Hi-tech speed limit signs
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Yeah I agree. Please put up hi-tech speed limit signs all over Trinidad. Appeal to drivers’ consciences. I hear that works really well. It’ll go great with the flashing yellow lights in front of school because we all know it made the taxi drivers - especially the ones catering for school children - mend their ways. They no longer speed or reverse for five blocks straight as often as they used to. So, yeah hi-tech speed limit signs - great idea.
These things work in the U.S. because they know that a silly sign alone won’t do much. There’s a lot of back up. Cops with radar guns hang out at any street corner or on overpasses. I’ve even had a friend get timed by a cop dangling from a helicopter who radioed the call to another officer on the ground. (I’m sure a lot of you reading know what I’m talking about).
If the light is flashing on the school zone sign, you know you better damn well drive below 20, because have no fear, there’s an officer with a radar gun close by. Drivers in the United States and other countries are ever aware of these things. So in the US, the high tech speed sign isn’t just a speed sign. It’s not a booster shot to the conscience. It’s actually a very visible threat. If you drive past one, and you realize you’re speeding, you slow down. They are very common next to roadways under construction, because in many states, traffic fines are tripled in construction zones.
So what does Mr. Imbert do? They buy some signs and expect the same response. I mean come on. The speed limit in Trinidad is more of a suggestion than a law anyway. How many Trinis even bother to look down at our own speedometers when we pass by a speed limit sign, let alone slow down? And so bpTT and the Ministry of Works and Transport are expecting drivers here to all of a sudden grow a conscience because they erected a fancy sign? What’s going to happen when they discover they’ve been speeding? They’ll feel bad about themselves? Oh give me a break.
Works and Transport Ministry corporate communications manager Douglas Brunton said that a fifth sign is planned, but not for the Savannah. (May I suggest near the treasury?)
“There has been no concrete decision as to where the fifth one is going to go,” he said.
He also said that even if the signs show that drivers are breaking the speed limit around the Savannah, they will not be used to penalise the offenders.
“There is no punitive measure attached to these things at all. There is no record keeping capacity on it other than averages.”
Brunton says that the signs are already having a positive effect on drivers.
“As people start to see the signs work, people began slowing down coming toward the signs,” he said.
THAT’S CUZ THEY’RE SLOWING DOWN TO GAPE AT THE SHINY NEW SIGN!
IT’S HARD TO GAPE DOING 80!
Bunch of idiots.
