Traffic Cameras

This is one of the most ridiculous things I've ever heard of. It's almost as ridiculous as people believing that legalizing gay marriage will have homosexuals shagging in their front lawns. I found this group on Facebook today because a few friends had joined it. Link-

http://www.facebook.com/?sk=2361831622#!/group.php?gid=132243826789493

Taken from the group's page directly:

"An instrument to increase safety - or an instrument to make money?

Petitions such as these have already succeeded in cities in Louisiana, Ohio, Texas, Arizona, Illinois, and Alaska. If the citizens in a particular city get enough votes on their petition then they could be granted a referendum to ban these cameras. And they’ll probably win too: Photo enforcement has never survived a public vote. How’s that for some good odds?"

First, I was amused, and then concerned. Why would people not like traffic cameras? They target the license plate, not your face- so yes, if you loaned someone your vehicle, you would receive the ticket that they would earn. However, all tickets are also timestamped with the exact time, date, and location of the offense. If you know who was driving your vehicle at that time, you know who to talk to about paying the ticket.

But this isn't the only issue that is discussed on this group's wall. They complain that they should have the right to their privacy. Again, only the plate is targeted. After a while, I realized that what a lot of these people were saying was "I don't want to get a ticket for speeding," meaning that people don't like the tickets because they make them have to pay the consequences of their actions.

There are several reasons why I'm in complete favor of traffic cameras.

First, they make the public more conscious of their driving, making them pay more attention to their speeds. This means that while I'm being more careful as a driver, so is everyone else. I don't have to drive as though every other driver is a complete moron, because there's a little bit more wiggle room.

Second, accidents happen. More precisely, hit and runs happen. I would rather know the license of the car that hit my child or my vehicle and then sped off than I would like to know nothing at all. Justice can begin to take place. I see absolutely nothing wrong with having a way to have an extra lead in a case in which someone may have died.

Therefore, to all of those who would complain about the traffic lights- If you don't like being ticketed for speeding, then drive like an adult and be quiet. Unless you're being completely irresponsible in your vehicle, you will not get ticketed. I'm sorry that the weight of the real world makes you sad, but everyone has to deal with it, you'll be fine.

Also, for those who wonder where the money from tickets goes... it goes into maintaining the roads that you like to speed on.

Friendship

Right now, a friend of mine is going through a very messy break-up. His ex is filing a no contact order because she doesn't want to see him again, and he showed it to us. Everything in it is either exaggerated beyond compare, or a complete lie (there've been witnesses who can attest that these things are not the truth). She doesn't want to see him face to face at the hearing, and I think it's because she knows that if he goes and pushes it, she'll be exposed. One of the things written was that she'd called the police because of him several times, but not once did this friend ever receive contact from the police department, even through phone. Thus, either that entire department is full of idiots who can't do their job, or the more likely thing is true: she lied. If she says the same thing in court, it's perjury, and she ends up in a lot of trouble. She's filing for some order that would request his consent to not be present during the hearing. Gee, I wonder why.

Now, he has every right to be upset by this. Before all of this, she was yo-yoing him for the last month as to whether or not they were together. She would never say that they were over, just that she needed space. And then a week before this happened, while he was staying at our house (their lease was up, so we were helping him move and whatnot, and gave him crash space because he's awesome), she called him saying she wanted him to come home because she missed him.

That doesn't exactly strike me as behavior from someone who's "afraid" of someone else, as she's claiming to be. I'm no where near happy with her, and I can promise that should we ever meet face to face, there will be words.

All of that said, the last big break up that this friend went through was really bad. I wasn't there for it, but I've heard the stories. He was pretty much clinically depressed, he wasn't sleeping, he wasn't eating, it took him months to get back to a schedule resembling anything like normality. With this one, he's handling it a lot better, but it's still been incredibly hard on him. He's never done a violent thing to anyone in the three years that I've known him, and friends who've known him longer can attest to a longer time period of no violence.

Right now, I'm flustered. Not by him in any way, of course, but by some of our other friends. They've decided to "institute a no sympathy ban" for this friend. They've told him to "man up and move on," and that's it. They expect him to heal because they told him to.

I'm incredibly disappointed in them, not the least because one of them has lost a parent in his life, and I would think that he would understand at least from that the fact that loss of any form requires sensitivity and patience. I know that he was no bag of sunshine during that, and so I don't see why he should expect our friend to be now.

Pain is pain. It doesn't care who you are, where you come from, or how you've lived your life. All that pain cares about is causing more pain, and making it hurt as hard as it can.

I don't believe in only being there for my friends when it's a good time for them. My fiance and I have been helping our friend out this entire time because we've always said that we had his back, and we meant it. I have never considered myself to be a fair-weather friend, but I can see that some of the people that I know clearly have no time for the thunder storms in the lives of their friends.

That's why I'm writing right now. I'm awful at keeping up blogs, but this is an incredibly good place for me to express what I need to in an entirely healthy fashion, and for that, I am thankful that blogs exist.

If any of you who are taking part in this ban on sympathy for our friend ever find and read this, I want you to know that I am incredibly disappointed in you. If you keep abandoning your friends when they already feel like they're losing everything, you're going to find yourselves in short supply of friends very quickly.