“Look out there in the driveway! Every insurance company in America is out there waving their fountain pen, trying to get you to sign up.”
Boolie Werthan, Miss Daisy’s son.

If I am not mistaken, I have finally noticed that more people are talking about others driving their cars too fast and endangering the lives of everyone. I have even read an increased amount of letters to the editor about people driving too fast and causing accidents on roads like I-295 through Portland, where there seems to be an increase in accidents due to speed. That’s a stretch of road that I have always said that if one drives the speed limit it’s asking to be run off the road for sure. Without a doubt the worse road in Windham for me is the River Road but as other roads are improved, like the recent repaving of Route 202 from Route 302 to Gray, they are will experience an increased number of speeders as well.

I am beginning to believe that the only way to slow a significant amount of drivers who love to speed is constant enforcement of speed limits. However, the consequences of that would undoubtedly be a significant increase in property taxes, and Windham is going to suffer that many times over in the not so distant future. It is nice that various police departments use those signs which show the speed you are traveling at, but in the end I really don’t think that they make much of a difference at all. As a matter of strange fact, I have heard some people actually love to speed up to see how fast they can go. Hopefully those contraptions at least keep a record of the speed vehicles are going so that law enforcement knows the extent of any speeding problem on a particular road.

What do you think about speed bumps? Personally I consider them a nuisance and usually result in the driver behind me tailgating me or even attempting to pass me. That happened on Capisic Street in Portland one day. But I must admit that they do slow me down, although I have seen other drivers that obviously pretend that they don’t exist or they just don’t care about their vehicle. What those bumps do slow down, I am sure, are emergency responses with fire trucks, ambulances and even police officers, which probably isn’t a good thing at all. Maybe they should be placed on roads going down a hill to see how far vehicles can fly.

But there may just be day when the government finally learns from itself. There has always seem to be a huge push to get the trucking industry to slow down their drivers. Some companies do have devices that limit the speed their drivers can travel, and that’s more than likely not a bad thing unless it prevents a driver from rapidly increasing speed when needed. I have read that some states are looking at placing GPS devices in vehicles that will track the mileage one drives in order to collect a road tax. As most probably already know, some insurance companies are wanting to track our vehicle movements as well, and I am sure it is only going to cost us even more for car insurance unless we drive like Grandma. Don’t mean to be sexist there as I know some Grandpas who drive even slower.

However, I envision the day when the government perfects GPS devices that totally control our vehicles no matter what they are. They would only go as fast as the speed limit allows and make sure we stop for stop signs, traffic lights and only God knows what else. The government will not only know where we are going but how we got there, as well as how long it took us to get there. The truth probably is that technology already exists and the government at different levels is doing it right now. Just look at the cameras on police vehicles that scan license plates automatically.

Lane Hiltunen of Windham believes we should start tracking government vehicles to ensure they are always being used properly.