The Speed Limit – Its NOT a Suggestion.

I just read a rather interesting article that confirmed my suspicion that the City of Houston has been writing ALOT of traffic tickets lately.  109,000 traffic tickets issued in the month of March.  That’s 3,500 traffic tickets PER DAY.

At first I was thinking that the City was getting concerned with driver safety, but who’s kidding who, this is all about a budget shortfall during difficult economic times.  The article went on to say that going back to 1999, they couldn’t find a month where anywhere close to this number of tickets had been issued.  Then again, Houston has not been in this much trouble with their budget either.

So what are we as drivers to do about this?  The obvious is slow down.  The speed limit is just that….a limit, a maximum, its not a suggestion that we can ignore.   They are out to get their budget balance on the backs of Houston drivers.   I used to be a believer in the “10 over” and you’re safe, but I think I need to dial that down to maybe “5 over” at most until the economy rebounds a bit.

The good news, if there is any here, is that maybe of the people getting tickets more and more will take a driver safety class or online driver safety course.  Then in time, the education that is gained from the training will slow down more and more drivers.   Maybe after taking the driver program there will also be fewer distracted drivers as they’ll be reminded in their training that cell phones, texting and the like is not a good combination while behind the wheel.   A stretch for more good news from taking a drivers safety programs, would be the discounts for auto insurance that drivers can also benefit from.

All in all, I think that the City of Houston is doing the right thing. We have some of the worst drivers in the nation and something needs to be done to stop the freeways from becoming  a NASCAR track.  If this raises revenue instead of taxes, then I suppose I’m all for it.