Achievement: 30 Violations Reported
Oregon state law only allows studded tires from November to April. Leaving the studded tires on your vehicle after April is a Class C violation and carries a $145 fine.
Ice is the only condition that studded tires assist with. They actually reduce the stopping ability of vehicles under wet conditions, and they wear out the roads creating less traction and more danger for everyone else.
Minnesota and Michigan have completly banned studded tires. A study by Washington State Dept. of Transportation estimated that at least $18.2 million in damage has been caused by studded tires. (pdf)
I called the ODOT Citizens' Representative Office in Salem and asked if there was some way to report violations. I was told that, unfortunatley, there is no procedure for reporting violations. And people are only ticketed if they are pulled over for another offense and the officer notices the tires.
Apathy of enforcement creates apathy about government. Clearly the police and state troopers of Oregon can't vigilantly pursue violatons of traction tires, but when citizens are given the opportunity to be involved it allows government to create a legion of volunteers. For example, Portland's Transportation Bureau allows you to call in parking violations (503-823-5644) and leave a report about blocked sidewalks and other violations. (Or course it only works during business hours, after which you need to call the Portland Police non-emergency number: 503-823-3333.) There is also the Pothole Hotline, 503-823-BUMP.
Citizen involvement should be more rewarding. And nothing is more rewarding than the XBOX 360's system of achievement points. I think you can probably see where I'm headed with this. :) Yes, I'm talking about a Citizen Leaderboard that tracks how many potholes you reported, how many parking violations you called in, and how many people you've reported for studded tires after April. Imagine teams of people getting together on the weekend to search out parking violations in order to up their score!
I love it! Here's a sport at which I have a fighting chance! In February, I called in 2 requests for bike racks to be installed, 1 parking violation, and 1 pothole. Do I get a prize?
You should only get credit for verified infractions, otherwise you could just call in a bunch of bogus violations to up your score.
Absolutely. I think you would enter your violation and only get credit once it was corrected. Whoever reported first would be granted the points. It'd be like a city-wide bug tracking system.
While I hate studded snow tires so much and was the original inspiration for this I don't think UrHo civic role should be "snitch." I say we develop out own ticketing system.
Well, asking for a new bike rack isn't really being a snitch...but I'll snitch all day on jerks who park right across the sidewalk. Sure, I'm lucky that I'm young and spry enough to just walk around them, but what about wheelchair dudes and stroller dudes and just people who are a little more fragile?
Snitch? What is this, The Wire? A snitch is someone acting as an informer or a decoy for the police. I'm advocating something a lot more proactive than that!
There are laws which are not followed because we all know they can't be enforced, but if the citizens take a more active role, then they can help get problems solved.
I also think our own ticketing system is a good idea!
I can imagine a dystopic future (or past) in which people are asked to rat each other out being kind of nasty. McCarthyism, 1984, this kind of thing.
But we're not prosecuting thought crimes here. We're interested in actual violations that the city does not have the resources to identify themselves. Same deal with the potholes and bike racks -- the city loves getting that feedback from the distributed network of actual citizens, because, well, there are a lot more of them than there are city workers.
sure potholes and bike racks is certainly not snitching but i would not like to report people to the police for small violations.
it just seems like it would be ineffective to me and actual contact with that other person would be much more effective.
Well... direct contact would ruin the Citizen Leaderboard concept...
Before I call repeat sidewalk-parkers in, I always leave a friendly and polite note on their windshield asking them to leave the sidewalk clear for pedestrians. It has never once worked.
So, your "actual contact with other people" theory might be tripped up by the fact that if people think the laws will never be enforced, they believe that they don't have to follow those laws if they don't want to...even if those laws are clearly in the common good. (Like "park on the street, not on the sidewalk.")
p.s. It's also not reporting them to the police.
Parking enforcement handles parking violations (bike lane parking, sidewalk parking, blocking a hydrant). The Office of Transportation has a parking specialist assigned to bike rack requests. For bike lane sweeping and pothole filling requests, the call gets routed to the Bureau of Maintenance and then they decide whether it's an immediate fix or if it should go into their general maintenance queue.
None of these are going to go on your criminal record (unless I guess you are a repeat bad parker who won't pay your tickets).