Wednesday, March 03, 2010
Sneaking around the terrorists
The Wash State senate just passed a bill allowing cities to designate 'Golf Cart Zones'. The house will undoubtedly pass the same bill soon. A similar law also passed recently in Oregon.
Interesting in three ways:
(1) It's a recognition of something that's already going on. In small towns and gated communities, folks are puttering around in golf carts. Legislatures nearly always recognize a current practice by outlawing it. This time they officially 'in-lawed' it, rare enough to be worth a little celebration.
(2) The Wash traffic law already has similar special provisions for Neighborhood Electric Vehicles, but those are rare and expensive. Golf carts are common and cheap, and serve exactly the same purpose. (Actually, some NEVs are just rebranded and up-priced golf carts!)
(3) Both types of vehicle are a nice return to technical simplicity and decentralization, and most of all a workaround for the wildly expensive regulations placed on 'real cars' by the government-sponsored terrorist organization EPA.
Since 1963, the Feds have piled so many conflicting requirements on 'real cars' that they have become terribly expensive to buy and maintain, and often misfitted for their intended use. If you're only going to travel a mile to Safeway each day, you don't need 600 horsepower, zero to 60 in 5 seconds, airbags, air conditioning, or a supercomputer grabbing the wheel and flooring the gas pedal for you. You just need an electric horseless carriage. ¶ 5:30 PM
The Wash State senate just passed a bill allowing cities to designate 'Golf Cart Zones'. The house will undoubtedly pass the same bill soon. A similar law also passed recently in Oregon.
Interesting in three ways:
(1) It's a recognition of something that's already going on. In small towns and gated communities, folks are puttering around in golf carts. Legislatures nearly always recognize a current practice by outlawing it. This time they officially 'in-lawed' it, rare enough to be worth a little celebration.
(2) The Wash traffic law already has similar special provisions for Neighborhood Electric Vehicles, but those are rare and expensive. Golf carts are common and cheap, and serve exactly the same purpose. (Actually, some NEVs are just rebranded and up-priced golf carts!)
(3) Both types of vehicle are a nice return to technical simplicity and decentralization, and most of all a workaround for the wildly expensive regulations placed on 'real cars' by the government-sponsored terrorist organization EPA.
Since 1963, the Feds have piled so many conflicting requirements on 'real cars' that they have become terribly expensive to buy and maintain, and often misfitted for their intended use. If you're only going to travel a mile to Safeway each day, you don't need 600 horsepower, zero to 60 in 5 seconds, airbags, air conditioning, or a supercomputer grabbing the wheel and flooring the gas pedal for you. You just need an electric horseless carriage. ¶ 5:30 PM
