View Single Post
  #79   Report Post  
Posted to alt.home.repair
DerbyDad03 DerbyDad03 is offline
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 14,845
Default When a gallon is not a gallon

On Feb 29, 2:30*pm, "Percival P. Cassidy" wrote:
On 02/29/08 12:30 pm DerbyDad03 wrote:





Lets say that you have been driving through "Smithville" every day
forever. One night "Smithville" changes all of the speed signs to
reflect a speed which is now 20 MPH lower.


The next morning you are driving through "Smithville" and are pulled
over for speeding. The officer points out the new signs and then issues
a ticket. Would you accept the ticket, plead guilty and pay the fine or
protest it because of lack of notice?


Or lets say that you have been parking in "Brownville" forever to do
errands etc on your way home. The "Brownville" parking rules have been
free parking after 6PM forever. They change the rules without any
announcement and you find a $45 ticket on your car. Would you pay it?

Are you really expecting an answer to those questions?


If I must...


To keep it simple, here's a short program I wrote:


PSL = Posted Speed Limit
DS = Driver's Speed
IF DS PSL Then Driver Guilty of Speeding


How would you like it to read?


PSL = Posted Speed Limit
DS = Driver's Speed
IF DS PSL Then
*If Driver has been driving the route every day forever then
* *Driver Not Guilty of Speeding
*Else Driver Guilty of Speeding


Gimme a break. The town has no *obligation* to inform drivers of a
change in the speed limit or of the parking rules. Would it be nice if
they did? Sure. Do they try to do it in most cases? Sure. *However,
it's the obligation of the person driving the route or parking his car
to read the signs and follow the rules or risk paying the
consequences. Just like it's the obligation of the shopper to read the
labels and determine for themselves how much they're getting and how
much they're paying for it.


Ya know, by your logic, we shouldn't have to pay the same price for
the smaller package because they didn't tell us beforehand. Let me
know how that works out for you.


The speed limit illustration demonstrates another result of
decentralization and letting every little tin-pot community make its own
rules. When I was growing up in UK there was only one speed limit: 30mph
(with some clearly posted exceptions, such as within x feet/yards of a
hospital entrance, where it might have been 20mph or less). So it was
30mph or unrestricted. If there was "a system of street lighting"
(defined, ISTR, as a system of lights spaced not more than x feet/yards
apart -- so a solitary street light miles from anywhere didn't count),
the speed limit was 30mph unless otherwise indicated. If there was no
such "system of street lighting," there was no speed limit, unless
otherwise indicated -- and that indication had to be repeated by
miniature speed-limit signs spaced not more than x feet/yards apart.
None of this one speed limit sign hidden behind bushes at the township
limit and a police officer lurking around the next bend with a radar
gun. (Later they introduced a 40mph speed limit, some areas going from
30mph to 40mph and some going from no limit to 40mph. BTW, one survey
showed that drivers often slowed down on going from a 30mph zone to a
40mph zone: a 30mph limit was too low to be taken seriously, but 40mph
was reasonable.)

In New York I used to drive one stretch of road quite often. The road
conditions and population density were about the same, but the speed
limit varied from 40mph to 25mph to 35mph to 30mph, depending on the
whim of the particular village's legislators. Ridiculous!

(I just remembered that in one or two places in the USA I have seen
advance warning signs reading "New Speed Limit Ahead.")

Perce- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -


.