The unblinking eye

Editorial Copyright 1999 Washington Times August 29, 1999

In case you hadn't noticed, Big Brother is watching you. And as usual, the pretext for focusing the unflinching eye of government power upon us is "our safety."

National Park Service officials just announced the impending installation of photo radar along the George Washington Parkway. The Park Service - remember when the very name was synonymous with friendly rangers, Yogi and pic-a-nic baskets? - says the machines are necessary to curb "speeding" and "aggressive driving." Audrey Calhoun, superintendent of the parkway, said the "speed on the Parkway and all the aggressive driving has been a problem for years."

But let's cut through the tofu, shall we? In the first place, speed limits on the parkway are artificially low and have been for years. This has been true since the early 1970s, when Congress imposed the 55-mph "National Maximum Speed Limit" (NMSL) as a fuel conservation measure. "Drive 55" never had anything to do with "safety" - until, in a remarkable example of Orwellian manipulation of language, meaning and context, it was hijacked by politicians and insurance companies (who both saw it as a means to increase their control and revenue, etc.). They converted stupid, artificially low speed limits enacted to curtail fuel consumption into a "safety" issue. Suddenly, highway speeds once deemed perfectly reasonable and prudent (e.g., 70-75 mph) became "reckless" and evidence of "aggressive driving."

It didn't matter that accident and fatality data have never shown a correlation between driving at those speeds and increased accidents or deaths. It was of no importance that the highway engineers who created the interstate system - back in the 1950s - designed those roads to handle safely traffic moving at speeds between 70 and 80-mph - with speeds higher than that still well within the bounds of the road's design and the capability of the average driver.

What did matter was that by lowering legal maximums to absurd levels - as in 55-mph on the Parkway, a limited-access highway that should be posted at 65-70 mph - most drivers were almost always violating the limit - and hence vulnerable to being ticketed. Ka-ching.

If most people are violating a speed limit, there's something unnatural about the limit - because people are neither suicidal nor generally inclined to behave erratically or dangerously. They drive within their limits and at speeds they feel comfortable with. If commuters and minivan drivers feel safe at 65-70 mph, and that's the normal flow of traffic, maybe that's where the speed limits should be set - highway engineers call this the "85th percentile" speed, by the way - and forget about the photo radar and trying to force people to drive 10-20 mph below what was considered perfectly safe 25 years ago.

But that isn't going to happen and the truth will never be acknowledged. The flood of money generated by these silly speed limits has proved so addictive that politicians can't wean themselves from the teat; neither will insurance companies admit the truth - which is that ludicrously low speed limits combined with aggressive enforcement equals Big Bucks for them in the form of "surcharges" for each ticket on a policy-holder's DMV record.

This business with photo radar will simply make the whole process more efficient - instant tickets, instant cash, with no need to waste the time of the gendarme haranguing motorists with cant-laden speeches about the dangers of "speeding." Just send in the money, pal.

Your tax dollars will also be used to finance the equipment that will send you the tickets. American Traffic Systems of Arizona will get $100,00 for each of the three cameras to be used in the initial "trial run." But the cameras will more than pay for themselves in just a few months; you can bet your premium on that.

One wonders where the federal government (the Park Service is a federal agency and the parkway falls under federal jurisdiction) got the authority to impose such measures upon the citizenry. The handful of states where photo radar has been experimented with have had to pass special laws to make it all legit (even if it is still wrong).

In the end, though, what matters is how we answer a simple question: Is catching "speeders" so important that we are willing to permit powerful bureaucrats to supervise us, night and day? Do we really want a "surveillance society" where our every move is scrutinized?

Nixing photo radar will mean some "speeders" get away with driving faster than some bureaucrat thinks appropriate. It also means we won't be under the thumb of people who've well-demonstrated they can't be trusted with such power. Area residents should encourage the Park Service to put the brakes on this bad idea.

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