I H A T E to drive slow.
New Virginia law starts today
Virginia unveils ludicrous new rules for the road
Sunday, Jul 01, 2007 - 12:15 AM
By J. Todd Foster
Well, it’s Sunday morning, July 1, and you know what that means? It’s time to check your tires.
Starting today, driving on bald tires could cost you $900 under new Virginia driving laws created to pay for road improvements.
That’s right, Virginia legislators too spineless to raise the outdated gas tax to pay for highway maintenance have cast themselves in the role of road Nazis.
NEW "CIVIL remedial fees," also called "abuser fees," will raise an estimated $65 million over the next three years to pay for transportation fixes that should have been made 10 or 20 years ago when equally spineless legislators failed to do their jobs.
The new laws mostly apply to serious driving crimes, such as DUIs, manslaughter and driving on suspended licenses.
But Virginia Code 46.2-1042 makes it a Class 4 misdemeanor to operate a motor vehicle with below-standard tires. To be fair, it’s always been a misdemeanor to drive on bald tires, but now you have to pay an additional $300 each year for three years to keep your driver’s license.
SO HOW does one define "below-standard tires?" According to the Virginia Code, tires must meet the minimal standard set forth by the Society of Automotive Engineers.
I wish I were making this up. It gets worse.
It also will cost you $900 – above and beyond normal traffic fines and court costs – if you display any obscene images visible by other motorists.
THE VIRGINIA Code defines obscene as anything that appeals to the prurient interest in sex and includes "excretory functions."
Does this mean I no longer can play that potty DVD for my 2-year-old during road trips in our Honda Odyssey? (The DVD player is a lifesaver.)
Such videos are excellent potty-training tools. One of ours has a catchy tune: "She is a super dooper pooper ... she can potty with the best ... no more diapers to get in the way ... she is simply the best."
THE VIDEO shows little kids making pee-pee and poo-poo. My question now is, will showing it in the minivan land me in deep doo-doo?
This particular law – 46.2-1077.01 for you legal beagles or Internet initiated – does not bode well for several of our Southwest Virginia drivers.
Take the owners of the pickup trucks I recently saw parked at the Exit 7 Wal-Mart. Both trucks had plastic testicles hanging from trailer hitches.
TRUST ME, nothing says redneck like a synthetic scrotum dangling from the rear of your Chevy Tahoe. But now it could cost you $900 – all to pay for new roads and maintenance in Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads.
"There’s no road fairy," state Delegate David Albo, R-Fairfax, told me in a telephone interview Wednesday. Mr. Albo, whose 13-mile commute routinely takes one hour and 45 minutes in Northern Virginia, was one of the driving forces behind these new abuser fees.
True enough about the road fairy, but are bald tires and obscene images worth building your transportation budget on? I asked him.
"HAVING BALD tires is how you kill people," Albo shot back. "You might as well go ahead and point a gun at someone."
I don’t know, call me crazy, but given the choice of facing the business end of a Smith & Wesson or a Michelin, I’m taking the tire, tread or not.
Meanwhile, many Southwest Virginia drivers have much to fear from another provision in the civil-remedial-fees law that goes into effect today.
FAILURE TO give a proper signal can be a misdemeanor or a felony, punishable by an extra $1,050 to $3,000, respectively.
Virginia Code 46.2-860 states: "A person shall be guilty of reckless driving who fails to give adequate and timely signals of intention to turn, partly turn, slow down, or stop ..."
Albo says only 2 percent of Virginia drivers (out-of-state motorists are excluded from the new penalties because of constitutional technicalities) need fear these new abuser fees. That’s how many habitually bad drivers are out there in the commonwealth, Albo says.
BUT THAT turn-signal provision could nab 98 percent of all drivers in Southwest Virginia, according to my own, admittedly unscientific survey.
Finally, the new Virginia laws include a $900 fee for anyone who fails to stop for a blind pedestrian with a white cane. I’m all for that, but I have concerns about some of the legal language embedded in the Virginia Code.
The applicable section states that drivers must come to a complete stop for anyone guided by a dog or carrying a cane "which is predominantly metallic or white in color, with or without a red tip ..."
WHAT IF the blind person is using a brown cane? Are all bets off?
Clearly, the semantics of this new legislation could use some work. Like the federal tax code, the whole thing should be overhauled, in my humble opinion.
Here’s my proposal: Levy a $10,000 fine against anyone driving the speed limit or below in the left lane of Interstate 81.
The commonwealth will be pothole free and humming with new roads before you know it.
