* The Republicans wanted to tax Virginians for our out of state traffic violations? I missed Kenton's post last week on what Governor Kaine did to the save all of us from the original Republican Abuser Fee Insanity. If this is true, the Kaine bashers no longer have a leg to stand on.
* Virginians may be getting the message that they potentially face multi-thousand dollar fines/fees for speeding. Based on my (un-scientific) observations, as well as those of others, Virginians appear to be slowing down. I know that I've taken a few mph off my speeds and use my turn signal more often. Any other similar observations? Anyone experiencing the opposite or no change?
* How will this modified driver behavior effect orders given to the ticket writers? If people slow down, the revenues these fees were designed to generate will fall drastically short. So will law enforcement officers be put under pressure to...
a) Write more tickets in general?
b) Write tickets for lesser violations? In other words, will we be getting tickets for exceeding the speed limit by 5 mph?
c) Target Virginia drivers more than out-of-staters? Literally, pulling over an out-of-stater means Virginia is losing out on revenue because that officer could be writing a ticket to an in-stater (i.e. high opportunity cost).
* Regarding those lower speeds - good for safety! Yes, despite the fact that I'm unhappy about these abusive fees, I do very much support safer roads. These fees, while appearing to show progress in terms of safety, are not the way to go about it.
* Will the petition (now at over 100,000 signatures) or the general public outrage have an effect on legislation? So far it appears that the answer is no. If voter anger is sustained I think we will see some sort of action. But everyone knows that the public tends to have a short attention span, so the politicians may be trying to ride out the initial outrage in hopes that in a few weeks everyone will have pretty much forgotten about this.
That's it for the moment - feel free to use this as an open thread to discuss the abuser fees or add your own thoughts and observations.