Trump Scrambles To Loosen America's Biometric Data and Gig Worker Regulations (msn.com) 184
"Facing the prospect that President Trump could lose his re-election bid, his cabinet is scrambling to enact regulatory changes affecting millions of Americans in a blitz so rushed it may leave some changes vulnerable to court challenges," reports the New York Times:
The effort is evident in a broad range of federal agencies and encompasses proposals like easing limits on how many hours some truckers can spend behind the wheel, giving the government more freedom to collect biometric data and setting federal standards for when workers can be classified as independent contractors rather than employees. In the bid to lock in new rules before Jan. 20, Mr. Trump's team is limiting or sidestepping requirements for public comment on some of the changes and swatting aside critics who say the administration has failed to carry out sufficiently rigorous analysis. Some cases, like a new rule to allow railroads to move highly flammable liquefied natural gas on freight trains, have led to warnings of public safety threats...
If Democrats take control of Congress, they will have the power to reconsider some of these last-minute regulations, through a law last used at the start of Mr. Trump's tenure by Republicans to repeal certain rules enacted at the end of the Obama administration. But the Trump administration is also working to fill key vacancies on scientific advisory boards with members who will hold their seats far into the next presidential term, committees that play an important role in shaping federal rule making...
The Homeland Security Department is also moving, again with an unusually short 30-day comment period, to adopt a rule that will allow it to collect much more extensive biometric data from individuals applying for citizenship, including voice, iris and facial recognition scans, instead of just the traditional fingerprint scan. The measure, which the agency said was needed to curb fraud, would also allow it for the first time to collect DNA or DNA test results to verify a relationship between an application for citizenship and someone already in the United States.
If Democrats take control of Congress, they will have the power to reconsider some of these last-minute regulations, through a law last used at the start of Mr. Trump's tenure by Republicans to repeal certain rules enacted at the end of the Obama administration. But the Trump administration is also working to fill key vacancies on scientific advisory boards with members who will hold their seats far into the next presidential term, committees that play an important role in shaping federal rule making...
The Homeland Security Department is also moving, again with an unusually short 30-day comment period, to adopt a rule that will allow it to collect much more extensive biometric data from individuals applying for citizenship, including voice, iris and facial recognition scans, instead of just the traditional fingerprint scan. The measure, which the agency said was needed to curb fraud, would also allow it for the first time to collect DNA or DNA test results to verify a relationship between an application for citizenship and someone already in the United States.
Can be easily unwound (Score:2)
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Much of what is done now may be invalid, even illegal, in a few months
Uh, you assume he will lose the election. Not so fast, grasshopper!
Re:Can be easily unwound (Score:4, Informative)
Uh, you assume he will lose the election.
In 2016, Clinton was ahead in the polls by 3 to 4% and she lost in a squeaker.
In 2020, Biden is up by 8-12% and there are very few undecided voters.
The election is two weeks away.
It is reasonable to assume that Trump is going to lose.
Re:Can be easily unwound (Score:4, Insightful)
It is reasonable to assume that Trump is going to lose.
It is reasonable to assume that significantly more people will [want to] vote for Biden than for Trump. But it's also reasonable to assume that Trump will continue to attempt to tamper with the election through vote[r] suppression, and probably also through the stacked courts if necessary.
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With an average 10 point lead, it's hard to imagine how even a concerted attempt to interfere with the election would work. This is the Democrat version of the Republican "they're busing in illegals to vote".
The GOP is already behaving as if Trump lost. You're watching Republican Senators turning on the President. They'll get their Supreme Court pick out of him, and then so far as they're concerned, his Administration is toast.
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With an average 10 point lead, it's hard to imagine how even a concerted attempt to interfere with the election would work.
10-point lead where, though? You'd think after 2016 people would remember that the US doesn't have a popular vote (no, you can't just add up the votes in all the states, that's not how it works), it has an Electoral College. And if you look at the states that Biden has to win, the race is a lot closer than a 10 point lead. Yes, he's up by more than Hillary was in 2016, but not much more. If we assume the same polling error that happened in 2016 then Biden would win, but that's a really dumb assumption to ma
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I agree that it's a dumb assumption that the polling error will be similar. In 2016 there were about 14% undecided and they shifted almost 80/20 toward trump at the end which was just enough to make up the difference. In 2020 the undecided is closer to 3 or 4%, Nowhere near enough.
This has been a surprisingly stable race dating back to April, voters are essentially locked into their echo chambers and simply aren't going to change their minds (unless something dramatic happens like Biden dies of Covid o
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It's my belief that the "undecided" voter is a myth. In recent presidential elections, the biggest cohort of people (45% to 50%) is people who didn't vote.
This is the biggest pool from which to get votes. This is also the pool of people that the polls tend to ignore ("did you vote in the last election?").
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Trump's upset win was, I think because he was able to get a bunch of people who would not normally vote to vote for him.
Also, Hillary was able to get a bunch of people who would normally vote for her to stay home.
Joe Biden has much lower negatives than Hillary Clinton, so he should do better on turnout.
Nobody loves Joe, but nobody hates him either.
Re: Can be easily unwound (Score:2)
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You need to remember that with gop gerrymandering, the Dems need 8% more votes than reps to break even.
Gerrymandering does not affect presidential elections.
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You're watching Republican Senators turning on the President.
Yup. Several senators up for reelection have made the point that a Republican Senate is needed to restrain a Democrat in the White House.
They'll get their Supreme Court pick out of him
Indeed. ACB's nomination takes the Supreme Court off the table as an issue. All the other justices are healthy and there will most likely be no new nominations in the next four years. It gives institutional conservatives one less reason to vote for Trump.
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But it's also reasonable to assume that Trump will continue to attempt to tamper with the election through vote[r] suppression, and probably also through the stacked courts if necessary.
Exactly.
It doesn't matter who votes, it matters who counts the votes, and how big an army of lawyers you can muster to try and sow confusion, so they can claim they need to replace a state's Electors, "so that they more accurately represent the state's voting intent".
This is just one thing they're planning on doing- swooping in and 'invalidating' the Electors so they can be replaced with shills for Trump.
Re:Can be easily unwound (Score:5, Informative)
Trump will continue to attempt to tamper with the election through vote[r] suppression
How is he going to do that?
The same way the GOP has been doing it for decades: gerrymandering, intimidation, restrictions on voting times and places, etc etc etc.
Really, can you tell me that a single ballot box is enough in a county with over 400,000 people? Because that's just one example of what Republicans are doing to cause voter suppression.
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So now Trump is in charge of gerrymandering?
And he is going to personally change the boundaries of districts in the new two weeks?
Are you aware that for presidential elections, gerrymandering and district boundaries mean nothing in any states but Nebraska and Maine?
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So now Trump is in charge of gerrymandering?
He's personally in charge of the party that loves gerrymandering, and he's also never said he was opposed to it.
And not to put too fine a point on it, but he's fully supporting the voter suppression that's going on right now.
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Stop lying and spreading your fake news.
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California has open primaries.
The top two voter getters in the primary proceed to the general election regardless of party.
So the reason you had a choice of two Democrats is because the Republican came in 3rd or lower in the primary.
In California's coastal urban areas, it is common for the general election to be blue-on-blue.
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Fake drop boxes, sabotaging the USPS, corrupt GOP leaders in the various state governments.
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I can't find the right link
How convenient.
Lets consider these 4 scenarios:
(A) You DID find the link but realized it didnt quite say what you thought or claimed.
(B) You DIDNT find the link because Google is hiding it from your active attempts to find it.
(C) You CANT find the link because it never exists.
(D) You WONT find the link because the story was fake news that got retracted.
The one that shines most brightly for you is the one where you dont know how to do a Google search.
Public masturbation of 1252108 (Score:2)
Z^-1
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It sounds like you didn't read the long piece in the Atlantic about how they plan "to do that".
I didn't read it because I don't enjoy reading fairytales.
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You don't like fairy tales? Me neither. I really have to struggle to finish any work of fantasy. But I'm a pretty disciplined reader and these days there seems to be a lot of fantasy getting published. Just staggered through Your Name which I'd never heard of but turns out to be paired with a hugely successful movie. (And no, I cannot explain how that particularly foolish book caught my eye out of hundreds of books in a newly discovered library. I borrowed Death Note at the same time, which so far is wo
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counterpoint (Score:2, Interesting)
There's the post office shenanigans. There's Texas with it's one drop off box per county. There's Florida that found a loop hole to block ex-cons from getting their voting rights back even though voters passed a law. There's a ton of shenanigans to invalidate mail in ballots. And there's the very obvious plan by the GOP to declare victory on election night while they're slightly ahead and then get their packed Supreme Court to stop the counting.
This el
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Trump & the GOP are cheating their ass off.
That's putting it mildly.
What they're doing is subverting the election, and the laws be damned.
Fake ballot boxes, reduced voting times and places, intimidation, ballot dumping, etc etc etc.
Without gerrymandering and voter suppression the Republicans would never get another candidate elected to any office.
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The pollsters this year correct for whites without a college degree, so the polls are likely not to be wrong in that demographic this time around.
Re:Can be easily unwound (Score:5, Interesting)
Sure, there's a lot of people who are passionately anti-Trump, but there's almost no enthusiasm for Biden, and given that the Democratic message has been "we're in a pandemic, it's not safe to vote, and also your mail-in ballots will just be lost in the mail thanks to Trump" I don't think it's anywhere near safe to assume a Biden victory.
I think you are correct, the election will not be over until the votes are counted. I do think you are mischaracterizing this race though. This race is not about Joe Biden, it never has been. This election is a referendum on President Trump's first term. If your are a conservative, you can say he has had a couple of wins, he has been able to pack the federal courts with conservative judges and he got the tax cuts that trickle down economics fans love so much. But this does not in anyway make up for the things he did very badly. North Korea and Iran are pretty much doing whatever they want now, Russia has gotten pretty much everything they wanted, damaged relations with Ukraine, withdrawal from START, easing of sanctions, etc and we lost what should have been a couple of very easy votes in the U.N. On the home front, the mishandling of COVID-19 has caused the collapse of the economy, and his refusal to denounce Q-Anon and white supremacist groups, has made racial tensions and social unrest worse. I doubt there are too many independent voters or moderates out there thinking "Wow, I don't think I will vote for Biden because he is kind of boring.", but there are a lot of voters out there thinking, "Do I really want 4 more years of this?". I have to tell you, in the race between Mr. Rogers and Mary Trump's crazy uncle, Mr. Rogers is looking pretty good.
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Hijacking this conversation a little : With all the bad that has happened with the Trump administration, why is the presidential race even close? If the general population cared about the harm Trump has done, Biden should be much further ahead in the polls.
Re: Can be easily unwound (Score:2)
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If the general population cared about the harm Trump has done ...
Do you know any Trump supporters?
Do you talk to them?
If you have, you would know that they don't see "harm". Trump's signature issue in 2016 was immigration. Immigration has significantly declined since he was elected. He promised to get tough with China. He has. He promised to reduce taxes. He did. He promised to appoint conservatives to the Supreme Court. He has reshaped the court for the next 30 years.
He has kept his promises far better than most politicians.
You may not like those things, but his
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As senator Ben Sasse said, Trump only won because too many people hated Hilary. Biden is certainly not hated like Hilary and Trump now has a track record to account for. The massive early voting at a point where Biden has a significant lead in the polls is a big clue.
They're plenty willing to vote Biden (Score:2)
Pollsters and the media don't like to talk about the cheating. 538 has been dancing around it for weeks.
Re:They're plenty willing to vote Biden (Score:4, Interesting)
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Biden doesn't need the votes of Trump supporters. He just needs Trump voters to stay home.
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The one model that correctly predicted the 2016 election gives Trump a 90% chance of winning his reelection.
I hope for your sanity you don't have to eat those words. When you correct for the polling error of all 2016 polls and adjust for current numbers pretty much everyone says Trump is very much going to lose, the only question is by what margain.
I.e. Polls need to be off by a shitload more than they were in 2016 in order to Trump to be a serious contender.
While it's easy to dismiss polls as "oh look they were wrong" the reality is most of those assessments are due to not understanding statistics and polling nu
Re: Can be easily unwound (Score:2)
Trump won multiple states with victory margins in the 10s of thousands. It doesn't take much to flip that.
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Only if you take official numbers at their face value...
There are no "official numbers".
The polls are conducted by a wide variety of private organizations with different methodologies.
Here is a list of the latest polls [fivethirtyeight.com].
The only polls that show Trump in the lead are self-reporting SurveyMonkey polls from right-wing websites.
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Going by the Herman Cain timeline of dying from Covid, Trump will die on Nov 1st.
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Uh, you assume he will lose the election. Not so fast, grasshopper!
He's sure as hell acting like he knows he's about to lose.
Re:Can be easily unwound (Score:4, Interesting)
Uh, you assume he will lose the election. Not so fast, grasshopper!
There's a couple of very good analyses in polling and the changes to them. A few things have stood out:
a) Polling now is not the same as polling in 2016. Efforts have been made to correct the "Trump" effect where his count was underrepresented in the polls.
b) Even if you take the current polling figures and just offset them based on the differences from the last election there's still a wide margin for a Biden win.
Honestly at this point it's more of a question of will Biden win, or will Biden win in a landslide.
When even Texas, ... TEXAS is in an error margin of turning Democrat you know the republicans have fucked up.
Re:Can be easily unwound (Score:5, Insightful)
One thing Trump has taught us to is overturn rule making and laws of previous administration. Much of what is done now may be invalid, even illegal, in a few months. This is under US law
In most democracies, when there is a new administration, they just tweak some of the laws in their preferred ideological direction. In the US these days, every time a new administration comes in they tear down absolutely everything the last set of guys did. Now cue a whole legion of US American political party-soldiers to tell us why a launching a systematic legislative scorched earth campaign every time there is an administration change is the best way to run a a civilisation. America needs to swap its entire political leadership out for a new set of people although they might want to pick a more elegant way to do it than the French did in 1793.
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every time a new administration comes in they tear down absolutely everything
The media portrays a world of chaos and conflict because that is what generates clicks.
Trump's executive orders changed a tiny fraction of 1% of federal regulations.
Can you list a few of Trump's executive orders that actually affected your life in any way?
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Haven't had the time to look through them, plus I'm a UK citizen so they shouldn't affect me.
Wikipedia list of executive actions [wikipedia.org]
I say they shouldn't, but since he seems to like destroying environmental controls and since I live 6 months of the year in Canada, there's a good chance this tub of orange lard's toys-out-of-the-pram mental processes have a direct effect on my life.
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I don't doubt that somewhere, somehow, someone has been affected by Trump's executive orders.
But the fact that you can't think of anything specific that affects you, other than a general feeling that you don't like the guy, doesn't really support the GPP's contention that Trump has torn down "absolutely everything".
Re:Can be easily unwound (Score:5, Insightful)
the fact that you can't think of anything specific that affects you, other than a general feeling that you don't like the guy
I've known people that died from COVID19 due to Trump's total bungling of the pandemic response.
Is that specific enough, or are you now going to argue that he wasn't really to blame for any of that? Was he responsible, as he says below?
"Leadership: Whatever happens, you're responsible. If it doesn't happen, you're responsible."
Donald J. Trump
11:01 AM Nov 8, 2013
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What part of "you're responsible" was unclear to you?
"Leadership: Whatever happens, you're responsible. If it doesn't happen, you're responsible."
Donald J. Trump - 11:01 AM Nov 8, 2013
By his own words he says he's responsible. But he fucked up and everyone knows it. Many people are saying that.
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The percentage is irrelevant. How much impact did it have?
Stacking the Supreme Court in particular could have a huge, long lasting effect unless the next administration also decides to make massive, permanent changes to it.
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The percentage is irrelevant. How much impact did it have?
No impact on my life that I can see.
What about you? You apparently can't think of anything either.
Stacking the Supreme Court in particular could have a huge, long lasting effect
The GPP's assertion is that Trump tore down "absolutely everything" and the best you can do is point to a change that hasn't actually happened yet but may make a difference someday.
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I don't think the supreme court change is that big a deal. 99.9% of what they decide is just normal obtuse legal stuff. the 0.1% is the big political issues. The judges are NOT legislating from the bench, but arbitrating between two sides who firmly believe that the law is on their side. When one side loses a case and that side is deeply invested in the outcome, they may believe that they lost because of politics or chicanery. So far, Gorsuch does not seem like a Trump loyalist, so there's always the su
I don't know if you're paying attention (Score:2)
1. The sons of soldiers deployed at the start of the Iraq war were just deployed to said war.
2. Mexico's standing army has at times had to back down from drug cartels to prevent mass deaths in their cities.
3. The President of the United States is actively interfering with his election and refuses to commit to a peaceful transition of power.
4. We're heading for a Great Depression and 1/2 of the political system is blocking an
You can thank Mitch McConnell for that (Score:5, Insightful)
What they're doing is obstructing anything that would help people during a Democratic Congress and/or presidency.
This in turn tanks the economy. Then along comes a mid-term with it's lower turnout (high turnout benefits the Dems) and McConnell & company take back the Senate & House.
Then they pack the courts with partisan appointments who use the Veto Power of our court system to block laws that would help regular folks during the short periods of time the Dems can take the 3 branches.
And the Dems, being a bunch of wussies, let them do it. As for the left (or what passes for the left in America) we're still using tactics from the 1960s that stopped working when Reagan's buddies adapted to them.
So you get this steady watching drive towards right wing authoritarianism. That's how you got stuff like this [npr.org] and this [cnbc.com] and this [politico.com] and this [newsweek.com] and this [nytimes.com] and this [cnn.com] and this [vox.com] and this [businessinsider.com]...
Ok, time to burn some Kharma. At a certain point it's time to call a spade a spade. The GOP is an active threat to the country and Democracy. They have made it very, very clear they will do literally anything to win. We are all expendable.
Left wing authoritarianism isn't much of a problem (Score:2)
We can keep Left wing authoritarianism under wraps by feeding people. That doesn't work with right wing authoritarianism because, well, right wing ideas don't work. They're basically trickle down economics, Nationalism and a constant and obsessive reverence for the past. That doesn't wor
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And the nuclear options have been used, so that many of the important legislative decisions only need 50%+1. Which definitely encourages the see-sawing. Having 2/3ds to pass some stuff meant that you had to compromise and had to make sure there was more than a basic partisan desire for the outcome.
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every time a new administration comes in
Every time? You mean once so far, and hopefully one more time soon? Obama's administration tried to get rid of Guantanamo and failed, and got rid of some of Bush's tax cuts. That's about it. Much of the criticism directed at Obama was for Bush policies which he didn't get rid of: the Patriot Act, the drone strikes in Yemen and elsewhere, Fast and Furious, TARP, etc.
Bush's administration got rid of... some financial regulations and a lot of budget surplus. Anything else?
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Um, the whole system is based upon a shaky foundation. The foundation that it all sits upon is respect for the rule of law. When that foundation is shaky then anything can happen. Look at other countries where their constitutions are ignored on a whim, or rewritten every few years to match what their dictator wants. There's nothing that even demands the constitution be followed, if everyone ignores it then it has no power. And at times it has been ignored by some administrations and some sessions of con
Re:Can be easily unwound (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not just Trump, the whole GOP is like this. Forget about what's right out proper, just win at all costs. Ram through as much as possible in the dying days of the administration, hope that a stacked court allows it.
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It's not just GOP like this, it's the Democrats too. The only parties not like this are the smaller ones who have so little chance that they know cheating is a waste of time.
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The science advisory stuff may take some time to undo; the administration has left many positions unfilled, even in areas it cared about. Appointing anti-science advisors to vacant positions at the last minute denies the next administration science advice from that position for the term of the appointment.
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Why are science roles a political appointment? Also, why are judicial roles a political appointment. Science is science, the law is the law, or is there really conservative science and liberal science?
Pardon my naivety.
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Because somebody has to do the appointment. If the voters choose the people who choose the candidates, then it's "political", whether the choosing process is good or not.
Who else but people chosen by the voters would do the selection? Well, possibly scientists. That with aligns with a view of society called "corporatism", which does not mean rule by corporations as many young socialists believe. Corporatism views society in analogy to the body (Latin *corpus*) which is composed of distinct and interdepe
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independent contractors should be based IRS rules (Score:2)
independent contractors should be based on IRS rules or an rule saying that if the IRS says there are not an independent contractors then can't be an 1099 worker.
Democracy at its finest! (Score:5, Insightful)
We are wildly unpopular and the people don't want us to run the country, and in a few weeks we will no longer be in power. Clearly it's a sign that we need to {insert dumb unpopular thing here}, for the people of course!
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This is worrisome. Many years ago the small town I lived in had an election and the beloved incumbent somehow lost. There was a recount and the incumbent got the job back but not for some eight months. In that short time, the corporate funded challenger, managed to approved a huge number of projects knowing he wasn't going to stay in power. The court cases and crap that the community had to deal with went on for years. There should be a law that when someone loses an election, they have limited power u
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That seems to be what this is about. They are showing their true faces now.
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They are showing their true faces now.
They've always shown their true faces, people were just too dumb to see the obvious. Much of the republican party represents the exclusive interests of the politicians in the republican party. To be fair there are democrats who are similar. But the the reality is that USA politics is fundamentally broken. Just look at the lying fuckwittery that went on with the supreme court nominee. Republicans "set a new precedent" in the leadup of the election with deciding supreme court judges, and then proceeded to bre
Hmmmm, not to worry (Score:2)
"Trump Scrambles To Loosen America's Biometric Data and Gig Worker Regulations"
Hmmmm, that doesn't sound good. Let's read on, shall we....
"...giving the government more freedom to collect biometric data ..."
Ah, and there we have the meat of it. What they want is more info on YOU.
Fortunately there's no way this kind of power could ever be misused by an authoritarian scumbag-wannabe-dictator like Comrade Trump. Whew!
A reminder that they're coming for you too (Score:4, Insightful)
Once gig work is fully established as legal your employer is going to want to do the same to you. It's only a matter of time. No more hourly pay, salaries and hat not. We'll all be "gig" workers. Sure, we'll only really have the one gig, but kiss your 401k, health benefits and stable incomes goodbye.
I guarantee you that every single company on earth is watching Uber's attempt to redefine worker rights with rapt attention. They're not going to risk the lawsuits, they'll let Uber fight it out. But if Uber wins they'll be happy to be beneficiaries of their work.
And you will be on the receiving end of a complete and thorough reaming.
How do you frame that? (Score:5, Insightful)
Interesting how the article frames those changes:
easing limits on how many hours some truckers can spend behind the wheel
= Reducing road safety measures & putting truck drivers & other road users at greater risk of accidents
giving the government more freedom to collect biometric data
= Increasing government mass surveillance & profiling of US citizens (& probably reducing accountability, transparency, & rights to oversight & legal redress)
setting federal standards for when workers can be classified as independent contractors rather than employees.
= effectively gutting decades of hard-won* legal protections & workers rights so that corporations can cut labour costs & place even greater burdens on the government to deal with the effects of poverty, stress, & sickness that 'gig workers' typically suffer from
* i.e. American workers fought & died at the hands of corporate-hired private militias with government collusion & support.
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How about giving date, location and why that last occurred?
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Sleepy truckers sharing the road with aggressive, drunk, and high drivers who weave between the big rigs like they can stop on a dime.
Don't worry, the truckers are also aggressive, high, and drunk.
And if you've got weed, whites and wine, and if you show me a sign, I'll be willin', to be movin'.
Almost every day I see truckers doing 70 when they are legally limited to 55 (California state law) and failing to keep in their lane as a result. And my commute is only ten minutes on the 101 now. Driving at just 65 instead of 55 raises their stopping distance from 335' to 525'. And they're going faster than that.
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...Almost every day I see truckers doing 70 when they are legally limited to 55 (California state law) and failing to keep in their lane as a result. And my commute is only ten minutes on the 101 now. Driving at just 65 instead of 55 raises their stopping distance from 335' to 525'. And they're going faster than that.
Not to minimize you point, but 335' vs. 525' really doesn't matter much when the pancake that used to be an arrogant driver, was flattened back at the 250' mark.
Really makes me wonder what the percentage of lock-em'-up brake checks have actually been successful in stopping an 18-wheeler without harm or injury. Perhaps even 55MPH is too fast. Oh, and if California really wanted to legally limit trucks to 55MPH, they would have mandated a speed governor. Obviously Greed doesn't give a shit that much about
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Really makes me wonder what the percentage of lock-em'-up brake checks have actually been successful in stopping an 18-wheeler without harm or injury.
If it makes you feel any better, 18 wheelers and their trailers (and other heavy trucks and thel ike) have ABS these days. Pretty sure it was mandated back in '99 or something. Our 1999 Blue Bird bus has Bendix air brakes with four channel ABS...
Okay, that probably doesn't make you feel any better :)
if California really wanted to legally limit trucks to 55MPH, they would have mandated a speed governor. Obviously Greed doesn't give a shit that much about safety.
It's a good idea. I haven't looked into why they haven't done that. Most trucks do have speed governor functionality; in modern ones they are often able to be changed literally on the fly over the cellular netwo
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Really makes me wonder what the percentage of lock-em'-up brake checks have actually been successful in stopping an 18-wheeler without harm or injury.
If it makes you feel any better, 18 wheelers and their trailers (and other heavy trucks and thel ike) have ABS these days. Pretty sure it was mandated back in '99 or something. Our 1999 Blue Bird bus has Bendix air brakes with four channel ABS...
Okay, that probably doesn't make you feel any better :)
300'+ to stop at any average freeway speed, which they're traveling at probably 95% of the time? And that's WITH ABS? I guess I should stop complaining now. The people at the 600' mark, 725' mark, and 800' mark are still alive.
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Re:May God Bless President Trump! (Score:4, Insightful)
Who are Trump's munchkins and flying monkeys? (Score:3, Insightful)
I think that the AC you replied to is one of Trump's paid munchkins. It's possible he is sincerely stupid or proudly ignorant or just a vicious twit, but I prefer to think he's merely paid to fake it. I even speculate that the professional trolls get bonus payments for replies like yours. On that polite theory, he could be "redeemed" if the other side paid him more. But why did you propagate his infantile Subject?
In contrast to the munchkin, I think this story is about the more dangerous flying monkeys of T
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I always thought calling the members of party one opposes "crazy" or "stupid" was a cheap shot and revealed lack of insight on the part of the name caller.... until this election.
Just keep in mind that nothing has really changed with the people supporting Trump now, the candidates are who have changed. Those people were crazy and/or stupid before Trump was around, you were just in denial about it, and Trump's involvement in politics finally made it impossible to deny.
I presume (but cannot prove) that no more of those people were born crazy and/or stupid, putting aside those who were affected by environmental factors like mercury or lead poisoning which may be more common in red stat
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My four primary reactions:
(1) The Time story was anecdotal and didn't present the numbers clearly, but it sounds like about 1/3 of the voters are irrational. What makes this dangerous now is that the irrational voters are not scattered as usual, but clearly united behind Trump. That number is close to the usual estimate of around 30% for authoritarian followers who actively want to follow an authoritarian leader. That's been studied in many countries and seems to be a fairly consistent number, but they are
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God may bless him but I strongly suspect, assuming such an entity exists, he's got something more like torment on its mind.
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Almost every day I see truckers doing 70 when they are legally limited to 55
As opposed to those driving Mustangs and Camaros doing 80 while stiff-arming the steering wheel at the 12 noon position slaloming through traffic.
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Both are bad, but if you're going 60, you're better off being rear-ended by the Camero doing 80 than by an 18 wheeler doing 70.
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If you could at least get them to wear pants it would shorten their stopping distance a lot.
People often don't realize truly how many challenges there are to regulating the trucking industry.
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Speed doesn't cause accidents. Speed differential causes accidents.
The differential is only 10 MPH. More speed makes accidents more severe.
posted limits vs flow I-294 is real bad on that (Score:2)
posted limits vs flow I-294 is real bad on that.
Most people do 70-75 in 55 zones
The work zone 45 are joke that next to no one does Now if they had when workers are there and make work zone 55-60 With main posted speed 70 then People may try to slow down at bit.
But when you have under posted limits not only is Speed differential bad. People don't respect work zones that really need to be slow.
To fix work zones
1. don't make it slow when You have walls from the main traffic to the work zone
2. don't have it be
Re: Truckers (Score:2)
Where are the statistics that bear out this hoary old saw?
Drivers can't be modeled as if they were ideal gas particles, yet that's how the law treats them.
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It is an INCREDIBLY stupid idea to have lower speed limits for trucks.
Speed doesn't cause accidents. Speed differential causes accidents.
Higher speeds have a lot more kinetic energy.
eg. Going from 50mph to 60mph gives you almost 50% more destruction if an accident occurs.
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Now while there is some truth to it that relative velocities matter, it's incredibly disingenuous to argue that way. You can't just make a pedestrian go at 30m/s moving away from an incoming vehicle approaching at 32m/s.
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Now while there is some truth to it that relative velocities matter, it's incredibly disingenuous to argue that way.
It's not disingenuous at all. Speed differences between vehicles matter a great deal for several reasons:
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That's just what we need with all the chaos on the roads right now. Sleepy truckers sharing the road with aggressive, drunk, and high drivers who weave between the big rigs like they can stop on a dime.
Yes, "sleepy truckers" are CLEARLY the biggest problem this country is facing at the moment.
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How is quoting the article accurately in your mind editorial bias on the part of Slashdot editors?
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You're right, I jumped the gun on my post before I realize it was quoting the article. I apologize
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Nice to see someone owning their mistake on the internet.
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Are you implying these actions don't exist simply because the NYTimes reported it ? What a bizarre power they have to make facts become fiction simply by typing them up.
What I truly find fascinating is the impression that you don't approve of these actions, Trump does no wrong so therefore the NY Times must be lying. If you don't like the actions then you should probably re-examine your opinion of Trump, if you do like them then why imply there's some fault in the Times reporting ?