Finnish millionaire gets $60,000 speeding ticket.....

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About thirty years ago, I was riding across part of Texas on a motorcycle (Triumph Bonneville). There was a big storm coming in behind me and so I was in a hurry to get home (about 100 miles away) before it arrived.

Needless to say, I had to exceed the speed limit on the highway to stay ahead of that storm. About a mile outside one small town, I blew by one car but slowed down to the speed limit when I reached the town. I mus thave made the car driver rather mad because about half way across town, the car caught me and passed in town. I stopped for a quick fillup of gas at a gas station and then pulled back on the street. When I got to the edge of town, there was that car stopped by the police a little outside of the town.

In other words, if you are going to speed, just be sure you slow down to the speed limit in and near towns. As far as I'm concerned, if you are speeding through a small town, you ought to get two tickets -- one for speeding and one for being stupid. Not only are your odds of being stopped for speeding are far higher per mile in a town or city than out on a highway, but the odds of having an accident are far higher as well.

Oh, geez, Eric----I'm sorry I didn't respond to you, in a more timely manner, but I forgot where this was.....

I think it's a bummer that they don't get to keep ALL of the money, for the TOWN!!

LOL. I just looked that town up on Google Maps. The speed limit on Highway 287 is 70 mph. It drops to 50 mph at the town limits, then two blocks later at the other side of town it returns tp 70 mph. If a driver doesn't know about their little speed trap and slow down in advance before getting to the town limits, they would be through the town before they would have a chance to slow down.

The road is a four lane highway. It's not going to be safe for the townspeople to be crossing that highway on foot.
70 mph or 50 mph makes no difference. The pedestrian will be dead either way if they get hit.

Which means, one thing. It's not about safety, it's about revenue for the town.

Do you really think that if a small town tries to enforce the speed limits to slow people down, it is only about revenue?

Like I said earlier, if it was about revenue, they could cut their ticket numbers by a large amount. They write several times as many tickets as they can keep the payment for. After they reach their maximum, every ticket they write costs them money because it nearly all goes to the state -- the amount they keep doesn't begin to cover the cost of writing the ticket. This is hardly the sign of a speed trap.

Yes, I do. Do you really think that slowing cars from 70 to 50 for a two block stretch in a small town in the middle of nowhere makes it safe for pedestrians to cross the road there? Do you know how much distance it takes to slow a car or truck from 70 to 50? It's a classic speed trap.

Do you think that speed traps are run for the purpose of aggravating people?

Of course not. They are used to raise money. The more tickets, the more money. In the case of Estelline, if they wanted to maximize revenue, they would only be writing tickets for 3 or 4 months. After that, those tickets cost them money, but they write them anyway.

There's another point, too. For a speed trap, they want to catch you speeding. The police will often hide in order to catch more people. The first time you see the police is when they pull out behind you. In Estelline, they make no attempt to hide. They are out there in very plain sight -- at least they were in plain sight when I've been through there and I've been through there many times.

Another practice common with speed taps is to lower the speed limit artificially low and get people as soon as possible past the sign before they get slowed down to the new limit. That isn't the case in Estelline as well. To the contrary, where I have usually seen them is far enough past the speed limit sign to give you a chance to slow down. And I have started slowing down close to the speed limit sign and was still slowing down as I passed the sign in full view of an officer running radar in Estelline but was not pulled over. If that had been a speed trap, I would have gotten a ticket for that.

There is NOTHING about Estelline that says speed trap.

The U.S. was not the first government since ancient greece. The independence/republics of Greeks ended at the battle of Chaeronea 338 bc. Upon their conquest by Philip II of Macedon, father of Alexander the great.( source: Battle: a visual journey through 5,000 years of combat by R.S. Grant) The Roman republic existed until Ceasar declared himself "dictator for life" in 44 b.c. thus democracy/republics continued for almost three centuries after greece fell. Republics/Democracies popped up again some 1,000 years later in both the various Italian city-States after the defeat of the lombards by Charlemagne and the withdrawal of the byzantines following the muslim invasions during the seventh century a.d, as well as in the Benelux & Scandinavia from as early as the 1600s.

It was a simplified argument for a simplified person. If we want to parse history though I'd claim anything after Phillip of Macedon was not a democracy, but a tyranny in a guise of democracy, much like Rome during the princeps period and certainly the dominate period. One could even claim after the Peloponnesian War that Greece had turned from democracy and instead turned to an oligarchy, depending on which city-state was subjugating it's neighbors.

As for late medieval history, Florence is the standard of Italian republics but it was really just an oligarchy dominated by wealthy families, and that's even before the Medici arose. Most city-states of that period were still feudal, hence the Duke of Milan, King of Naples, etc., it was only in the few large metropolises that anything even resembling democracy arose. Of course that's not to mention the papal states who were ruled not just by a king, but a king-maker.

Even Rome in the republic era was an oligarchy, regardless of what they wanted to call it. So I stick to my thesis-- Greece was the last true democracy before us.

The U.S. began as an oligarchy where only white male property owners could vote( thats anywhere from only 25-40% of people being able to vote and participate in government.) We ended slavery 40 years after Britain, and our income inequality( which denies equality along socioeconomic lines), has always been worse than western Europe. Our "founding fathers" created a society that was little more representative than governments found in the Benelux and Scandinavia, and Greece which you claim was the "last democracy before us" only had some of its' citystates as "democracies". In academic circles, athens is often described as a " competitive oligarchy" where only ten percent of it's total population( all 3-generation-native males), chose a dictator in which to rule them. Thus in modern terms "democracy" has never existed, all governments described as "democracies" are in truth either constitutional-monarchies, republics, oligarchies or plutocracies. A "democracy" is where voters decide every.political decision, the U.S. is known/described as a "federal republic" not a democracy.

The Althing in Iceland is from the 10th century and it still exists.
Besides, having a king does not mean it is not a democracy. Many European democracies are constitutional monarchies. (The Netherlands, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Belgium, Luxembourg... all fairly democratic and wealthy countries).

According to an article in The Smithsonian back in the early 1970s, the laws in the state of New York when the US was formed were such that all property owners, and only property owners, were eligible to vote. That included those women who were property owners.

According to my sister's feminist books, you are correct. However all states that allowed women to vote during the late 18th century, did not by the 1820's.

I agree with most of that, but the fact is citizens in our country and ancient Greece are/were allowed to vote. We can debate what citizenship is and who should be included, but that barometer is ever changing in every country depending on demographics.

The Greeks chose, much like we do, the aristocratic class as representatives of their democracy. The institution of democracy didn't force oligarchy, nor does ours, but in both cases the citizens chose that path. You look at every other "democratic" nation between us and Greece and you'll find republics and democracies that were entirely directed towards oligarchy-- usually breaking citizen's up into two classes, such as patrician and plebe with only the patricians holding voting seats or in Florence's case allowing every citizen to vote, but only for a candidate who's family has already held an office in government.

Our institutions, nor Greece's institutions made any such distinction, you merely had to be an official citizen. There are/were no voters that can/could not also assume an office in the government. In all other cases there were restrictions on which citizen class could actually wield the power of office.

Sure Greece had a large disenfranchised population, same with our country through most of it's history-- those disenfranchised weren't considered citizens. Should they have been? Sure, I concur there, but they weren't. If we're talking disenfranchisement and citizenship, should illegal aliens be given the right to vote? I mean they live here, they don't get to vote, so therefor they're disenfranchised. Athens asked that same question and decided that no, foreigners had to pay their dues to the state, three generations worth. I find no problem with that, their fathers died in two epic wars to build that city, why should just anyone else get the right to benefit from their father's blood? Also, if you build something great you don't allow just anyone to come in use said great thing, you make sure they understand and respect it first or eventually it'll just get trashed. As for women, slaves, etc, I'm all for every demographic getting the right to vote, so long as they've paid their dues to the society in question. I'm not anti-foreigner either, eventually everyone should get the right to vote in their country, but they have to understand that country and it's institutions first.

So yes, Greece and the US through much of it's history hasn't had as inclusive version of citizenry as I'd prefer, but that doesn't negate the fact that once you were a citizen there were no restrictions in your ability to vote and hold power-- that's the core of democracy.

I did however make an egregious error in my earlier post, I used citizen when I should have used population-- as a stickler for terms I failed, but the point is still valid: we have as much say in our government as anyone ever has.

Last edited by Aristophanes on 02 May 2015, 12:44 pm, edited 1 time in total.

If the royalty has no power to overrule it's citizens it's a historical institution for tradition and thus not a monarchy. If said royalty still has power I'd claim it's a republican oligarchy. It's not about the title we give it, but about how it functions.

Interesting. I was under the impression that road fines in Finland were based not upon the net worth of a person, but upon the net worth of their vehicle. -- I guess he wouldn't be able to duck out of a hefty fine if he had been driving an '80's vintage Lada.