yours.
What’s a few thousand dollars here and there?
BTW, the average nationwide cost of aviation gas is $5.58.
Feds have mandated higher fuel efficiency and the states get their highway money from gas taxes, so less tax is received as mpg goes up. OR has been talking about a mileage tax for quite a few years and as soon as someone comes up with a reliable tracker, you can bet some state will jump on board.
A state volunteer lottery brings in more revenue than 10 dystopian tax laws like that. But they refuse in many states to enact a lottery. Because its about spying and control then money.
Lottery = taxation of the willing.
That is because tech is moving very fast in the personal air travel space. You know the “flying car”. They need to get in front of this now so a law on the books or a tx on the books for 20 years when flying cars are the norm will be seen as just the way it is. Just like you buying a tag. The govt plays the long game. They know where the future lies and enact the dystopian laws and taxes today when it does not affect anyone. When it become effective en mass it will be a law on the books for decade as their core defense. Glad I am my age.
We owe them Nothing!
Reject White Guilt!
Wow can you say first time troll here. Heard about TBP and runs here to start crap.
Your first post.
Nobody cares.
Priceless
There is no such thing as good LEO’s. They all accept their position knowing full well it will mean violating the Constitutional rights of citizens. Most are psychopaths addicted to the power and the ability to abuse the public for their own sick satisfaction…
All this autonomous vehicle crap is about controlling your freedom of movement. Piss off the wrong bureaucrat and you’ll be ring-fenced in a heartbeat. You’ll be lucky to be allowed to be taken to the grocer and maybe your place of employment.
China already implemented national facescan for any and all purchases. All purchases are soon to be controlled with digits, phone and face scans. If your social score is too low you cannot hail a taxi, buy groceries and starve to death. With no guns whatcha gonna do, sheep. You ain’t got no social media freedoms to post, people will shun you in fear their own social credit is reduced. Starve sheep starve. Coming to a democratically run city with a muslim mayor near you.
Burkha wearing muslims are exempted from facescans. They will have anonymity and freedoms. You will not.
Kids today turn 15 & 16 and literally have zero interest in getting a drivers license or even the freedom of their own car. They have a window to the world in their hands: IPhone. They can see and stay in touch with friends in real time by their phones. They are socially awkward unless its a text, a swipe, or a brief video call. Video calls are very rare. A selfie tells everyone everything they need to know to keep everyone update. Where you are what you are doing and how you look and who you are with. They, do not need to waste their oh so valuable time and energy to leave the sofa to socialize.
There is a day coming when they will regret not having freedoms associated with owning their transportation and the somewhat privacy and safety it affords them. A day when they and their family are going to meet others for Christmas dinner on public transportation and a highly diverse person of an opposing religion sees they are about to celebrate their religion decides to stop them or harass them.
Rather than look at the macro of how this came to be, they will focus on the micro, their right to travel in peace, with diversity ya know. Only once the ability to travel in your own vehicle is all but outlawed will they realize their folly. Everyone will be tracked. Even the cars today have a black box under every drivers seat recording everything electronic in the car and the car itself. It is illegal to remove or tamper with this spying device regulated for the insurance companies. I hear they are now making them integral to the operation of the vehicle so if removed the car will not function correctly or even start because many are waking up to the spy box under their seat and are removing them.
I bet there are several reading this, right now, is disbelief and want to comment “conspiracy theory”. I challenge you to go to your car, open the door, with a flash light look under your drivers seat or other seats. Yup. Conspiracy theory staring you factually in your face. How’s that freedom thing working for ya, sheep.
The average 16 year old today is the intellectual equal of a 12 year old 50 years ago, if that.
I hate sushi nearly as much as I hate electric cars. Willie Nelson stated that he finally outlived his pecker, and I’m finding that I’ve finally lived long enough to see the world go straight to hell. Good thing we defeated those bad old Germans in WWII, just look how grand everything has turned out by allying ourselves with the Commies. Your papers, Comrade.