At least that seems to be the sentiment when talking about automated traffic law enforcement, toll roads, increasing the gas tax and any other measure that might make driving a bit more expensive (including items like remove contributory negligence that might make car insurance more expensive as we would rather see victims pay for some car driver’s carelessness and unlawful behavior then actually make people responsible for their actions.)
Exactly how does this "I am not an ATM" excuse supposed to work anyway? Can I go into a store can I say "I am not an ATM" and walk out without paying? Can businesses illegally dump toxic waste and avoid any financial responsibility by saying "I am not an ATM"? Can people do some criminal mischief and refuse to pay the fine by saying "I am not an ATM"? If these are not valid excuses then why are we letting motoring get away with this?
People started to drive less and now there is a huge crisis about now how are we going to pay for roads because cars are not contributing? I know lets treat the general fund as an ATM and make everyone pay for car centric roads. Let’s turn a blind eye on motorists who drive recklessly and speed and not overly burden them with small automated fines, let’s instead let the victims of speeding pay the price. Let’s cut corners to save a few pennies on the dollar and make more roads dangerous by design so cars can have more roads then what they pay for and all we have to do is pay with our and our children lives who are way over represented in crashes and fatalities. That’s a small price to pay for more roads for cars right?
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“Relying on a per-gallon fuel tax is antiquated,” O’Malley said.
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“Everyone believes investing in additional transportation infrastructure is needed, but where the money is going to come from is the great challenge,” he [CEO Louis Campion of Maryland Motor Truck Association] said. “We simply cannot pay, at this time, additional fuel taxes and additional fees.”
https://www.bizjournals.com/baltimore/stories/2010/04/19/story12.html?b=1271649600^3204931
If motoring was sustainable, if we could afford meeting all the needs of motoring and if motoring did not have such a detrimental effect on the environment and human life… then hey we would all be for it. But that dream is far from any sort of reality. The private single occupancy vehicle (SOV) is not anywhere near the ideal solution for all mobility problems, a 10% investment in mass transit that removes 20% of traffic off our local roads and is a better investment then trying to spend every penny on tying to get more cars on our already over crowded roads with no hope of being able to eradicate congestion under the current funding structures and car centric planning/funding, yet SOV is promoted as "economical" and mass transit is not. And trying to increase 2%* spending to reduce 20% of our traffic fatalities that are bike/ped related is seen as anti-car rather then for human life. I really have to ask where are our priorities?
*My best guess
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Biking in Baltimore