For those of you who don't live in Virginia, here's the background on this story: last year, the General Assembly, desperately needing to raise money for transportation improvements, but equally desperate to avoid doing so with a "tax," decided to fund it with a hodge podge of disguised taxes, the most significant of which were enormous fines on "abusive drivers."As with all silly laws, this one has had some silly results. The worst we've heard of, so far is this one (from today's WaPo):
NEWPORT NEWS
19-Year-Old Cyclist Faces Abusive-Driver Fee
A traffic court in Newport News, Va., has ordered a 19-year-old man to pay a $1,050 abusive-driver fee for driving his 18-speed bicycle recklessly in traffic.
Kajuan Cornish, who is appealing the fee, got a ticket Thursday after police said motorists had to slow down to avoid hitting him.
The day before, Virginia Gov. Timothy M. Kaine (D) called on state lawmakers to repeal the fees, saying they were a mistake. The General Assembly and Kaine approved them last year in an attempt to raise money for transportation projects by cracking down on drivers cited for the most serious offenses, such as reckless driving.
Now really, does that make sense? We might add that we caught a clip of the bicyclist offender on the TV news and, lo and behold, he was African-American. Would that happen to a white guy on a bicycle? We don't think so.
We're not against ticketing a reckless bicyclist, but let's get real.
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