VA Speeding Fines increasing...

[.RJ]

IMO I wouldn't find it a much better place to live than nova unless you can really afford to live in a nice area

Grass always greener of course. People that grew up around there are probably itching to go somewhere else and trade a new location for a different set of issues to deal with.

[JackoliciousLegs]

Grass always greener of course. People that grew up around there are probably itching to go somewhere else and trade a new location for a different set of issues to deal with.

Nooo... who would do that?

[HAULN-SS]

More on this:

Out-of-State Drivers: Why Not?
Many of the follow-up questions I received about the abuser fee article last week centered around the out-of-state driver question. For those of you who can follow a complex legal theorem, here it is:

Under Virginia's Constitution, traffic fines have to be deposited into Virginia's "literary fund," which funds school construction. The Constitution says that this money cannot be funneled to transportation. In order to change the Constitution so that the literary fund could be used for transportation, it would take about three years. If we changed the Constitution, it would also ensure that roads and schools would directly compete with each other, so at this point I do not even think it would be a wise proposal.

For these reasons, we decided the "abuser fees" would be classified as fees, not fines. There was one problem with that - we had no effective way to capture out-of-state drivers with a fee.

Try as we might, Governor Kaine, the Attorney General, and several legislators all thought of ways to legally bring in out-of-state drivers to the abuser fee. We could not. That is why the legislation looks the way it does today.

[Ginger]

"Well, we looked and looked for a way to cheat everybody all at once... we couldn't find one. So now we just cheat Virginians, we desecrated the state constitution, became the first Robber Barons of the 21'st century, misdirected the public in an attempt to hide the fact that our over budget, under effective projects didn't go how we planned, and finally we took money out of our state's school system. Aren't you proud?"

[.RJ]

In light of today's discussion, on my way to the county gov't center to pay last year's vehicle taxes, I thought about this some more. On 66, in several spots, they were handing out HOV tickets - but in doing so, the cops step out in to traffic so they can either check the car or pull them over. What does this do? Creates a traffic backup for 10 miles. As soon as we get past this nonsense, traffic flows normally. So, how is HOV and handing out tickets answering any question of revenue generation?

Once I get to the gov't center (to pay the property tax that I couldnt pay online because their online payment was broken), they dont take credit cards.... but they have a conveniently located ATM that they can charge you a fee to use. I could have paid with a check, but did not have the foresight to do so, since the person I spoke with on the phone there said they take credit cards. Hooray for serving the needs of the people.....

God forbid the state made its operations more efficient (although the DMV, gov't center, etc have come a long way) before adding/raising taxes.

I dont see why an additional gas, or property tax could not be added across the board to fund transportation projects here. It has a very low impact, and it doesnt target anyone in particular. Is an extra $50-100 at the end of the year on your property tax or gas going to make that much difference here?

[Ginger]

I'm curious as to why you expect the transportation projects turn out differently than the service you've received all along the way (broken online payment, lack of CC payment at the center, lack of caring from the employees there, etc. [this is kind of one of the points I was trying <miserably> to make earlier])

[.RJ]

I'm curious as to why you expect the transportation projects turn out differently than the service you've received all along the way

Because in practice, they have turned out better. They dont require someone working on the road and maintenance, for the most part, when they're completed.

[Ginger]

Check out the Springfield interchange as an example... not only has it not made traffic better, but it's made drivers even more confused than normal.

[John]

Check out the Springfield interchange as an example... not only has it not made traffic better, but it's made drivers even more confused than normal.

Poor example - the project isn't finished yet. However, for many directions, it does flow better considering the amount of traffic that flows through it is 20% higher than it was 10 years ago when the project started...

[WRXtranceformed]

VDOT is a motherfucking joke. To think that throwing more money at those cockswabbers is going to help anything is thinking in the true money-wasting American spirit.

[Feersty]

Check out the Springfield interchange as an example... not only has it not made traffic better, but it's made drivers even more confused than normal.

It is confusing no doubt, almost unaccepetably confusing. But there are tons of arteries that run through there. I take Old Keene Mill to 495 North to 295 everyday. The Mixing Bowl has gotten a lot better. Take the Springfield exit from 495 and you will see 6 lanes. This used to be 2 when they were paving. Living here almost my whole life, I am satisfied where it is now, and where it will get to in 2008. Now if you live south of Springfield and take 95North every morning, I feel bad for you.

[Mike]

VDOT is a motherfucking joke. To think that throwing more money at those cockswabbers is going to help anything is thinking in the true money-wasting American spirit.

zzzzz

[WRXtranceformed]

VDOT is a motherfucking joke. To think that throwing more money at those cockswabbers is going to help anything is thinking in the true money-wasting American spirit.

zzzzz

Wake up son!!


The Loudoun County School board members just gave themselves a 60% raise. Their first motion was for a 100% raise. Maybe VDOT thinks it's time for them to do the same? Who the hell keeps these toolbags in check?

[.RJ]

Someone struck a nerve

Why is VDOT the suck in such a bad way?

[WRXtranceformed]

I guess having worked in project management, the way I see things run by VDOT supervisors is really chaotic and unorganized, and there is little follow through on the quality control of their projects.

Road patching projects are almost an afterthought, I see fixed potholes whose top coats are never blended with the road and are left to rot away. On some parts of route 7 for instance, heading over the mountain towards Mt. Weather, it's almost like driving on fucking cobblestones. Are those patches going to last? Hell no, they're going to get ripped up at the edges because they're not blended into the road surface.

I understand getting construction workers to work at night is more expensive, but shutting down multiple lanes of 28 during rush hour is absolutely unbelievable. My dad ranted about this for about an hour the other night at dinner. Also, shutting down 2 lanes of Rt. 50 near 28 during morning rush just to fix a shoulder is also a complete clusterfuck. All of the stoplights on that road are bad enough at slowing down traffic.

First and foremost though was the huge oversight during our big March snowstorm this year in the entire Rt. 50 / Rt. 15 area. There is a VDOT headquarters right there on 50 past Gum Springs and that entire road was not salted nor scraped 3 hours after it had started pouring down snow. It wasn't until Rt. 7 that the roads were as clear as day. It's almost like..... you could see where the line of supervision incompetance was drawn through the county.

Quicker, more efficiently run construction projects = less project costs... it doesn't take a genius to see that. VDOT needs to focus on the people who are running the show and getting them trained to manage budgets, people, and time better. It doesn't help their case much either when you drive across the border to MD or NC and the roads are instantly a thousand times smoother and the road work is more sorted out. I look forward to driving down to Charlotte on Tuesday and cruising on the smooth, 70mph limit highways =)

Disclaimer: This is all just for a small part of Northern VA. I know this shit gets even worse the further north and west you go.

[white_2kgt]

SOOOOOOOOOOO

anyone got one of the 'new' tickets in VA yet?? Hu, Hu? I heard about someone on here that might have, fess up!

[Ryan T]

It doesn't help their case much either when you drive across the border to MD or NC and the roads are instantly a thousand times smoother and the road work is more sorted out. I look forward to driving down to Charlotte on Tuesday and cruising on the smooth, 70mph limit highways =)

VA has some of the better roads I think. I despise driving in charlotte because the roads beat you to death. That's the entire reason my brother sold his SS, the roads in charlotte and the surrounding area are so shitty that it hurt to drive the car and the potholes so big they would crack the ground effects if you hit them. You'll get about 50 miles of 70mph speed limit because it goes to 65mph and in some places 55mph for a good while. Everywhere past exit 60'ish where you can get on 40 to go to winston-salem is riddled with rough road and all back down to 65mph. Cops are pretty scarce in NC though, which is nice, and they cut you more slack. My mom and I went down to charlotte the day before the 4th of july and saw 14 cops in va and 2 in nc. Most of the ticketing they do there is from the vans parked along the sides of big roads and the ones on redlights.

But in your defense I don't know shit about the roads in NOVA. Growing up in a small town vdot projects were never really a problem. The vdot guys around here are very efficient. I've gotten to see road construction through two different venues, both vdot and private contracting. My father was district materials engineer for vdot bristol region for 38 years and then became a road construction inspector after he retired. He would always comment on how much smoother vdot jobs would go in our area than the private contractors. Part of it had to do with vdot's higher budget. Dad would always have to jump on contractors because they spent more time worrying about cutting corners to save a few pennies than getting the best job done.

[jongp3]

If you guys think VDOT is bad you've never been to Texas, TxDOT would take weeks to repave roads(they did 42 in Harrisonburg in 3 days, this summer), projects going on 15-20+ years and still no where near finished. Things get finished, and then it has to be done over because it didn't pass inspection. Sometimes they forget they started a project and leave the half finished road with all the construction stuff there for months at a time.
In the winter when it does ICE (sometimes) the best we'll get after 5 accidents is some sand on the road.
Cracks and pot holes get covered by some tar shit that on hot days just peals off and sticks to tires.
I could go on and on.
In 6 years of driving there and 7-8 cars I've gotten 14 tickets give or take 1. luckily there is no point system there, and most of them were non moving violations, like no front plate or no rear license plate light. Stupid shit that would cost me a couple hundred even after i fixed the problems and the judge cut the ticket in half. I'd have to pay for this shit even tho I didn't OWN the car(they were all owned by the used car dealership I did work for)! Most of the time i was driving the car to the dealership from the auction. All in all I gave TxDot and SAPD close to 4,000 bucks. When i look back at it, i could have maybe avoided 2 of them for speeding at 2am on an Interstate 77 in a 65..

Since I've been in Harrisonburg the amount of time's I've been pulled over has been twice. One for my tint which is 20% "(legal in Texas) which he let me go since he knew he couldn't ticket me, the next was for my turn signal being out. He just told me to "take care of it" and let me go. Both times I had NO tags on my car, they expired back in Feb. and since I'm kinda far from Texas its kinda hard to get new ones. Since the car is still currently in my Mom's name(cheaper on insurance) I've been debating to get my car registered here, I'd probably have to ditch the tint and then i may be subject to all this new fee bull shit. So for now I'll stick with Texas plates and license. I figured the worst that could happen is they give me a ticket for no tags, at which point ill be forced to register the car here.
SO i'm hoping my luck in VA is going to stay good, The SAPD was a big part of my decision to leave San Antonio.

[WRXtranceformed]

I don't know what you're talking about... the roads in Charlotte were fine! Traffic is much better too. Now SC roads are definitely garbage :lol:

[Ryan T]

True, SC roads are garbage and traffic in charlotte does run very smoothly, even though the city is laid out pretty poorly. But the roads there, especially in south charlotte and on into SC are horrendous.