Lior Strahilevitz
Assistant Professor of Law1111 East 60th StreetChicago, IL 60637
phone: 773-834-8665email: lior@uchicago.edu
HOWS MY DRIVING (HMD) placard/sticker program.
We precipitate elevating moods on this story, so hang on for the ride.
As this is a true story of all people policing each other in traffic and then reporting them. So many appear to have a desire to fold and flip for a universal link up for, yep Big Brother aka insurance companies for safer roads. If you doubt this read on.
We always enjoy the here we go again starts, often were even perplexed by this odd glee.
The HMD sticker program started up in 1980 with trucking fleets, school buses, etc. then in 1990 it moved over to expand into personal vehicles and teen drivers, in 1995 there was a start up program dial #77 in Maryland where you could report bad drivers. Data collected but police had an inability to service majority of calls. OEMC and patrol can respect this.
911 phone call, driver there's a car that just cut me off, dispatch whaaats the plate, driver dunno goin to fast but I want police service, on and on, so it was utilized as collected data for study purposes.
Watccha gonna do, well Lior Strahilevitz at the Univ. of Chg. has a plan and he knows because he drives Lake Shore Drive every day and sees Radar on the road/Traffic. By the way, if you listen to the audio we do prefer the originating Professor that wanted to grade other Professors within 5 mins on how many times they used ummm and errrrr in their teachings and if they used them too many times in 5 mins they would receive a pay decrease, now that was funny and that's also where Lori's audio class begins, then moves quickly into police and ALL drivers and is a somewhat long teaching class aimed at students in attendance for feed back. We assume Lori already has the cash stash for the expanded program study and the needed hook ups, even if he calls it hypothetical. Assume is not always a good theory but when Insurance companies and tort is involved, we say assume may be a reliable theory, hypothetically.
In 2004 Daley started using the HMD program for fleet drivers, examples road crews, and some commissioners driving SUV's, where the stickers were slapped on the rear of certain city vehicles which at the time exempted Police, Fire, OEMC and Mayor Daley's chauffeured vehicle.
The extended hypothetical study is now embracing ALL drivers and the marketed mode of this newer study module is. "What makes people happy and what makes people unhappy"? Remember new marketing angles for the sell, its all about you babe.
Now we don't know about our shared readers but someone cutting us off in traffic does not destroy our entire day, while sending us running for the prosaic tube of hopeful bliss containment. Now some of you would say hey, why not just flip the driver, lay on your horn or make faces to work off your frustrations, cursing and muttering works well too? Well, because that now appears to be the underlying added angle of the expanded HMD program, we prefer the words Insurance and Lawyer scheme. You see, because now your calculated as an aggressive driver too, flipper, tailgater! Since your being added into this scheme, you would be reported based upon ours and your point system. Hey, it works for E-Bay.
Are you able to follow this, "don't worry, be happy," government corn so far?
Well, were preceding anyway.
As an example you and other drivers (ALL) would get 100 points to use as you choose and those points could be rolled over, it sounds better than our accumulated comp hrs., anyway the points deduct from your point bank each time you use them or not. Lets say your behind one of us and on our bumper or there about, "too close for our personal happy comfort level," your plate is not visable but we have On Star/GPS, ha ha! So we tap a button or voice activate our GPS and say, as an example. Blk unk SUV, unk plate on our bumper, 5 point deduction, our GPS is live and blam, your vehicle is nailed and you loose points. Loose and rack up enough points and depending on whether its a company vehicle or a personal veh you can be fined via government, your employer can counsel, discipline or fire you. You pay to play. " Are you happy yet?"
We understand the dangers of aggressive drivers contrary to Lori we do know there are plenty of traffic laws on the books but were not buying into Lori or all the other minions, who think more of big brother is better!
On January 24, 2007, Lior Strahilevitz delivered a Chicago's Best Ideas talk on his notion that we should all be subject to a program like the "How's My Driving?" program you see on the backs of trucks. The truck program saves lives, and Professor Stahilevitz argues that in this case, more is better.