Punishment for speeding=death

[JoS]

How many of you would support such a thing. If you are caught speeding you coudl be punished by death? Same witht ailgating and other traffic violations. Well unfortunatly there is such a place on earth, Iraq.

If a vehicle drives too quickly or follows too closely (and by closes I mean father behind then most of us drive on empty highways) one is likely to be shot at by coaltion forces. The Brits, Americans and private contractors have all done it for fear the guy late for work is really a terrorist with a bomb in his car. People wonder why they are seen as an occupying force when they have handed over control to the Iraqis. Its because of the roads. When a military power acts liek they literally own the roads they are precieved as occupiers.

Throughtout the world people have a unique attachment to cars and the road. You wouldnt walk 10 minutes to the corner store to get a loaf of bread or a tub of ice cream, but people without cars or access to transport are willing to walk hours for water, wood or other things. Cars and the roads are seen as status symbols, one which no one wants to give up.

Youw ant to know how to make Iraq safer, share the roads liek eevryone else. If your doing half the speed limit dont be surprised when someoen tries to pass you. Hell you do 5 mph over the speed limit on the interstates and some one will try and apss you.

[sdhonda]

Cars will be replaced by trains, walkways and those tubes from futurama in less than 200 years. Well, 300 for the tubes.....

Anywho, they made this huge intersection in the netherlands that, get this, has no traffic lights, or speed limits or anything. The only rule is that you must yeild to pedestrians. Accidents have dropped to virtually zero too.....

[JMHX]

Smiling Quaker Oat Man

[Mech-Marine]

Yeah, its also the netherlands, you forget to realize that over there, they don't have cars, cuz they havn't advanced that far yet. So by making everyone a pedestrian, there is virtually no accidents. You are always going to have to have cars until they make transporters or something, cuz people all need personal transportation. Its the American way of life to drive cars, so thats not gonna change, pretty much ever.

[sdhonda]

At 6/21/06 02:28 AM, Mech_Marine wrote: Yeah, its also the netherlands, you forget to realize that over there, they don't have cars, cuz they havn't advanced that far yet. So by making everyone a pedestrian, there is virtually no accidents. You are always going to have to have cars until they make transporters or something, cuz people all need personal transportation. Its the American way of life to drive cars, so thats not gonna change, pretty much ever.

The Netherlands is a developed nation.

Cars will be around for a long time, no doubt. However, they are ridiculously ineffeicent, at least in the urban enviroment. Way to much space is devoted to serving them. They also pollute, and often people only have one person in the car. They also are ineffeceint at getting from a to b, due to traffic (in tokyo, its faster to walk to a place than to drive).

Trains, moving walkways, multilevel elevators, and other such methods will be used in large cities in the future.....

[IllustriousPotentate]

At 6/21/06 02:01 AM, JoS wrote: How many of you would support such a thing. If you are caught speeding you coudl be punished by death? Same witht ailgating and other traffic violations. Well unfortunatly there is such a place on earth, Iraq.

If a vehicle drives too quickly or follows too closely (and by closes I mean father behind then most of us drive on empty highways) one is likely to be shot at by coaltion forces. The Brits, Americans and private contractors have all done it for fear the guy late for work is really a terrorist with a bomb in his car. People wonder why they are seen as an occupying force when they have handed over control to the Iraqis. Its because of the roads. When a military power acts liek they literally own the roads they are precieved as occupiers.

Do you have any citations of such events actually occuring, people getting killed for speeding or tailgaiting? Or are you refering to incidents where a car was speeding or nearing a military checkpoint?

[Athlas]

At 6/21/06 02:28 AM, Mech_Marine wrote: Yeah, its also the netherlands, you forget to realize that over there, they don't have cars, cuz they havn't advanced that far yet. So by making everyone a pedestrian, there is virtually no accidents. You are always going to have to have cars until they make transporters or something, cuz people all need personal transportation. Its the American way of life to drive cars, so thats not gonna change, pretty much ever.

What are you talking about? If Belgium hadn't broken loose from the Netherlands in 1830, we'd be in the G8 together.

[NEDM]

well one mile over the speed limit is speeding.

if that law was passed, a lot less people would drive cars

[zendahl]

At 6/21/06 02:01 AM, JoS wrote:
If a vehicle drives too quickly or follows too closely (and by closes I mean father behind then most of us drive on empty highways) one is likely to be shot at by coaltion forces. The Brits, Americans and private contractors have all done it for fear the guy late for work is really a terrorist with a bomb in his car.

Source please.

[Orvi]

you have to be going like 10mph over the speed limit to be stopped, which is shitty. stop the fuckers if they are doing 1mph over the speed limit. or you could fit speed limiters fitted to gps so the car cannot surpass a certain speed on a certain road...

[sdhonda]

Well, lets think for a second. Your a soldier in Iraq or afganistan. It doesent matter if your an american, brit, italian or a private contractor. You see a car speeding. Now, you are on edge, as youve seen alot of car bombs. This guy could be about ram your compound with a bomb or whatever, or he could just be late for work. You have to make that desicion pretty quick.

Enivitably, some cars in this situation are gonna get covered in bullet holes. Sorry, but thats the natue of Iraq now.

[sdhonda]

At 6/21/06 05:39 AM, Orvi wrote: you have to be going like 10mph over the speed limit to be stopped, which is shitty. stop the fuckers if they are doing 1mph over the speed limit. or you could fit speed limiters fitted to gps so the car cannot surpass a certain speed on a certain road...

Keep in mind, speedometers and radars arnt accurate to the meter per second. They have a margin of error of several KM/H. You can't realisticly find out if someone is driving a KM/H above the speed limit, and even so you couldent realisticly catch them. It really doesent matter anyway. Its the people who are going 10 KM/H or more than the speen limit that police need to focus on.

It all comes down to priorities.....

[zendahl]

At 6/21/06 05:42 AM, sdhonda wrote:
Enivitably, some cars in this situation are gonna get covered in bullet holes. Sorry, but thats the natue of Iraq now.

How many times have you been there? I can honestly say that that's not how it happens.

[peedee]

I've just recently started to question to purpose of speeding limits on highways. I see no point in them. In Canada (I'm sure it's the same everywhere?), we have three lane highways (mostly). The one on the far left would be considered the fast lane. I see no reason to have a limit if we have a slow lane, a medium paced lane, and a fast lane.

[Athlas]

In Germany, that's the case on most highways. However, I've been to Poland, and boy, am I glad they have speed limits there. The roads are in horrible shape, speeding could easily be the death of you. They drive like nuts too (have you ever seen a car trying to pass a bus who was passing another bus, while there was a truck coming from the opposite direction? That car drove off the road to avoid getting crushed by the truck...)

[PaulKent]

At 6/21/06 02:01 AM, JoS wrote: How many of you would support such a thing. If you are caught speeding you coudl be punished by death? Same witht ailgating and other traffic violations. Well unfortunatly there is such a place on earth, Iraq.

That made me lol.

I heard from a friend that he had a friend who was in Iraq: he ran over this woman because she got out in front of them and tried to slow them down. So she basically got caught underneath their humvee and was dragged for about five miles until they got out and separated her body from the vehicle. It was cool though: she was a terrorist. (Seriously, according to this friend of a friend, she had an explosive suicide vest on when they picked her body off the car. They were lucky bastards).

I realized that this hearsay is a little less credible than everything else that comes from Iraq, but I could definitely see it happening.

[No-one-inparticular]

I pulled this article from the Christian Science Moniter.

Under Saddam, idling was risky
This feeling is a holdover from the days of Saddam, when driving slowly past a government building or installation was considered suspicious behavior. Get caught idling past the wrong palaces or ministry, and you might never be seen again.

I remember parking outside a ministry with an Iraqi driver, waiting to pick up a friend. After sitting and staring at the building for about half an hour, waiting for our friend to emerge, the driver shook his head.

"If you even looked at this building before, you'd get arrested," he said, his voice full of disbelief. Before, he would speed past this building, gripping the wheel, staring straight ahead, careful not to even turn his head. After 35 years of this, Iraqis still speed up when they're driving past government buildings - which, since the Americans took over a lot of them, tend be to exactly where the checkpoints are.

Fear of insurgents and kidnappers are another reason for accelerating, and in that scenario, speeding up and getting away could save your life. Many Iraqis know somebody who's been shot at on the road, and a lot of people survived only because they stepped on the gas.

This fear comes into play at checkpoints because US troops are often accompanied by a cordon of Iraqi security forces - and a lot of the assassinations and kidnappings have been carried out by Iraqi security forces or people dressed in their uniforms. Often the Iraqi security forces are the first troops visible at checkpoints. If they are angry-looking and you hear shots being fired, it becomes easier to misread the situation and put the pedal to the metal.

A couple of times soldiers have told me at checkpoints that they had just shot somebody. They're not supposed to talk about it, but they do. I think the soldiers really needed to talk about it. They were traumatized by the experience.

Here's a link

http://www.csmonitor..0307/p01s04-woiq.htm

So, apparently, the Iraqis are just doing what they learned to do under Saddam Hussein's government. They learned, through painful experience, the danger of driving too slowly!

[PaulKent]

I'm sure I've said this a million times, but let's give our soldiers the benefit of the doubt.

[BeFell]

We hear of this happening every once in a while but I doubt it's as prevelant as it's being made out to be. Here's a question though, what's killing more people, incidents like this or car bombs?

It seems like this situation, like most of the others going on there, can be solved by a few Iraqis pulling their heads out of their asses.

[HighlyIllogical]

At 6/21/06 04:55 AM, zendahl wrote:

Source please.

Have you been paying attention to either this forum or to the news?

[No-one-inparticular]

At 6/21/06 11:23 AM, BeFell wrote:
It seems like this situation, like most of the others going on there, can be solved by a few Iraqis pulling their heads out of their asses.

The problem is that Iraqis were arrested for driving too slowly past certain palaces and ministries. Saddam Hussein's Ba'thist government were of the suspicion that people who drove too slowly by a key government building were plotting something against Hussein's government.

Iraqis speed through checkpoints because that's what a thirty-five year old goverment trained them to do.

I think our military needs to get some interpreters in and remind the Iraqis that Saddam Hussein is gone, and the Iraqis need to get accoustomed to doing many things differently then the way they did them under Saddam Hussein's leadership.

[punisher19848]

Um... I really think that this needs to be pointed out here: Iraq is a WAR ZONE! Rules in war zones are different than those applied in areas not at war! Speeding towards a checkpoint in a war zone is a sign of an impending attack (whether or not that is the driver's intent) and is treated as such.

I know, it's unfair. But what are you going to do about it? The only solution in this case would be to end the war, but the war won't end until the region is stablized. So until the terrorists are all put down, this will continue.

[zendahl]

At 6/21/06 11:37 AM, GSgt_Liberal wrote:

At 6/21/06 04:55 AM, zendahl wrote:

Source please.

Have you been paying attention to either this forum or to the news?

No but I've been there and I never saw anybodt get shot for speeding. I would like a source for that specificly. I'm tired of eroneous claims from people who have never been there, but "know exacly how the millitary would handle it". Fuck that. You shou me where that statement came from. I want to know who says we shoot people for speeding.

[fahrenheit]

10, 20 years at most all cars will be self automated. There will be no driving, no accidents, and no tickets.

The BMW's and another car company (I forgot the name) have a few models out like this.

They arent fully automated, but all you have to do is turn the steering wheel.

[SynapsisB6]

Speed limit of 55, hilarious. It's 75 is most of europe.

[BeFell]

At 6/21/06 02:33 PM, Steel_Reserve wrote:

At 6/21/06 11:23 AM, BeFell wrote:
It seems like this situation, like most of the others going on there, can be solved by a few Iraqis pulling their heads out of their asses.

The problem is that Iraqis were arrested for driving too slowly past certain palaces and ministries. Saddam Hussein's Ba'thist government were of the suspicion that people who drove too slowly by a key government building were plotting something against Hussein's government.

Iraqis speed through checkpoints because that's what a thirty-five year old goverment trained them to do.

I think our military needs to get some interpreters in and remind the Iraqis that Saddam Hussein is gone, and the Iraqis need to get accoustomed to doing many things differently then the way they did them under Saddam Hussein's leadership.

Are you saying the Iraqi people are too stupid to realize that that their former leader has been ousted and they are now occupied by the United States? "Holy shit, what are all these white guys with guns doing on the road?" I guess you're also saying that they aren't smart enough to reason, "Uncle Abul speed through a checkpoint and Americans capped his ass, maybe I should slow the fuck down."

Your "years of training theory" might hold water if we were talking about dogs, or possibly the mentally handicapped but we aren't. These are rational human beings that are just as smart as anyone else. When they change a speed limit in your hometown do you think you could get away with saying "yeah, I knew it was different now but I've been driving that fast through there for so long that I just can't break myself of the habit?"

I'm sorry but if these people can't apply common knowledge to action they really have no one to blame but themselves.

[PatVicous]

thats because of the type of place it is over there people who blow themselves up need to have more rules

[Leap]

At 6/21/06 02:28 AM, Mech_Marine wrote: Yeah, its also the netherlands, you forget to realize that over there, they don't have cars, cuz they havn't advanced that far yet.

Holland AKA The Netherlands is a first world country, fucktard.

So by making everyone a pedestrian, there is virtually no accidents. You are always going to have to have cars until they make transporters or something, cuz people all need personal transportation. Its the American way of life to drive cars, so thats not gonna change, pretty much ever.

It's the adverage Amercians dependance on their car that will be your undoing, you can't survive off oil forever

[No-one-inparticular]

At 6/22/06 12:11 PM, BeFell wrote:

Are you saying the Iraqi people are too stupid to realize that that their former leader has been ousted and they are now occupied by the United States?

No, I'm not saying that as a matter of fact for all Iraqis.
But, since there are Iraqis who are being shot for speeding through checkpoints,
then ignorance of the American military's rules should be considered as a cause of Iraqis being shot while driving too fast.

"Holy shit, what are all these white guys with guns doing on the road?".

There are a few brown guys with guns trained on Iraqi motorists,
who are most likely aiming their weapons at Iraqi civilians in the hope that those civilians will speed to evade these terrorists and be shot dead by American soldiers.

The terrorists in Iraqi know that if they can set up a scenario where American soldiers are killing unarmed civilians, they will be able to sell a story to the Arab media of American brutality in a war zone, brutality that will, however contrived it may be, turn the people of Iraq against the American coalition forces.

I guess you're also saying that they aren't smart enough to reason, "Uncle Abul speed through a checkpoint and Americans capped his ass, maybe I should slow the fuck down."

Noted, and appreciated.

Butslowing down can be dangerous to, for the reason I mentioned above.
I trust the American forces will do an excellent job at uncovering the activities of Iraqi terrorist conspiritors, and, in the long run, putting an end to terrorist interference at check-points and elsewhere.