blue moon (2)

Wednesday, October 20, 2010

Tightening The Screws ©

I must be getting old or metric is finally getting to me.
I was reading the news and I saw that the OPP caught a bunch of guys speeding this week in their safety week blitz.
There was even a 71-year old guy popped for racing because he was driving 70 kms over the speed limit.
A guy on a motorcycle going over the speed limit by 100km.
Is that fast?

I mean, I was born before metric was installed and learned to drive in miles per hour (MPH) not kilometres per hour (KPH) so to me metric feels like turtle speed per hour (TSPH) compared to when I started driving but that’s cool.
With more cars on the road today I can see where slowing traffic down for the safety of the whole thing but let me tell you, 50, 70 or 100 km over the speed limit is a joke compared to when I was a 16 years old with my souped up Dart.
I did NOT have the fastest car in the city because there were dozens of guys with a lot of extra cash and the love of speed that blew my doors off when we raced.
Oh yeah, we raced.
Between midnight and 6am you can hear the screeching tires and roaring engines for miles around, usually followed by the blare of sirens.

In 1981 I got clocked by the OPP for doing 130 mph over the speed limit.
That’s miles not kilometres and the cops were hot on my ass.
We hit speeds of 180, 190 miles per hour or 300 kms.
I am not saying it’s a good thing, it’s crazy but for people to be freaking out over a guy who was going 170kms, that’s 105 mph.
Why do they make cars that go that fast for anyway if you are not allowed to lean on the gas?
HELLOOOOOOOOOO

It’s like the drinking and driving laws.
I understand and I believe it’s a good thing but the way they are going, soon you won’t be allowed to drink anything at all and drive.
As it is now you can’t drive with over a blood alcohol level over .05.
Fuck, you can hit .05 just by kissing a drunk.
What’s that, about a beer every hour and a half?
And the fines. $6000, $12,000.

I am not saying laws to curb speeding and impaired driving are bad.
In fact I support them, to a point.
For instance, anyone under the age of 21 in Ontario can’t have any alcohol in their blood.
Why 21?
Why not 19 which is the legal drinking age?

Right now if you get your license you are on probation for a couple of years and you are not allowed to have any alcohol in your blood for that period of time.

So if two kids, a 16 year old and a 19 year old went for their licenses together and passed.
After two years the 16 year old is 18 and the 19 year old is old enough to have a beer and drive.
That’s if he waits for an hour and a half after each drink and drinks a lot of water in between.

My problem is not that they are trying to make it safe.
My problem with a lot of this shit, is the over kill.
When laws become more and more stringent it takes away a lot of your freedoms.
We are slowly becoming a penal society and the bleeding hearts are waving the big dildo in the air that they are going to fuck you with.

The Temperance Society has slipped on a new dress, MADD (Mothers against drunk drivers), MMTL (Mothers married to lawyers) and attacked alcohol from both directions.
It’s only a matter of time before they try to ban booze and driving all together.

I believe in the beginning they were doing a good thing but now I think they are pushing it to far and the government is listening to them.
More education is needed not more laws.
The more laws that are written the more crime will rise.
Sounds stupid but it’s not.
Most crime is people rebelling against society.

If you don’t want people speeding don’t make fast cars or give them lanes to do it on.
If you don’t want people to drive drunk then make it mandatory to have a breath analyzer attached to the ignition of every new car made.
They exist, use them or do they need these problems for the money?

Me I don’t drink or drive.
Get stoned or drive either but I have in the past.
I made a conscious decision not to any more.
I tell my kids and everyone else’s why they shouldn’t but I won’t take a bat and threaten them so they never do.

Government better watch out that they don’t beat the dog to often.
It may turn and bite them back.

Speed can kill you.
Drunk driving kills the innocent.
To many laws kill the soul.
It’s all ugly any way you look at it

Have a nice day

Walker

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Unfortunately, they have to put these laws into place, because there are too many people out there who won't do it freely unless it hits their wallet. Similar to corporations who don't police themselves, so now the government feels the need to overcompensate by putting a gazzillion laws into place to safeguard the populous, which then makes it more difficult for honest companies to stay in business. So, a few ruin it for the rest of us.

Anonymous said...

p.s.,
I was all excited when I heard the opening beats of the song you have playing, and then I was sorely disappointed that it turned out not to be that Tom Petty song that we enjoyed together one night a long time ago :(

Opaque said...

Agree with Skye here. I was one of those who did not abide by the speed limits. I learnt it the hard way now though.

Walker said...

Skye : These laws are needed but what i am bitching about is when they make these laws even tougher for no reason.
The legal drinking age is 19 so you don;t need 21 year old drinking and driving laws because they shouldn't be drinking in the first place.

THe same with speeding.
Where is the logic of making vehicles that can exceep the speed limit two or three fold.

Fine the car manufactorers for traffiking fast cars.

Part of me believes alot of these laws are not for safety as much as to produce an income from them.

Walker said...

Opaque: OH i have broken many laws and still do break a few.
Laws are meant to supress some of our inhabitions but when they go to far, then what.
When we allow some laws to go beyond safety and into places that infringe our what's personal and none of their business, then what?
We become prisoners to the system and spawn crime.

Look at prohabition, all ist did was cause more trouble.
We are on that same path.
There has to be a happy medium or it will all fall into anarchy

Anonymous said...

Good point about the speed a car can get up to. Personally, I've never gone higher than 80 and that's when everyone else on the highway seemed to be passing by me as if I was standing still.

Thanks for the song addition! :)