[rammstein]

This is my biggest beef with interstate highways having a 65mph speed limit on straight and flat sections. If the limit was 100mph, the speed patrolling would move to the neighborhood level, where it should be.

Changing the freeway limits to 100 or greater would, of course, have to be bundled with a host of other changes. Changes I would welcome.

These changes would include:

- Annual safety inspections of vehicles. I love that a car will be tested for emissions, but drive away with shocks so far gone that the wheels perpetually hop OFF OF THE ROAD. This safety inspection would be for permission to drive on interstate highways. No bald tires, no worn-out brakes. You can still drive your jalopy to the grocery store, but if you go onto a freeway without your new sticker, you lose your car. BAM.

- Annual driving tests. Tests would be really hard. If you want to drive on highways, you need to pass a secondary test. Even more 'difficult'. Test would include MERGING, CHANGING LANES USING SIGNALS, KEEPING RIGHT WHEN NOT PASSING, etc.

- Re-scaled traffic violation fines. Serious offenses would include- lane change without signal, failure to merge properly, failure to yield, erratic driving. With police vehicles having quality on-board cameras, these offenses should be easier to prove in court.

Until we accept that the times have changed, cops will be forced to sit on I-95 and pick off cars for going 75 in a 55, when in your neighborhood people are going 20 over just feet away from kids on bikes.

Maybe this should be a political hot-topic instead of whether or not a candidate smoked weed 20 years ago or said something negative about gays or something.