A new survey reports that many state authorities, including in Kansas, routinely allow a 5 to 10 mph “cushion” before issuing tickets for speeding.
Is that appropriate? Most drivers probably think so. A better question might be: Are there enough police and traffic courts to handle the caseloads if speed limits were strictly enforced?
The survey must not have included Eastborough.
Posted by Randy Scholfield
Registered?
Commenting on WE Blog now requires you to be a Kansas.com member. Use the links above to register, if you haven't already, or to log in.Contact us
Follow us
Daily Archives
-
Recent Comments
- BlueJay on Open thread 11/22
- Regular on Open thread 11/22
- Regular on Open thread 11/22
- Rage on Open thread 11/22
- cosmos_originally on Open thread 11/22
- Chas on Open thread 11/22
- BlueJay on Open thread 11/22
- Boxlock20 on Open thread 11/22
- satatom on Open thread 11/22
- JimJohnson on Open thread 11/22
12 Comments
Have you driven through Bel Aire lately ?
I LIKE the cushion, I USE the cushion, but then maybe I’m just a scofflaw! If speed limits made sense and were uniform from similar road to similar road and municipality to municipality there would be fewer problems maintaining traffic laws and traffic flow. There are areas, towns and road sections that seemingly are nothing more then speed traps for government purse padding but all in all, if more drivers would be cited more expensively for violations that interrupt traffic flow and sent back to “learn to drive” school all roads would be safer, faster and more accident free! Get’em off the road, not just the drunks but the ‘cell phone while taking notes while sipping a cappuccino while adjusting the radio volume’ and the ‘late again because he just can’t get up on time’ and the ‘how’s my hair and is my makeup good and hurry to get the lipstick on using the rearview mirror’ types – get’em all off the road and back to drivers ed!
Hey TJ, just because you can’t afford a cell phone and cappuccino and every time you put your lipstick on in the car it gets smudged doesn’t mean you have to be a hater. Blaming others for your lack of sophistication and tolerance is an easy way to deal with your life’s inadequacy huh?
As far as Eastborough goes, those pompous babies can suck on my oil burning, backfiring exhaust with their ridiculous speed limits and cops with no real work to do. I walk my dog through Eastborough, and no, I don’t pick up after him.
The 1st ticket I recieved was in Eastborough. I was 16 years old and a fresh unexperience driver then, but I was pulled over for changing lanes without using a turn signal. There was no car around, expect the police hiding behing a tree lined street.
I deserved it, because I broke a traffic law. But as far as the speed buffer, I only do about 5mph over on the cruise control when I’m traveling out on the highway out of town. I don’t speed in the city, either on I-135 or Kellogg. Especially since I’ve seen the police line up and pull people left and right when they do those speedtraps on east Kellogg.
I used to speed all the time, not by much, just enough to get a ticket every 3 or 4 years — something of a nuisance, but hardly a major expense or moral dilemma. Now with the high cost of gas, I’ve found that 5 miles under the limit (left lane, of course) is a lot easier on the pocketbook than 10 mph over; and I give the faster drivers good practice at using their steering wheels here in the flatlands.
Eastborough is a singular traffic nuisance of course. I don’t know anyone who lives there, but I hear it’s where old people go to visit their grandparents!
Thank goodness nobody bit on my 2:45am error. I meant “right lane, of course.”
Ireland,
Now you piqued my interest. Before moving to Wichita, have you lived long in those places where the drive on the “wrong” side of the street, like Japan, for example? I always ended up trying to open the driver’s side door everytime.
Roo.
Buffer or no buffer, there are a lot of citizens in this city that could seriously use another visit to drivers ed. Rather than taking a buffer away, I feel that the state should pursue a different kind of law, similar to one adopted in I believe Indiana (I could be wrong here, but i am 99% sure it was one of the “I” states at any rate) where drivers in the LEFT LANE on highways who are traveling SLOWER than teh general speed of traffic or the posted speed limit can be pulled over and ticketed! Hello people, if you want to drive under the speed limit, do it in the right-hand lane. When I took driver’s ed, I was taught that the left hand lane was for passing, therefore, the lane that you drove faster in? Is that something new that they added the year I took driver’s ed and then eradicated when it became evident that noone in this town was going to use it?????
Roo,
No, it sounds like it would be terribly confusing, though, to drive in England or Japan.
Wendy,
I find slow drivers in the left lane everywhere in this country, and I don’t like it either. As per my corrected comment above, I do my under-the-limit driving in the right lane. Left lane slow pokes seem to be either clueless (booze, drugs, or tired), distrracted (cellphones, kids, or rubbernecking), or passive aggressive trouble makers. The law you wrote about sounds like a good idea. Slowpokes in the left lane seem to cause a lot of road rage.
E.,
You got it! A month there and back, and it feels you have to re-learn the old ways. And don’t start about the manual transmission either, I once ended up opening the door reaching for the stick.
Roo
Eastborough…The inner borough portion of Wichita. Continually abuses it’s power and gets away it. So why does the City that feeds it allow it to go on? This non-sense 20 mph zone is and outrage with 1930 standards. Wake up it’s 2005.
Eastborough…The inner borough portion of Wichita. Continually abuses it’s power and gets away it. So why does the City that feeds it allow it to go on? This non-sense 20 mph zone is an outrage with 1930 standards. Wake up it’s 2005.