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Post by the light works on Apr 12, 2018 1:08:06 GMT
the greatest legend of that rule is that Montana defined exceeding 55 MPH as "wasting resources" and levied a $5.00 fine, payable on the spot. We pay that in tolls every few miles. and people wonder why Oregonians are resistant to the idea of public/private infrastructure projects.
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Post by GTCGreg on Apr 12, 2018 3:41:23 GMT
We pay that in tolls every few miles. and people wonder why Oregonians are resistant to the idea of public/private infrastructure projects. The toll interstate roads in Illinois are run by the state. When Eisenhower proposed the interstate highway system, the Federal government would pay for half the cost of building the roads and the states would pay the other half. Illinois funded their half by issuing public bonds. They set roads up as toll roads with the promise that after the bonds were paid off, the roads would become free. Well of course you know what happened. After the bonds were paid off, the state said that they had to keep the tolls but the money from the tolls would only be used to maintain the roads. They actually did do a pretty good job of maintaining the roads but the tolls were bringing in so much money that there was a large surplus. So they decided to just throw all the money from the tolls into the state's general fund and then turn the maintenance of the roads over to the regular state transportation department. After that, the toll roads were no longer maintained at the same level and really started to go to pot (holes). The state was spending the general fund so fast that there wasn't enough money to properly maintain ANY of the state highways. So, in an effort to raise more money for the general fund, they doubled the tolls. Of course the additional money from the tolls still wasn't used to improve maintenance on the roads. So now, we have some of the highers tolls in the nation as well as some of the worse maintained roads. No private sector infrastructure required.
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Post by the light works on Apr 12, 2018 4:50:54 GMT
and people wonder why Oregonians are resistant to the idea of public/private infrastructure projects. The toll interstate roads in Illinois are run by the state. When Eisenhower proposed the interstate highway system, the Federal government would pay for half the cost of building the roads and the states would pay the other half. Illinois funded their half by issuing public bonds. They set roads up as toll roads with the promise that after the bonds were paid off, the roads would become free. Well of course you know what happened. After the bonds were paid off, the state said that they had to keep the tolls but the money from the tolls would only be used to maintain the roads. They actually did do a pretty good job of maintaining the roads but the tolls were bringing in so much money that there was a large surplus. So they decided to just throw all the money from the tolls into the state's general fund and then turn the maintenance of the roads over to the regular state transportation department. After that, the toll roads were no longer maintained at the same level and really started to go to pot (holes). The state was spending the general fund so fast that there wasn't enough money to properly maintain ANY of the state highways. So, in an effort to raise more money for the general fund, they doubled the tolls. Of course the additional money from the tolls still wasn't used to improve maintenance on the roads. So now, we have some of the highers tolls in the nation as well as some of the worse maintained roads. No private sector infrastructure required. Meanwhile Oregon has a gasoline tax earmarked for road maintenance. the tax has been the same since 20 MPG was fuel efficient.
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Post by silverdragon on Apr 12, 2018 7:07:26 GMT
And in Manchester, like a few other cities in UK, we are told that there is 4 billion of road maintenance to be paid by the local council tax payer, despite us all paying Road tax that is supposed to pay for upkeep of the roads.... Erm, hows that go again?. If I was to pay tax for road maintenance in one bill, your going to charge me twice?. Questions to be asked, what happening to the money raised in Road tax?.
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Post by c64 on Apr 14, 2018 11:23:00 GMT
the greatest legend of that rule is that Montana defined exceeding 55 MPH as "wasting resources" and levied a $5.00 fine, payable on the spot. Here is the tariff list of Germany: outside city limits: … up to 10 km/h 10 € / … 11 - 15 km/h 20 € / … 16 - 20 km/h 30 € / … 21 - 25 km/h 70 € 1 … 26 - 30 km/h 80 € 1 (1 Month)* … 31 - 40 km/h 120 € 1 (1 Month)* … 41 - 50 km/h 160 € 2 1 Month … 51 - 60 km/h 240 € 2 1 Month … 61 - 70 km/h 440 € 2 2 Month over 70 km/h 600 € 2 3 Month
* if you do it twice within 12 months
e.g. if you are 50kph too fast, you pay €160, earn 2 "points in Flensburg" and they take away your driver's license away for one month. The "Flensburg Points" are collectible but they expire over time. If you have collected 8 or more of them, they take away your driver's license for at least 6 months. If you had that happen before or you did something seriously wrong to earn so much points fast, you can't have your license back before you did an "MPU" (medical psychological examination), the so called "idiot test". Taking an MPU costs €650. If your license was gone for over a year, you need to apply and pay for a new one, including driving school which usually costs between €1500 and €2700. And here is the table for speeding within city limits: Tatbestand Bußgeld Punkte Fahrverbot bis 10 km/h 15 Euro / 11 - 15 km/h 25 Euro / 16 - 20 km/h 35 Euro / 21 - 25 km/h 80 Euro / 26 - 30 km/h 100 Euro 1 (1 Monat)* 31 - 40 km/h 160 Euro 2 1 Monat 41 - 50 km/h 200 Euro 2 1 Monat 51 - 60 km/h 280 Euro 2 2 Monate 61 - 70 km/h 480 Euro 2 3 Monate über 70 km/h 680 Euro 2 3 Monate
And here is the price list of DUI (Alcohol) Tatbestand Bußgeld Punkte Fahrverbot weitere Strafen 1. Verstoß gegen die 0,5-Promillegrenze 500 Euro 2 1 Monat - 2. Verstoß gegen die 0,5-Promillegrenze 1000 Euro 2 3 Monate MPU ab 3. Verstoß gegen die 0,5-Promillegrenze 1500 Euro 2 3 Monate MPU Gefährdung Straßenverkehr unter Alkoholeinfluss - 3 - Entziehung, Fahrerlaubnis, Geld- oder Freiheitsstrafe
First line when caught you once, second line when caught you twice and third line when caught you more than twice. Fourth line if you had endangered other people while DUI which gives you 3 bonus points in Flensburg, a mandatory detoxification program, extra fines and/or prison. There is a big catalogue for earning points in Flensburg. E.g.: Overtaking a vehicle on the right hand side: 1P Not stopping when the Police tells you: 1P Driving without lights (dense fog/rain or @night): 1P Crossing railways with blinking lights: 2P Running a red traffic light: 2P There is a myth that you can earn 100 points when you overtake a speeding police car while driving on the Autobahn into the wrong direction...
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Post by the light works on Apr 14, 2018 13:32:12 GMT
here, (my state) driving too fast is speeding, and driving way too fast is reckless driving. reckless driving can put you in jail. but montana is a big state, with few people - 100 miles is considered "nearby." for many years they just trusted people to drive at a reasonable speed,
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Post by c64 on Apr 17, 2018 19:15:58 GMT
here, (my state) driving too fast is speeding, and driving way too fast is reckless driving. reckless driving can put you in jail. but montana is a big state, with few people - 100 miles is considered "nearby." for many years they just trusted people to drive at a reasonable speed, Until someone had figured out where the odd modern art sculptures at the side of the road come from?
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Post by the light works on Apr 18, 2018 0:28:44 GMT
here, (my state) driving too fast is speeding, and driving way too fast is reckless driving. reckless driving can put you in jail. but montana is a big state, with few people - 100 miles is considered "nearby." for many years they just trusted people to drive at a reasonable speed, Until someone had figured out where the odd modern art sculptures at the side of the road come from? until people got the idea Montana having no speed limit meant they could drive as fast as their car would go. - which was never true, they still used basic speed law (don't go faster than a reasonable and prudent speed for the conditions)
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Post by c64 on May 6, 2018 9:53:18 GMT
and people wonder why Oregonians are resistant to the idea of public/private infrastructure projects. The toll interstate roads in Illinois are run by the state. When Eisenhower proposed the interstate highway system, the Federal government would pay for half the cost of building the roads and the states would pay the other half. Illinois funded their half by issuing public bonds. They set roads up as toll roads with the promise that after the bonds were paid off, the roads would become free. Well of course you know what happened. After the bonds were paid off, the state said that they had to keep the tolls but the money from the tolls would only be used to maintain the roads. They actually did do a pretty good job of maintaining the roads but the tolls were bringing in so much money that there was a large surplus. So they decided to just throw all the money from the tolls into the state's general fund and then turn the maintenance of the roads over to the regular state transportation department. After that, the toll roads were no longer maintained at the same level and really started to go to pot (holes). The state was spending the general fund so fast that there wasn't enough money to properly maintain ANY of the state highways. So, in an effort to raise more money for the general fund, they doubled the tolls. Of course the additional money from the tolls still wasn't used to improve maintenance on the roads. So now, we have some of the highers tolls in the nation as well as some of the worse maintained roads. No private sector infrastructure required. Here in Germany, we WISH we would have tolls on the roads. We pay an annual tax for each "motor-vehicle" we own. When you buy a new car, you often get a free year or two in tax because your spiffy new car is soooooooo green. If your car then turns 5 years or older, they add an additional "stinker tax" because your car is so outdated and really bad for the environment. Not buying new cars every few years is bad for the economy... Then there is tax on mineral oils since using mineral oils is bad for the environment and we should all use less of those. When processed to gasoline and diesel, there is a fuel tax added since burning fuel is bad for the environment and we all should use less of it. So there is a tax on a tax here! You pay more fuel tax because there is a mineral oil tax on it already. And then there is VAT you pay on top of the mineral oil and fuel tax! And this money is not directly used to maintain roads. Instead of filling portholes, it mainly fills fiscal gaps. With a toll system, filling fiscal gaps first would be illegal. But we can't have a toll system since then they can't charge you for owning a vehicle any more because this money is meant for maintaining roads. So a Germany citizen would pay the toll vignette with the saved vehicle toll. And this is supposed to be unfair to foreigners which don't have tax on their vehicles to save in the first place so they need to actually pay to use our roads! So unlike the Austrians, we can't have road tax vignettes I also have a rather nasty problem with my EURO upgraded car. To be allowed to enter "environmental zones", my car had to become "cleaner". The easiest way to do that is to upgrade the crankcase vent system to prevent burning too much oil. Originally there was just a hose between the valve lid and the injection block. Exhaust fumes seeping around the piston rings blew through the oiling system into the area of the valves where they vent into the air intake of the engine. Works good! Now the upgrade is replacing a revision cover of the actual crank case with one with a pipe joining the hose between the valve lid and injection block. Now at high RPM, the oil foam created by the crank is pushed into that pipe priming the vent system with foam. The moment you release the accelerator out of a sudden, the foam is pushed into the air intake with great force. Now oil is leaking out everywhere! It comes out if the bearings of the throttle flap, out of electric plugs of the injection system, it even comes out of seams of the entire air intake system! The entire engine bay is a sticky, oily mess! But I can legally enter "environmental zones" BECAUSE the engine spills a lot of oil everywhere!
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Post by silverdragon on May 6, 2018 10:08:57 GMT
Until someone had figured out where the odd modern art sculptures at the side of the road come from? until people got the idea Montana having no speed limit meant they could drive as fast as their car would go. - which was never true, they still used basic speed law (don't go faster than a reasonable and prudent speed for the conditions) I was party to a petition that would use images such as the above in a rather graphic poster placed under changes of speed restriction to lower limits just inside city or town boundaries... Unfortunately, even though we promotede that the owner of the vehicle and family of those involved should be asked first to get permission, it was considered, but rejected, because "Its too graphic and may scare some people". Pah!!, if you ask me, scaring the cr@p outa some drivers is the only way you will get their attention....
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Post by the light works on May 6, 2018 11:21:20 GMT
The toll interstate roads in Illinois are run by the state. When Eisenhower proposed the interstate highway system, the Federal government would pay for half the cost of building the roads and the states would pay the other half. Illinois funded their half by issuing public bonds. They set roads up as toll roads with the promise that after the bonds were paid off, the roads would become free. Well of course you know what happened. After the bonds were paid off, the state said that they had to keep the tolls but the money from the tolls would only be used to maintain the roads. They actually did do a pretty good job of maintaining the roads but the tolls were bringing in so much money that there was a large surplus. So they decided to just throw all the money from the tolls into the state's general fund and then turn the maintenance of the roads over to the regular state transportation department. After that, the toll roads were no longer maintained at the same level and really started to go to pot (holes). The state was spending the general fund so fast that there wasn't enough money to properly maintain ANY of the state highways. So, in an effort to raise more money for the general fund, they doubled the tolls. Of course the additional money from the tolls still wasn't used to improve maintenance on the roads. So now, we have some of the highers tolls in the nation as well as some of the worse maintained roads. No private sector infrastructure required. Here in Germany, we WISH we would have tolls on the roads. We pay an annual tax for each "motor-vehicle" we own. When you buy a new car, you often get a free year or two in tax because your spiffy new car is soooooooo green. If your car then turns 5 years or older, they add an additional "stinker tax" because your car is so outdated and really bad for the environment. Not buying new cars every few years is bad for the economy... Then there is tax on mineral oils since using mineral oils is bad for the environment and we should all use less of those. When processed to gasoline and diesel, there is a fuel tax added since burning fuel is bad for the environment and we all should use less of it. So there is a tax on a tax here! You pay more fuel tax because there is a mineral oil tax on it already. And then there is VAT you pay on top of the mineral oil and fuel tax! And this money is not directly used to maintain roads. Instead of filling portholes, it mainly fills fiscal gaps. With a toll system, filling fiscal gaps first would be illegal. But we can't have a toll system since then they can't charge you for owning a vehicle any more because this money is meant for maintaining roads. So a Germany citizen would pay the toll vignette with the saved vehicle toll. And this is supposed to be unfair to foreigners which don't have tax on their vehicles to save in the first place so they need to actually pay to use our roads! So unlike the Austrians, we can't have road tax vignettes I also have a rather nasty problem with my EURO upgraded car. To be allowed to enter "environmental zones", my car had to become "cleaner". The easiest way to do that is to upgrade the crankcase vent system to prevent burning too much oil. Originally there was just a hose between the valve lid and the injection block. Exhaust fumes seeping around the piston rings blew through the oiling system into the area of the valves where they vent into the air intake of the engine. Works good! Now the upgrade is replacing a revision cover of the actual crank case with one with a pipe joining the hose between the valve lid and injection block. Now at high RPM, the oil foam created by the crank is pushed into that pipe priming the vent system with foam. The moment you release the accelerator out of a sudden, the foam is pushed into the air intake with great force. Now oil is leaking out everywhere! It comes out if the bearings of the throttle flap, out of electric plugs of the injection system, it even comes out of seams of the entire air intake system! The entire engine bay is a sticky, oily mess! But I can legally enter "environmental zones" BECAUSE the engine spills a lot of oil everywhere! in Oregon, you pay a fee to register the vehicle which covers the cost of tracking vehicle registrations. you also pay a tax on fuel which is intended to roughly cover the cost of your share of the wear and tear on the roads. the idea behind it is if you burn more fuel, then you are also doing more wear and tear, and therefore you pay more tax. this tax IS specified to only be allowed to go to road maintenance, which is a bit problematic, because some activists back in the 90s got an initiative passed that this did not include maintaining roadside rest stops (which include public toilets), and a few other things the gas tax used to also cover, and many of those have been closed. part of this comes from the fact that cars are now being designed to wear out the roads on less fuel than they used to, which, of course, would have a simple solution of raising the gas tax a little bit. the new problem that is coming is that there is no mechanism in place to put a usage tax on electric cars. there are those in the powers that be who think that the fuel tax should be replaced by a weight/mile tax, but that is getting a lot of flak, because it takes something a fuel tax does automatically and turns it into paperwork and an opportunity for people to cheat. (the fuel tax is included in the price at the pump, not added to the bill after the price at the pump - the fuel wholesaler pays the tax on the total number of gallons of fuel he sells) a better solution, to my mind would be to have power companies pay a road tax based on the percentage of their power that is estimated to be used for electric vehicles - this would essentially be diverted from their income tax to road maintenance.
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Post by the light works on May 6, 2018 11:23:59 GMT
until people got the idea Montana having no speed limit meant they could drive as fast as their car would go. - which was never true, they still used basic speed law (don't go faster than a reasonable and prudent speed for the conditions) I was party to a petition that would use images such as the above in a rather graphic poster placed under changes of speed restriction to lower limits just inside city or town boundaries... Unfortunately, even though we promotede that the owner of the vehicle and family of those involved should be asked first to get permission, it was considered, but rejected, because "Its too graphic and may scare some people". Pah!!, if you ask me, scaring the cr@p outa some drivers is the only way you will get their attention....
my objection would be that it would be another big signboard for people to look at instead of the road. the other thing is that those are mostly from people doing the stupid, which includes drunk driving, and are better suited for that campaign.
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Post by GTCGreg on May 6, 2018 12:51:47 GMT
As for tolls and taxes, in Illinois we get the best of both worlds. Not only do we pay many of the taxes that C 64 mentions, but we get to pay tolls as well. Another brilliant move by our politicians, if you pay tolls in cash, they are double what they are if you subscribe to electronic tolling.Go Illinois!
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