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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]The DC Council's Transportation and Environment committee (Allen, Nadeau, Frumin, Parker & Henderson) had a very interesting public hearing today on four bills that would overhaul local traffic enforcement. Among other things, the bills would impose points for speeding violations, strip licenses from repeat offenders, respond to the proliferation of fake and temp tags and so on. On the face of it, the bills are good. However, I didn't leave the hearing with positive vibes at all.

Despite commenter after commenter pleading for it, the council doesn't seem inclined to ask MPD to start doing traffic stops again. I get the sense that the likes of Allen and Nadeau would like to create some kind of alternative traffic enforcement agency (although I don't think anyone has thought that through), but it's more or less impossible to see how that would happen in the next 5-10 years and so is a pipe dream. Allen said more or less explicitly that he's not into "citizen enforcement" (a la NYC) either because he wants the "government to do its job" (ha!). So the only tools for enforcement are the status quo triumvirate of traffic cameras (which are few and far between), boots (which are trivial for the driver to remove), and towing (which the mayor refuses to resource), which is almost as bad as nothing at all.

So, while the proposed changes in penalties are good, there is no real plan at all for enforcing those penalties. So the Mad Max craziness on DC streets will continue . . .

[/quote]

When I was a kid in DC, car booting was real. Now I would fall over if I saw a boot, and isn't there only one tow truck or something? The city needs to fund this and rat catching/killing. But you know, priorities (being what? no one knows)[/quote]

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