Ryan's Currently Unnamed Blog

Betcha didn't know how dangerous our roads are! Its nearly impossible to travel anywhere around the state without encountering a construction zone. And, thank the heavens that we are have a leader with the foresight to protect us from these terribly dangerous areas of our roads.

Of course, I'm being very facetious. I must have missed the press release but back in March our fearless leader Governor Rod R. Blagojevich has a plan to protect us.

"Because an alarming 46 drivers, passengers and workers in highway work-related accidents in last year died", the state is cracking down, and hard. First, they increased the fines for work-zone infractions. Your standard speeding violation in Illinois costs you $75. In a work zone, the fine was doubled to $150. Apparently, that's not enough to keep crazy Illinois drivers in check, so they are now bumping the minimum fine up to $375. That's right... double fines isn't sufficent, so let's try a factor of FIVE! This ought to be a good money maker for the state and will go a long way toward solving the state's budget crisis! If you are going 46 in a construction zone, you can get nailed with a hefty fine, but its even worse if you are more then 20 over. Since most traffic on the expressways move at 70-80, regardless of the laws, it shouldn't be too tough to find someone going more the 65 (20 over) in a work zone. Under this new law, those people pose such a threat to society that they get arrested and get to enjoy the finest hospitatily of the state.

And repeat offenders will consider that getting off cheap! A second offense used to carry a stiff $300 fine, but that's now a minimum of $750!! That'll teach em!

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What's sad about this is, the plan was announced over 3 months ago, and I just found out about it when passing an ominous sign reading, "Hit a worker, $10,000 fine, 14 years in jail". Heh, at least I got fair warning, and in order to receive that punishment, you'd have to actually kill someone. Oh, and that doubles too if multiple people are killed. Hope you don't have anything planned for the next 28 years if some tradegy occurs, even if it isn't completely your fault!

So, with such drastic measures, you'd think that there are constuction workers dieing by the truckload. Using the most recent crash statistics from 2002, there were 1,420 deaths on the road. 30 of those deaths, 2.1%, occurred in work zones. Of those deaths, only TWO were construction workers. In Illinois, vehicular manslaughter is a class 2 felony (9-3(d)) which carries a penalty of up to 10 years and $25,000 as specified by the law. I guess construction workers lives are worth 4 more years of yours.

Statistics lead to crazy conclusions. For example, 192 pedestrians were killed, 29% of which were over 65. Don't we need a law to protect our seniors from being mowed down on the sidewalks!? NO!! Last I checked seniors are covered under the regular vehicular manslaughter statues. Lets just enforce a small simple set of rules, rather then making all these special classes of peoples and certain situations that they apply in.

Particually scary, are the other provisions enacted with this law:

“Trooper in a Truck”: To allow troopers to covertly enforce speed limits, out-of-uniform troopers equipped with radar technology will sit in IDOT trucks to monitor motorists.

Great! Covert law enforcement! Secret undercover cops will be looking out for our own saftey. Gee, thanks! How thought of them!

rs: $1.7 million has been identified and requested by IDOT engineers to fund additional troopers in work zones throughout the state. The additional troopers would allow ISP commanders to deploy work zone details in areas of heightened safety concerns.

$1.7M well spent! These cops don't have anything better to do then to try to earn money for the state by sitting around in construction zones?!?

You'd think there'd be the slightest bit of opposition to this, but no.. our fearless leaders voted on this 3 times, passing it 114-0, 53-2 and 113-2.

Although, I suppose we can all rest easily knowing that this legislation is going to make our roads safer and will only be used against those reckless drivers that pose a hazard to the rest of us. How gullible are we?!?