Found this gem in a WTOP story this afternoon:
"Some of the widespread alarm over the fees, Kaine and the legislative leaders said, is the result of inaccurate claims on blogs and elsewhere that led people to believe they would pay thousands for traffic violations as minor as improper turn signals"
Huh?? Who was claiming you would "pay thousands"? Of course, once again, the little details slip through our legislator's hands.
In fact, if you were cited for failing to use your turn signal, you would be charged with reckless driving. That's because the Code of Virginia defines it as such. And since it's reckless driving, a publication by the Office of the Executive Secretary for the Supreme Court of Virginia states that the Civil Remedial Fee for failure to signal would be (3) installments of $350 each. While not thousands (who claimed that again?), it is $1,050.00 in addition to whatever court fine you would pay.
I don't think anyone should be scolded by Virginia legislators who *all the sudden* claim they didn't completely understand OR read what they had voted on. If they can't manage to find the time to read what laws they're giving their 'thumbs up' to, maybe they shouldn't be voting at all.
And while the politicians go about trying to deflect blame, it's becoming clearer that the real reason the fines went from "everyone will pay" to just "Virginians will pay" has little to do with the enforcement of the fines. The current talking points are that since Virginia couldn't make out-of-state people pay, they wouldn't even try. Now who is really going to believe that? If they had a 10% voluntary payment rate, that would still be a lot of money, wouldn't it?
I think the real reason is this: Politicians feared a backlash (tourism and truck drivers??) Imagine the negative publicity someone like AAA might generate if they warned drivers about taking a vacation to Virginia (AAA oddly sided *with* the fines...btw, something I might rant about later). Or what if truck drivers staged some type of protest?
Instead, they opted to spring this on the stupid people of Virginia, who are too busy working and paying taxes to notice. I hope our memories are not as short as our Virginia legislator's work day.
