Re: tyres/lights & WINTER

[Frank Deutschmann <fhd@interport.net>]

Bob D'Amato sez:
> I think for legal reasons more than anything. My wife works for CT state 
> Police, and they have been REALLY going to town on illegal equipment 
> lately. (Probably since they lost the radar detector case a while 
> back..)  Anyway, they are doing spot checks out 84 in the Storrs area, 
> just searching cars randomly (look out dave!) and 91S in New haven.
> (As I drop her off at work this morning with my 4 Hella Rallye 1000's 
> mounted to the front...)

Do you mean that they are actually pulling people over for no other reason
than to check equipment??!!  (As in, no prior cause -- nothing visible
wrong, just want to check things out?)

And I just recently blasted through this exact area -- roadtrip to Maine
for the past week!  (Great trip, but boy do I *HATE* Mr. and Mrs. Oblivious,
residents of the Left Lane.)  I did see quite a lot of enforcement action in
Ct/Mass. -- one cop in particular really stands out in my mind:

Tooling up a hill on 84, near the top the detector braps, so I drop into the
middle lane and get sub-legal in a hurry.  Crest the hill, and Mr. REO is
lazily potshotting the traffic.  Well, along comes Ms. Oblivious (a blonde
admiring the scenery from the Left Lane in her GTI) at about 70 -- well,
she was a sitting duck, and Mr. Lazy grabbed her.  It ought to be illegal --
but then, she was rather oblivious....(Traffic, of course, had been moving
at about 75-85 to that point...)

One thing on the speed limit thread: in some ways, lower limits might actually
be slightly safer -- while I agree closing speed is a major issue (especially
when Mr. ReallyOblivious pulls out from the middle lane into the left lane as
you are passing him), OTOH, traveling above the limit certainly causes me to
be hyper-aware of my surroundings.  While it is exhausting, it is likely safer
than if, say 100 were the legal limit, and I got complacent... something to
think about.

-frank
-- 
fhd@interport.net | There is no truth beyond magic.
  1 212 559 5534  | 		-- Brian Goodwin
  1 917 992 2248  | 
  1 718 746 7061  |