"Mosqvich" (mosqvich)
10/10/2013 at 12:01 • Filed to: Radar guns, Columbia, Missouri
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"Mosqvich" (mosqvich)
10/10/2013 at 12:01 • Filed to: Radar guns, Columbia, Missouri | 1
| 9 |
All of us have busy-body neighbors with the proverbial shrieks of "Get off my lawn!!!" spewing forth from their mouths. These are the grumpy know-it-alls leaning over the fence complaining about trouble in the hood who have high on their list of complaints "that kid in his hot rod tearing up the neighborhood." Sometimes they're right and other times they're imagining things since any motion over 5 mph in their little corner of the world translates into "they were driving like a bat out of hell." Well, the city of Columbia, Missouri is either going to empower them or shut them up.
Home to the University of Missouri and the canceled Travel Channel series Truck Stop USA , Columbia is an idyllic American midwest city. But it does have an awful lot of pesky youngsters from Mizzou, Stephens College, and Columbia College, no doubt street racing through its urban and suburban streets wreaking havoc and mayhem along the way. So, the brain trust at the city's Public Works Department is considering a program to loan out three radar guns to citizens who request them.
According the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! the department is considering requiring a $200 deposit from residents who want to rent out radar guns. The idea is this program could "help the city gather data about automobile traffic speeds in residential areas while potentially assuring residents that the automobiles passing by might not be traveling as fast as they had suspected", said Lee White, a traffic engineer with Public Works.
Will a program like this really help? Would three radar guns in the hands of untrained civilians provide meaningful data? Do the guns capture the data or will Grandma Betty have to take notes on her scientific findings when you whiz by in your Miata? Only time will tell.
Photo courtesy USAF TSgt Angelique Perez at Misawa AB, Japan
ddavidn
> Mosqvich
10/10/2013 at 12:17 |
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That is a terrible idea...
04sneaky - Boxers. Blowers. Bikes. And bitches.
> Mosqvich
10/10/2013 at 12:26 |
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Columbia, Missouri.Home of bright students, and legislators with dumb ideas.
I went to Mizzou for a year, and left because I couldn't stand the city. Loved the school, but it feels like the city is ran by people who are likely advocates for Neighborhood Watch.
And in a town ruled by college kids, that is the biggest load of irony if I've ever seen it.
DCCARGEEK
> Mosqvich
10/10/2013 at 12:31 |
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I've worked to close two roads and change the speed limit on one - it is a very time consuming process, but typically requires government analysis. While these people may be a catalyst for further analysis, I think their time would be better spent meeting with public officials to propose speed bumps or a fixed speed indicator.
BugEyedBimmer - back in the Saddle Dakota Leather
> Mosqvich
10/10/2013 at 12:34 |
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So what happens when the college kids chip in to rent one and spend their allotted time doing speed passes?
GhostZ
> Mosqvich
10/10/2013 at 12:35 |
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It would waste aggregate time, increase bureaucratic costs, and not lead to any reduction (short or long term) of danger.
Isn't the problem they want to solve noise and danger ? Not speed ?
I'd also like to mention that the things they are trying to stop are usually small incidents, and unless you already know when and were they will happen, aggregate data about them with only 3 radar guns is pretty much useless. Someone who knows statistics better than me could calculate the cost of getting a sufficient sample size to make any sort of claim.
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Mosqvich
> BugEyedBimmer - back in the Saddle Dakota Leather
10/10/2013 at 13:12 |
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That is an awesome idea!!!
TheOnelectronic
> Mosqvich
10/14/2013 at 21:08 |
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I like the idea, because I've been cane-shook several times while honestly going the speed limit, because people aren't nearly as good at judging speed as they think they are.
DrivenChannel
> Mosqvich
10/15/2013 at 09:17 |
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I have two concerns with this. My first is simple. What's to keep busy body grandma Betty from getting the radar guns and then claiming everyone driving up her street is going 30 over to get the police to set up a trap when really people weren't going that fast which would end up wasting the police departments time and resources? There needs to be some kind of gps based memory system built in to the radar guns to verify the speeds that were taken and where they were taken to compare against the speed limit of that area. My second problem is that there are several roads in this town that the speed limit is drastically lower than both the average speed travelled on that road and the safe speeds for that road. Speeding is not the problem to worry about in this town. There are some dumb asses who it no longer associate with who seem to still love street racing but those idiots are in the minority. I have lived in Columbia for 17 years now and I drive an average of 10-15mph over the speed limit most of the time I used to get tickets all the time in my youth but back in those days my average speeds were much higher. I have always considered this town a safe place to drive fast because unless you are in a dangerous looking car or there is smoke rolling out of the window because you're Cheech and chong you are going to be ok. They worry mostly about drinking and driving because it's a college town and drugs and violence because it's right between stl and kc. Any other como jalopers out there?
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DrivenChannel
> Mosqvich
10/15/2013 at 09:20 |
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I have two concerns with this. My first is simple. What's to keep busy body grandma Betty from getting the radar guns and then claiming everyone driving up her street is going 30 over to get the police to set up a trap when really people weren't going that fast which would end up wasting the police departments time and resources? There needs to be some kind of gps based memory system built in to the radar guns to verify the speeds that were taken and where they were taken to compare against the speed limit of that area. My second problem is that there are several roads in this town that the speed limit is drastically lower than both the average speed travelled on that road and the safe speeds for that road. Speeding is not the problem to worry about in this town. There are some dumb asses who it no longer associate with who seem to still love street racing but those idiots are in the minority. I have lived in Columbia for 17 years now and I drive an average of 10-15mph over the speed limit most of the time I used to get tickets all the time in my youth but back in those days my average speeds were much higher. I have always considered this town a safe place to drive fast because unless you are in a dangerous looking car or there is smoke rolling out of the window because you're Cheech and chong you are going to be ok. They worry mostly about drinking and driving because it's a college town and drugs and violence because it's right between stl and kc. Any other como jalopers out there?