Where I live, it's common to see at least one person run a red at every major intersection and not just for left turns that couldn't be made due to cross-traffic. Quite often these drivers have expired temp tags which means they don't have insurance because you have to show you registered your vehicle to get insurance. Enforcement is awful so people have been trained to realize there's virtually no consequences to their bad habits. And if they do cause an accident, well it's not like the police will show up in time to stop them from driving off.
In fact, it's so bad that parts of the metro are reinstating red light cameras this year despite having decommissioned them years ago for similar legal reasons as what Florida has run into.
Then the state needs to start doing immediate impoundment of these vehicles. Add on massive fines before release of the car for repeat offenders and you'll see this dry up pretty quick.
The city supposedly did an enforcement weekend on it last year. It was so ineffective that the state actually changed registration laws so that you pay the sales tax when you purchase a car at the dealership and then you get your plate in the mail. That doesn't go into effect until late this year and I won't be surprised if it gets pushed back before then.
Yes, there is a distinction. But it’s irrelevant in this case because you can be ticketed for either. The speeding ticket goes to the registered owner and there are no demerit points as there is no proof of driver identity.
No, there is a difference. Parking tickets are civil infractions that can only result in a fine (or in some cases a tow, but let’s not get lost in the weeds). Running a red light, on the other hand, is a moving violation committed by the _driver_ specifically, not the owner of the vehicle. Moving violations can result in criminal penalties. Sending a ticket to the owner of the vehicle and then making them defend themselves is unconstitutional.
Look, I get it. You guys are all European and think it’s perfectly normal to have to defend yourself when the government assumes that you are guilty. But here in the USA we have protections against that. The government _must_ assume that you are innocent until they can _prove_ that you are guilty. That includes not assuming that the owner of the vehicle was the one driving it, no matter how common that scenario is.
I’m not European. Many countries have speed cameras.
It differs how you’re caught. We treat a red light camera or speed camera violation as an infringement offence, like parking. If you’re pulled over, you can have your license suspended or be charged with reckless driving on the spot, because they know who you are.
There’s no case, and no guilt, just a penalty. It’s not about guilt but responsibility. You’re responsible for the car when it’s registered to you.
If you want an analogue, try carpool lane tickets. Same thing.
If your country’s law says that the owner of the car commits a crime if the driver runs a red light, then ticketing the owner makes perfect sense. But in Florida the law says that the _driver_ has committed the crime. Therefore the _driver_ must be ticketed, not the owner.
It’s not a crime, it’s an infringement (NZ) or civil infraction (FL), and there’s no criminal record associated. There’s a material difference between an infraction and a crime.
> This seems incredibly inefficient. Is there a future for hybrid aircraft, which would feature both traditional turbofans and large batteries for energy storage?
I would assume the extra weight would make it not really worth the added cost and complexity.
Honestly it sounds like the "right" way to do it would be electric ground vehicles pulling the planes into position, as with tugboats in water. Plane never need carry batteries into the sky and saves a literal ton of fuel.
IIRC towing to and from the runway has two major issues:
- standard towing tractors are really slow when towing, nowhere near taxiing speed, so you need a fleet of heavier duty "fast tow", possibly dedicated (depending on price)
- more traffic around the runway, which creates more airport complexity
Taxibot does exist tho, and is certified, and used in a few airports. Though I think it's only hybrid not electric.
Bigger issue is that the engines need to be idled for a while anyway to get up to proper temps, etc. you don’t want to start the engines and jam them into full takeoff thrust 5 seconds later.
True, the engines need to be warmed up and the hydraulics need to be pressurised, but given e.g. airbus recommends single engine taxi without APU (SETWA) warming up the engines probably doesn't take that long in the grand scheme of things. Definitely not the 15~25mn of taxi. From the sources I can find, "normal" warmup takes 2~5mn depending how long ago the engine was shut down, unless outside temps are exceptionally low, and you can do that while reaching the end of your taxi.
The software in modern engines wouldn’t let you do that anyway. The engine startup process can be quite long - several minutes in a 737 MAX - while the engine’s ECU brings things to proper temperatures etc.
But with e-taxi, the startup cycle could be performed while taxiing, potentially saving airlines time on pushback as well as fuel/maintenance cost savings.
> Recovery is beyond the scope of most small practices.
Seems like a business opportunity. Could probably work very similar to other collections agencies where they either buy the debt for pennies on the dollar or take a percentage of the collected amount.
Yeah, there's an industry of companies that insert themselves between the medical record and the insurance company to upcode claims and get better payments. This article is about the reverse process, where the insurance company looks at the claims and downcodes them to send worse payments.
IMHO, in office care should be more of a time and materials billing than billing based on procedures done. Of course, then the doctors' billing office would aggressively measure time the doctor spent, and the insurance company would suggest the doctor took too long for whatever.
It's much easier to treat it like identity theft where the business's problem becomes the customer's problem to solve. In this case, insurance didn't pay what was required so the patient does. There's already a potential collections agency involved if the patient doesn't pay.
Who do you think is easier to squeeze the money from? A mega-insurance corporation or your sick grandma?
Sending your patient's 'debt' to collections promptly is very unpopular with the patients, and the insurance companies will 100% insist that the patient is responsible.
You'll notice the doctor's office in the article already has a team of billing experts. But instead of working on new claims, they are being forced to relitigate claims they already submitted that weren't accepted.
> With such a… fixed opinion, the hidebound government agencies can't allow themselves to think that the overall risk profile has increased
This is only true if policy makers are logically consistent. If they're not then whatever they feel like at the time goes. I don't think it takes much effort to see that logical consistency is not something that is highly valued by the people currently in charge.
I knew a guy that was extremely upset to find out that there isn't a lenticular garage door product so he could have it display an "animated" image as it opened/closed.
> This means people are okay with whatever is happening
Or it means the game has been rigged which is exactly the point of all the gerrymandering going on right now. Tons of people are not okay with what is happening but their power to replace their government representative has been or is currently being effectively stolen from them.
A lot of those things require you to give them your email to get the coupon. They could do that with a button as well but couldn't then follow up to let you know you didn't buy anything from them in 24hrs.
In fact, it's so bad that parts of the metro are reinstating red light cameras this year despite having decommissioned them years ago for similar legal reasons as what Florida has run into.