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Scruit

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Posts posted by Scruit

  5. Patrol: Driver on phone in fatal crash

    in Daily Ride

    Posted

    Are you guys still riding to court ? if i had a motorcycle i'd love to join....

    The nature of court hearings is too unpredictable. You'd have to go to every single hearing (and many are continued). You could wind up going there 10 times just to eventually see her lawyer enter a plea agreement.

    Even if they schedule a trial, most are continued at least once, and many are continued several times.

    If they schedule a plea change hearing then that's worth going to. Otherwise it's a crapshoot.

  8. HB191 = Street Racing = Oh Shit

    in Daily Ride

    Posted

    It may not be flammable in and of itself, however it will make any existing fire burn hotter/faster.

    Still, if they were concerned about nitrous explosions in cars then they would ban notrous completely, not just on street. It's a kneejerk reaction to recent street racing deaths. Nitrous smacks of street racing therefore we'll ban nitrous.

    Are people who've already spent money on these system granfathered? Some of these multiport systems can thousands of dollars when you consider the cost of tuning. Heck, even a single port kist costs over $500. Are those folks going to have to rip their systems out now? I thought if you banned a physical thing that was previously legal you had to grandfather the folks who already had them (such as the now-sunset AWB)

    They're banning it becuase of guilt-by-association, not because the thing they are banning is enough of a danger to other people that the right of the drive to own the system is outweighed by the public safety aspect. People street race with, and without nitrous - concentrating on the tools of the crime is historically folly. If you want to stop street racing then attack street racing directly.

  9. HB191 = Street Racing = Oh Shit

    in Daily Ride

    Posted

    They are not singling out NOS because of the risk of explosion. They are singling it out because of it's association with street racing. Are enough people injured of killed in nitrous explosions to make it worth passing a law??

    So, if we accept that the ban on nitrous is not in response to the risk of nitrous explosions, then we have to ask why they want to ban nitrous.

    Are they trying to prevent people from adding power to their cars? If so then why would they ban nitrous and not ban aftermarket superchargers? (both are potent power-adders) What other power adders will they ban?

  10. HB191 = Street Racing = Oh Shit

    in Daily Ride

    Posted · Edited by Scruit

    Seeing that the italicized portion is the changed portion, there's not much of a change at all. It looks to me that it's not different enough from exisiting laws to worry about.

    As I've said before, I don't think I'll be worrying much about it, as most LEO's won't even know of this, unless we tell them! The one that I was talking to about this hadn't heard anything of it, and he stays pretty well up to date on stuff.

    The changes in the as-passed version are not as great a concern as the originally proposed changes (whcih would have defined "street racing" as any "acceleration inconsistent with normal driving" or thereabouts) :eek:

    Not sure if I understand the ban on nitrous though. What is the differenciator between nitrous or an aftermarket supercharger? Why single out one power-adder and not the others? Are they going to ban aftermarket superchargers and turbos? What about owm? What about replacing an OEM turbo with a better turbo? What about adding an intercooler? Fancy spark plugs??

    Am I gonna become Bubba's play-thing because of my K&N filter??

  14. HB191 = Street Racing = Oh Shit

    in Daily Ride

    Posted · Edited by Scruit

    I may be missing something, but I've been reading http://www.legislature.state.oh.us/bills.cfm?ID=128_HB_191 and I cannot find the "inconsistent with normal driving" clause that we're all worried about.

    Sec. 4511.251.
    (A)
    (1)
    As used in this section and section 4510.036 of the Revised Code, "street racing" means the operation of two or more vehicles from a point side by side at accelerating speeds in a competitive attempt to out-distance each other or the operation of one or more vehicles over a common selected course, from the same point to the same point, wherein timing is made of the participating vehicles involving competitive accelerations or speeds.
    (
    Begin Delete:
    Persons rendering assistance in any manner to such competitive use of vehicles shall be equally charged as the participants. The
    :End Delete
    )

    (2) The
    operation of two or more vehicles side by side either at speeds in excess of prima-facie lawful speeds established by divisions (B)(1)(a) to (B)(8) of section 4511.21 of the Revised Code or rapidly accelerating from a common starting point to a speed in excess of such prima-facie lawful speeds shall be prima-facie evidence of street racing.

    Did that get dropped by the house?

  17. Who broke youtube?

    in Dumpster

    Posted · Edited by Scruit

    :bigfinger:

    YouTube is down for maintenance and will be back shortly.

    I've been using it for about an hour, and there was not scheduled downtime that they warned about in advance. I did get lots of "500" errors leading up to the failure.

    I guess I shouldn't have searched for videos of "dangerous ohio drivers". I crashed their server cloud with too many results.

  20. nfl

    in Dumpster

    Posted

    The joke is the TV station switching off the Titans/Patriots game after Brady's historic 2nd quarter where he threw for 5 TDs... "Well, this hasn't happened for nearly 60 years! This historic game ties records that have stood since 1950. But because the outcome is pretty obvious we're gonna take you to a different game."

    Hey, numbnuts, some of us wanted to watch that historic game... :mad:

  21. Big Heads Up !!! Deer everywhere

    in Daily Ride

    Posted

    I see deer on our road all the time. It is supposed to be a 55 limit but I never go faster that 35 because deer can emerge from the cornfield and run into the road faster than you can stop from 55.

    Yesterday morning there was a dead deer at the end of my driveway. :confused:

    A few years back someone hit a deer down the road from here and the deer slid all the way up into my front lawn. Deer died within minutes, car had to be towed.

  22. UK Driver Speeds Through Puddle, Drenches Kids, May Face Prosecution

    in Dumpster

    Posted

    Resident Limey says: There is an offense of "Inconsiderate Driving". It's like a speeding ticket. It's a more difficult prosecution than speeding because to be ruled 'inconsiderate' requires the prosecution prove the act was intentional. Most traffic offenses don't require they prove you did it on purpose.

    It's used in situations where no other stated law was broken, however the driver's actions created a dangerous situation, etc. You'd also get this for speeding up while being passed etc.

    If Columbus introduced a law against inconsiderate driving then half the city's driving population would be on death row before the week is out.

  24. Patrol: Driver on phone in fatal crash

    in Daily Ride

    Posted

    Best way to find out is to call the clerk of courts just before the close the business day before. Failing that, call the court when they open.

    Don't forget, though, that a continuance could always be filed the next morning right up to the hearing time. In fact a continuance request was filed over a month ago, but the docket does not list a response from the judge yet. It may have already been continued just not listed.

    Also bear in mind this is just listed as a pre-trial conference. This is typically just a brief hearing to determine if both sides are ready for the court to set a date for a trial, and if not, why not, and how to make it so they ARE ready. Either it'll just be some legal jargon and nothing really resolved or decided.... Or it may be continued.... Or it may be resolved with a plea deal. Anything can happen.

    It's kina tricky to see which way it can go, partly because we don't even have 1/2 the information that the folks involved in the case have. Also, if the defense wishes to go to trial they can typically opt for a jury trial or bench trial (judge is jury too). The normal strategy is to request a jury if your defene is emotional, or a judge if your defense is a precise technical legal one. That is to say, a jury is more likely to feel sympathy for a father on trial for killing his daughter's rapist, whereas a judge won't. A judge is more likely to give an obviously guilty person the benefit of black/white legal logic if the defense is based upon the precise definition of "business use" wherein it pertains to a item of property stolen from a business, and therefore should the means of valuation (for determining felony/misdemeanor level) of the item be simply "Market value" rather than "New Replacement Cost" because the business was not actually using the item for what a reasonable person would consider it's stated use, as required by the valuation statutes. (yes, that sentence was intentionally long winded, because that's how judges, not normal people, process information)

    We're right on the tipping point of 'is cell phone use recklessness enough to be considered manslaughter.' A jury could go either way. Not so many years ago a jury would have been more sympathetic to her becuase weve all dont it, right? But more and more these days people are hearing about the dangers of cell phone use in cars (I'm now pimping a fully hands-free voice-activated thimgamyjobber in my cage) and those people are starting to think; "Well, yes of course cellphones are potentially lethal in cars!"

    So I can't really say if they'd opt for a jury trial or bench trial. You don't want a judge making a call on what;s reasonable because they don't have the same sympathy. But on the other hand, I supect a jury may agree that the cellphone makes it manslaughter.

    I predict a plea deal with depressingly little jail time (or none at all) but a couple years of probation and a healthy fine. Unless the judge/prosecutor have "had enough" and want to send a message out - wherein I would expect her to serve the full 90 days.

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