On the ride to the shop the tow truck driver shared with me a few interesting stories about the life of a tow truck driver. He told me about the video above, which should be a training video for new tow truck drivers; always put on your parking brakes!

He also shared with me a little tow truck game where one tow truck company will call in a bogus tow job to another tow truck company. They just pick out a car somewhere that seems to be parked for a bit and call in the description and the license plate. The tow truck company comes and either attempts to tow the car and then gets an earful from the owner, or they successful tow it to the impound yard and get an earful later when the owner finds out what happened to their car.

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That doesn’t mean I’m not aware of certain streets and areas where there’s normally a bit of extra police presence on the streets.

The Njection website provides a nice little speedtrap mashup map for cities all over the United States.

Red light cameras and speed traps are good ideas in theory, but not quite when put into practice. They have become a convenient and socially accepted way to fine drivers and increase local revenue while not actually enhancing road safety, as studies have shown. Article after article nationwide cites how red light cameras are used to increase the amount of money certain cities receive from fines, how well over half of certain towns’ operating budgets come from speeding tickets, and yet how particular kinds of accidents, such as rear-end crashes, actually increase regardless of speed traps.

I believe the greatest deterrent to speeding is a single police officer going 5 miles under the speed limit in the fast lane of a major highway. They can back up a line of traffic for miles. Similar to how Njection feels, not sure if that’s a better solution or not if safety is the ultimate motivation to reduce speeding though.

Uncover the risky areas in your town at NJection’s Speed Trap Mashup, but always drive safe!

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