PSA: Arizona, in effort to be logically consistent, to abolish all speed limits

This morning on NPR, it was revealed that a certain portion of Arizona highway outside Phoenix has had speeding cameras installed for at least a year.

People are furious about this, probably because the tickets are something like $180, and up until then, they'd been getting away with driving as fast as they wanted with only the cops to worry about. Fortunately, 2/3 of drivers who have received camera-tickets have found a solution to the problem in not paying the fines. One driver, aware that the requirement for ticketing is to have a view of the individual driver's face, has been wearing a monkey mask and eluding possibly 37 tickets. (I say "possibly" because who knows how many people are actually under that monkey mask driving around in that same car every day?)

The new (Republican) governor of Arizona has lambasted the former (Democratic) governor of Arizona for starting the program, which she says was "only" to earn money for the state. She makes the choice to install cameras sound preposterous and malicious. (The government is trying to steal your money.)

Maybe she's been ticketed, too.

There's no other explanation for maligning a practice that has likely contributed to the 25% decrease in traffic fatalities, leading to less time state troopers spend driving from accident to accident (a savings, I would imagine, in time spent on that task and overtime pay) and, heck, fewer people dead: 81 fewer people, to be exact.

Unless she's against the idea of speed limits at all, even though they appear to keep us safe from maniac drivers who think they're capable of controlling their cars at 90 mph -- and who as often as not end up crashing into our cars, leaving us stranded, paying higher insurance rates, and possibly maimed or killed.

Besides, people who hated being pulled over before should be rejoicing. At least they don't have to slow down and pull over now. At least they don't have to feel that shock of adrenaline when they realize that was an unmarked police car they just passed, and wonder if they're going to get snagged.

I'm not trying to go all Big Brother here -- it is scary that the govt. (or rather the private enterprise that handles these cameras and ticketing, which is based in Arizona) can look into our cars via cameras. But heck, a cop that pulls us over can see at least as much just from outside the car. And we all pretty much agree to speed limits, right? Which is a "violation" of our "rights" to drive as fast as we freaking want to begin with, right?

If we're going to complain about cameras reinforcing the law, then we should probably -- just for the sake of consistency -- be complaining about the speed limit laws, not the fact that they're now being enforced.

The way I see it, the only problem with speed limits (and I'm a speeder most of the time myself), is that sporadic reinforcement, and the subsequent stupid driving practices of people who think they can jimmy an extra 5 mph out of the system. With the cameras? Problem solved.