Texting Ban May Soon Be Enforced on Florida’s Deadly Roads

On my way home Saturday afternoon, got a guy ahead of me driving a bit erratically. Pull up beside him, look over and down - dude has his phone stuck in front of his gauges, watching netflix/hulu. This guy came into my lane a couple times.

Crap like this all the time. Getting worse and worse, to the extent that I'm considering if I might need to move. I'm not going to stop riding my motorcycle because my fellow drivers are morons.
 
I've been in bumper to bumper traffic before, had some guy pass me on a Harley SMSing on his phone, no hands on the handlebars, not watching the road ahead of him at all - Trafficc probably doing around 15mph at the time.

Survival of the fittest?
 
After the recent hurricane here in Florida they put up cameras at every single intersection along US1 for 20 miles. I wonder if they will be using those cameras for this? I hope so.
 
Driving in Miami can be a white-knuckle experience, but I don't know that a nominal fee is going to do anything about that. As many drivers as I've seen falling asleep at the wheel there, they'd be better off just banning driving altogether.
 
This morning, I sat stopped behind a cop for 10 seconds at a green light, as he played with his in-car PC ... I bet he never looks at it while driving.
 
c3k said:
Somewhere, innocent until proven guilty is being forgotten.

A cop says it, so it’s true?
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No - a ticket is not an actual conviction. If you want to fight it, you go to court. If you just pay the fine, you're admitting your guilt. Feel free to fight it all you want. Expect to have to show your phone records which denote all your texting times.

BB
 
BB Gun said:
No - a ticket is not an actual conviction. If you want to fight it, you go to court. If you just pay the fine, you're admitting your guilt. Feel free to fight it all you want. Expect to have to show your phone records which denote all your texting times.

BB
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Exactly. You've been approached by law enforcement...with arrest powers...and now you're in hock to a court and a prosecutor. But it's because you "willingly" gave up your rights by driving on a public road. It's all a scam to grab money.

Innocent until proven guilty should apply in EVERY aspect of a citizen being accosted by the government.
 
c3k...

You *are* innocent until proven guilty.

That's exactly why a ticket is not a conviction, that's why cops can't levee fines at traffic stops, etc.

I'm trying to understand your level of outrage. Accusation != guilt. It only equals inconvenience ; or money if you admit guilt.

The state doesn't like to lose money, either, and phone records and data records can easily disprove incorrect accusations for most of it. So high numbers of spurious accusations will be a money loser for the state. Relax.

I'm generally a civil libertarian, but this is small potatoes that is easily self correcting.
 
BB Gun said:
c3k...

You *are* innocent until proven guilty.

That's exactly why a ticket is not a conviction, that's why cops can't levee fines at traffic stops, etc.

I'm trying to understand your level of outrage. Accusation != guilt. It only equals inconvenience ; or money if you admit guilt.

The state doesn't like to lose money, either, and phone records and data records can easily disprove incorrect accusations for most of it. So high numbers of spurious accusations will be a money loser for the state. Relax.

I'm generally a civil libertarian, but this is small potatoes that is easily self correcting.
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Outrage? That kind of hyperbole does nothing to further a rational discussion.

Tickets ARE convictions. How many ticketed drivers are considered innocent in court? The police officer's word is considered "law". "I clocked him at 70 in a 55." Prove it. Well, here's the ticket I wrote.

The State benefits and PROFITS from these traffic stops. Now, consider this. What if the State took the fines and then, converting it to cash, DESTROYED the money? The driver would be out the cash...and the State would not profit.

Until that happens, and court costs are covered by taxes, not fees, then the entire traffic ticket INDUSTRY is, in my view, corrupt.

More later. Out...and texting on phones is not the best form. ;)
 
Would it be illegal to use a helmet cam to get places and video of people driving distracted and posting it to a name/shame website?
 
c3k said:
Outrage? That kind of hyperbole does nothing to further a rational discussion.

Tickets ARE convictions. How many ticketed drivers are considered innocent in court? The police officer's word is considered "law". "I clocked him at 70 in a 55." Prove it. Well, here's the ticket I wrote.
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No they're not. Having beaten two tickets ( and just sent in the fine on a few others where they had me dead to rights ), I know for a fact they are not convictions. Yes, the system is a pain in the ass that encourages you just pay because it is usually not worth the inconvenience (though when accused of something, where else are you going to fight it but in a court of law?), but they are not convictions.

The State benefits and PROFITS from these traffic stops. Now, consider this. What if the State took the fines and then, converting it to cash, DESTROYED the money? The driver would be out the cash...and the State would not profit.

Until that happens, and court costs are covered by taxes, not fees, then the entire traffic ticket INDUSTRY is, in my view, corrupt.

More later. Out...and texting on phones is not the best form. ;)
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Again, too many spurious tickets that are beaten in court and the system will self correct itself regarding "abuse" - going to court costs them way more than they collect in a typical fine, and when enough people go to beat (or even just fight) spurious charges, the spurious charges will stop.

BB
 
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