We bought a new Subaru Forester in late 2010. It had been a long time coming. My Ford Escort was increasingly showing its age, among other things failing to start in really cold weather. For a couple months, we had three cars. I kept the Escort parked out front and used it for relatively short trips. It was handy. It also saved gas because it got roughly 27-33 miles to the gallon instead of the Forester’s 20-25.

It was a nice arrangement and I would have kept driving it until it stopped running. I still see it being driven around town by its new owner, so approaching two years later, it’s still going.

I sold it for a very small sum. The main reason I did was that I didn’t want the expense of insurance and registration. My father-in-law is about to sell one of his cars for the same reason.

The thought occurs to me that one minor thing we might be able to do to encourage people to drive more fuel-efficient vehicles is to change the way that we do auto insurance (and maybe registration). There isn’t much good reason, in my mind, that we’re charged per-car when we have more cars than drivers. The amount of road time with two people and one car is bound to make a difference than two people and two cars, but with more cars than drivers, one car is typically going to be on the sidelines at any given time. You might have to worry about them loaning the car out, but that’s really about it.

A lot of auto insurance is guesswork. There are factors we let them use and don’t let them use, but one of the biggest (how many miles we drive) is on the honor system and almost nobody I knows is particularly honorable. Maybe my insurance company is unique, but they could police this sort of thing more than they do. For whatever reason, it isn’t that big of a priority. There are estimates of who is driving which car more frequently, but these are just estimates and that doesn’t change by focusing more on the driver than the car.

Anyhow, there are reasons why going per-driver rather than per-car would be a good idea, environmentally speaking: it would encourage people to have lighter vehicles. The main reason we went with a crossover this time around was that sometimes we need to cargo/family space. Our next vehicle may be even larger. Most of the time, we don’t need this. But when we do, it’s good to have around. There would be real advantages to having an Escort sitting out front for trips that don’t matter much. Paying the extra insurance, however, complicates that. For no really good reason.

I consider Smart cars to be neat. I don’t think I’ll ever do the motorcycle thing, but I am just as happy in a tiny little car as a big one. But I can’t do the tiny little car, really, even for short trips by myself, because I need a family vehicle, I need cargo space, and I’m not going to pay the extra insurance on the same amount of driving. If you want me to drive a small car, you ought not penalize me for also having a larger one when I need it.

North Carolina has decided that emissions tests ought to be reserved for older cars, either those more than three models years back or with more than 70,000 miles. This sounds logical, but makes me a tad uncomfortable regardless. Mostly because of who is going to be driving the old cars, and who can afford new ones. The tests may have been unnecessary, but there was at least an egalitarianism.

Of course, emissions standards are more generally going to fall on those that can’t afford the latest and greatest anyway. The same applies to safety standards. Even if the folks with new cars had been required to get their car tested, they’d have failed at much lower rates than those prayin’ to the heavens that Old Bessy makes it through another year. If anything, this change merely codifies that distinction, and further recognizes the reality of the situation.

My trip down to Vegas took me through Real-Life Utah. There were some things that jumped out at me as worthy of note:

They’re combating Fatigued Driving in a constructive way. This is an issue that’s important to me because back when I was a full-time college student and had a full-time job and was writing at one paper and editing another, I got into two of these. I have also long worried about the hours my wife has worked and works and the toll it takes on her alertness. Anyhow, they have designated turn-off spots for fatigued drivers. This is good because if you are tired and pull over, you never know if you’re going to get ticketed (especially in a place that craves order like Utah). Letting you know it’s okay to do so, and where, is immensely helpful.

A good public/private partnership. In addition to public rest areas, they have also apparently worked things out with some way stations wherein they double as public rest areas. I guess the state pays these places some money and in return the restrooms are public, well-kept, and you won’t get hassled for loitering. This is an all-around win and I prefer these places to the actual rest areas and regular gas stations because if I want to buy something, I can (more than at a public rest stop), but I feel under no obligation to (as I do at a gas station).

Petting zoos. How family-friendly is Utah? Family-friendly enough that one of the gas stations had a petting zoo attached. With zebras.

Utah has 80mph speed limits. The signs all let us know that it’s experimental. They’re also heavily enforced. I’m not sure if that’s because of concern that drivers will take that as a license to go over 100 or because drivers already have. The end result is that on the way back, when the speed limit was 75 I drove 80 and when the speed limit was 80 I drove 80. Still, it’s a start.

I’ve complained before about the regulations with electronics and flight. I’d heard that there is some testing in the works for Kindle devices and was wondering if maybe they were considering lightening up on it.

Not United, though, that’s for sure. In fact, they’ve changed up their pre-flight lecture routine to… clarify… how serious they are about this. They repeat like fifty times that “off means off (and not Airplane Mode)” and have added rather than subtracted to the rules: no cell phones on – even in Airplane Mode – at any point in the flight.

As someone who uses their phone for a host of purposes, this is lame.

It’s also rather counterproductive. Presumably, they make a special case against phones for fear that people won’t actually turn the radios off. But the same can be said for tablets, which are allowed. Or computers, which are allowed.

A lot of this goes to what I think is the impossibility of drafting any sort of rules on this with any consistency.

It’s not unlike a large software company that I used to work for. They prohibited Pocket PCs for security reasons. But they allowed smartphones for productivity reasons. At the time, a smartphone was a Pocket PC with voice/data capabilities and a camera.

Due to ongoing sleep deficits, the inability to use (certain) electronics did not really turn out to be an issue this time. I was usually asleep during take-off and landing did not take long enough for boredom to set in before I could turn my cell back on.

For once, I won’t go into the entire story, but the four day adventure of my trip back to Genesis actually got started the night before, when I determined that I was not going to be able to get my wallet in time. No wallet, no ID.

I also could not locate my passport book or passport card, which made matters worse. What I could find, however, were three expired drivers licenses (Cascadia, Estacado, and Deseret) and my expired passport.

In a sane world, that would have been enough. The point of having identification at the airport is not to make sure that you have your papers in order (unless you’re leaving the country). The point of having identification at the airport is to ascertain or validate your identity.

Your driver’s license or passport need not be current in order to do this. It could have expired yesterday. It could have a hole punched through it because you relocated. You did not cease to be who you were when you got a new license or a new passport.

Granted, if you’re talking about identification that is fifteen years old, maybe the license isn’t the best way to ascertain your identity. But two of the three licenses I had would have been valid had it not been for a relocation.

Fortunately, I found my current passport book. Mom pestered me a great deal to get it renewed last year and I owe her some gratitude because I wouldn’t have had it had she not been such a pain about it.

Anyhow, even this only got me so far. The guy at the airport demanded another form of identification after I handed him the passport. Even though the passport is every bit as valid as the driver’s license that was missing. He decided to quiz me on the contents of the passport and let me through. I got the feeling he was expecting a “thank you” for letting me fly.

I wanted to say, “Dude, I had a ticket and valid identification. You are supposed to let me fly.”

I fear that at that point, he would have found a reason not to. But seriously, if the TSA is not going to follow the list of acceptable identification, why bother having a list?. (And beyond that, what logical reason is there to fear someone with a passport compared to a driver’s license? As far as national security goes, it is much more important that we be able to have faith in the legitimacy of a passport than in the legitimacy of a driver’s license.

I got pulled over yesterday for the second time in six months. Which is kind of funny for three reasons. First, because I intentionally speed less than I ever have in the past, and I don’t usually toy around with the 10mph grace period anymore. Second, because I live in a state that is known in the region for being lenient on speeders. Third, I drive less than I usually do. Despite 1 and 2, I’ve gotten pulled over on comparatively open highways for 10 and 11 over.

The last time, it was a relatively brief affair. Arapaho has a law that says if you get pulled over for 10mph or less during the daytime in good weather, you just pay the cop on the spot and it goes away (insurance never finds out about it). At first I was wondering if it was just a matter of the cop making a little money on the side, but he gave me official documentation and everything on it. It was one of those cases where I was going 85 in a 75, downhill, without intending to go 85.

Yesterday, I was taking Clancy to the doctor out in Alexandria. We were running a little behind, but even then I was sticking to 75 in a 70. I even commented, just a couple minutes before getting pulled over, that no matter how close the car behind was going to follow me and no matter how impatient they were, I was going to stick to 75. Apparently, I didn’t. The cop did a Uey and I looked down and saw that I was going about 80. So I got pulled over and the speed demon who’d been following right behind finally got rid of me blocking his way.

I told the officer about the appointment. If I’d been thinking, I would have said, “Officer, my wife, has a doctor’s appointment in Alexandria at 4:30. I apologize for going so fast. She was busy working the emergency room last night – she’s a doctor*, you see – and we ran behind so that we could make her appointment establishing care with the obstetrician that’s going to deliver our baby!” (How would he know otherwise?) Instead I just explained that we were falling behind and she had the appointment and we’re really sorry. It worked. He checked my license and he let us go. He said, “81 is a little too fast. Could you pare it down to 75?” “Yes, sir!”

It was rather fortunate that I put the updated registration sticker on my car a week ago. I lost the paper documentation for the latter part of license and registration, but I could point to the sticker. It was also a reminder that I need to put my wife’s registration sticker on her car.

* – Police officers tend to be lenient with doctors. Especially when they do emergency room work. Clancy said that he might have resented it if I’d laid it on too thick, so maybe it’s for the best that I didn’t.

As I have mentioned in the past, it’s a bit ironic that so many of the white cross arguments involve Utah. By “white cross” arguments, I mean the desire on the part of secularists to do away with the tradition of white crosses to mark the death of someone. The ironic thing about Utah is that it is the one state in the continental United States where the cross is not a symbol of the dominant religion (Mormons don’t really do crosses). In fact, it’s Utah first and foremost that I look at and actually believe that no, the cross does not have to be an establishing symbol of a specific religion (or series of religions). If that is what Utah were going for, they’d have little tooting Moronis on the site of the road. Or something.

As far as such crosses go, I can understand the objections even though I don’t actually share them. If anything, Christians themselves should be kind of anxious about their holy symbol being used for something that isn’t religious in nature. Sort of like the secularization of Christmas.

Arapaho makes extensive use of roadside crosses. And there is more of an establishment concern here than elsewhere, because they are put up by the state. There is one stretch of dangerous highway where my wife and I counted 30-something over just a few miles. They were put up by the state to underline, once twice and thirty-something times to drive carefully.

And part of the problem is that there is no other symbol that you see on the side of the road and know immediately what it means.

Which brings me to the point of this post: If crosses are really a problem, those that want to take the crosses down need to come up with a replacement. That would sell me on the issue. Instead of saying “Take down that cross” they should say “How about we use this instead.” I don’t know, and don’t really care what is used. It could be just a white stake in the ground. Something immediately recognizable and identifiable. Arapaho can put up a sign as you enter the Danger Zone saying (more concisely so that people don’t get into accidents as they try to read the sign) “Hey, you’re about to see a bunch of white stakes in the ground. This is where people died. So drive carefully!”

I got my auto registration for my Forester, Nader, and was in for a shock: It’s $325! Now, that won’t impress you Californians out there, but considering we just recently paid less than a third of that on my wife’s car, Ninjette, it was an unpleasant surprise. It was hefty last time for Nader, but I figured that was due to the fact it was a new car registration. It turns out that the state is engaging in affluence-discrimination. A form of progressive taxation under the idea that if you can afford a newish car (less than five years old) you must be fishin’ loaded. My inner conservative is outraged as this is yet another way our increased income is being chipped away at. My inner liberal points out that my paying $225 to the state ($100 is local) allows someone barely getting by on a clunker* to pay $30 (and less on the county, though I can’t find the exact number). Intellectually, the liberal wins. The conservative hasn’t calmed down yet.

Anyway, I hadn’t heard of this before. I thought three-digit registration was something that only blue coastal states did.

* – Ironically, this puts us in both categories, since my car is relatively new and my wife’s is almost old enough to get its own drivers license.

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When I got back to the airport in Deseret, I was happy to see that Nader was dirty as all getout. (I was not so happy that Nader’s battery was dead.) I feel like a bad Subaru owner when Nader is clean. Go to a Subaru dealership, and the pictures they have all over the walls are not of a clean car, but a picture of the dirtiest one they can find. In-keeping with the image and all that. I don’t exactly go offroading. I wouldn’t let it get dirty just to assuage my insecurities, but the below-freezing weather has made a carwash a bad idea. So, for now anyway, I feel like a proper Subaru owner.

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At Ataturk’s, a guy roled up in a Subaru Forester of the same color as mine. My first thought was “Hey, cool.”

My second thought was “You don’t see many of those down here.”

My third thought was “Why the hell would anybody down here by a Subaru?”

We bought ours strictly for climate reasons. Otherwise, no reason to care about the AWD. And without caring about the AWD, some of the competing cars are competitively priced. We probably would have gone with one of those.

The New Republic has a piece of Mitt Romney’s latent urbanism. I found this paragraph noteworthy:

Then there was the day Romney and Foy were together at a ribbon-cutting for a traffic-calming project and Romney started lamenting that Salt Lake City’s streets were too wide because they were designed in the days of wagon trains that needed to be able to turn around. “He thought that that was a problem and that New England had thankfully not had wagon trains, so its streets were more tightly knit … and more pedestrian-friendly,” Foy remembers.

Though Salt Lake City is not pedestrian friendly, the wide berth of its city streets is perhaps one of the greatest strengths of the SLC auto transit system. It’s absolutely amazing. One of those anachronisms that proved the city particularly well-suited for the age of the automobile. That’s not to say that there isn’t significant traffic downtown, but (a) it’s still considerably better than most places I’ve been and (b) due to the fact that all of the streets are so wide, it’s remarkably easy to avoid the worst spots. Or was when I was driving down there regularly. The freeway system is nothing but headaches. I look forward to getting off the interstate and onto the city streets. There aren’t many places I would say that about. At all.

To deal with the increasing downtown traffic, though, they’re doing something rather neat with the busier areas in order to cut down on left-hand turns (h/t Abel). They show a sign for the “thruturns” and I swear that I have actually seen it before but didn’t know what it meant. Now I know! It’s a pretty great concept, where you get to take a protected u-turn away from the congested intersection. It’s the exact sort of thing I do on a pretty regular basis when I can’t get to the right lane in time, except it’s implemented into the system.

Colorado tried something interesting where they sped everybody up by keeping and enforcing a 55mph speedlimit. By enforcing, I don’t mean straw-picking to get a ticket, but rather police cars out there actually making sure nobody is going faster than 55. If the age of antcars ever come, this should prove to be a real timesaver.

The Atlantic endorses congestion pricing. I am actually sympathetic, though tired of hearing about how “increasing the size of freeways doesn’t speed traffic up.” It’s not true anecdotally, and arguably not true at all or at least not true in any universal sense.

The folks at the Frum Forum have retracted their article in opposition to red light cameras, saying “they work.”

I don’t actually disagree with that. And honestly, if done in conjunction with other things, such as longer yellow lights and preferably a light timer, I would support them. There are two counterarguments to lengthening yellow lights. The first is that it causes all kinds of traffic problems because of the “very specific formula they use.” Which is interesting, because they don’t seem to have a problem shortening the duration of yellow lights. The second argument is that people adjust to the shorter duration and it doesn’t make any difference. Here’s a quote:

We did notice immediately that the number of violations dropped significantly. But within four days what we found was that people had changed their driving habits. They knew that they had extra time. And it was virtually the same number of red light runners occurred within 4 or 5 days after we changed that light.

Does this jump out at anybody else? Four or five days? How many people are going to even notice such a change, much less adapt to it? At least some drivers probably haven’t even driven through the intersection during these five days. It would have been more credible if he’d said “within six months” or something. Five days? That’s just… not credible.

And I don’t have to, because it’s been studied. The National Motorist Association, which is critical of red light cameras, has a host of studies on the subject, including one in Fairfax, Virgina:

Skrum continued, “Fairfax County records show that ‘events,’ red light violations, captured by the camera fell from an average daily rate of 52.1 per day before the yellow time increase to just 2 per day afterwards, a reduction of 94 percent.

“Fairfax County records also show that citations being issued dropped to just 0.82 citations a day on average during the 67 days after the yellow time was increased.

“This camera was activated February 8, 2001 by Lockheed Martin under an agreement with Fairfax County. The Virginia Department of Transportation is responsible for operating these signals. The decision to install a red light camera at this intersection confirms that this intersection was considered a location of serious violations with increased potential for accidents.

I could actually be convinced that it takes more than 67 days for people to adapt… but they’re already on the record as saying “4 or 5,” so there you go. Now, the NMA is a biased source. But what about the Texas Transportation Institute? They determine the following:

A before-after study is described and the resulting data used to quantify the effect of increasing the yellow interval on the frequency of red-light violations. Based on this research, it was concluded that: (1) an increase of 0.5 to 1.5 s in yellow duration (such that it does not exceed 5.5 s) will decrease the frequency of red-light-running by at least 50 percent; (2) drivers do adapt to the increase in yellow duration; however, this adaptation does not undo the benefit of an increase in yellow duration; and (3) increasing a yellow interval that is shorter than that obtained from a proposed recommended practice published by the Institute of Transportation Engineers (ITE) is likely to yield the greatest return (in terms of a reduced number of red-light violations) relative to the cost of re-timing a yellow interval in the field.

Both #2 (highlighted) and #3 are important. If we are going to use red light cameras, part of the package has to be following the proposed recommended practices of the ITE or independent civil engineers of some sort.

There are two important things to note about the TTI. First, they have also studied red light cameras and have determined that they are effective (even taking into account the increase in rear-enders). So, unlike the NMA, they are not saying anything about yellow lights in order to further an argument about red light cameras. Second, the original article cites the authority of… the TTI… in making its case.

So what have we learned here? We’ve learned that maybe there is reason to believe that we should institute red light cameras. We’ve also learned that there might be alternatives. But really, these alternatives are not mutually exclusive. We can do all of them. And if the goal were public safety, we would do them as a matter of course.

Above I mention light timers. By which I mean the thing they have on crosswalks that tell you how much time you have before the light changes color. The lazy cynical response to this is that it will just encourage more people to wait to the wire. This assumes, however, that everybody who runs red lights does so intentionally. I don’t think that’s the case. I think the ambiguity of not knowing how long you have causes people to ramp up because by the time the light turns yellow, they don’t know how long they have to get through, and they weren’t ready for the yellow light to begin with. I’d happily accept the results of a study on the subject, though, provided that it’s by an organization like the TTI or ITE rather than by someone with a real skin in the game.