Reminds me of Dory Previn "Twenty Mile Zone::
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O35PTBEw8F8
A man has been fined by police after being caught singing the 1990s dance anthem "Gonna Make You Sweat (Everybody Dance Now)" while behind the wheel of his car. Taoufik Moalla, of St-Laurent, Montreal, Canada, was singing C+C Music Factory's best-known hit while rolling along in the Francophone city's St Croix suburb. After …
Here (California), driving under the speed limit can be considered impeding the flow of traffic. Driving while exhausted can be prosecuted as impaired driving. Riding a bicycle (skating, on horseback, whatever) in a manor that could cause injury can be considered reckless driving. Paying zero attention to road markings/signs on a bicycle (blades, horse-drawn vehicle, whatever) can be the same offense as if committed in an automobile.
All are ticketable, and if you're convicted are considered moving violations (points on license, insurance rates go up, etc.).
Most of the time, you'll only get cited if you're a complete ass to an officer after getting pulled over. Usually, they'll let you go with a warning (or release you to the custody of parent/guardian) ... and in the case of being too tired, they'll suggest running around your vehicle a couple times (or the equivalent) to wake up a bit, and then pulling over at the next safe spot to take a nap before carrying on (this last one happened to me as a newly licensed teenager ...).
I work at a court in California. Generally speaking, citations issued to those not operating a motor vehicle, but walking, bicycling, skating and such are not reportable to the Department of Motor Vehicles and do not put points on one's driver's license. That said, there are non-driving offenses that can suspend one's license, such as a minor (under 21) in possession of alcoholic beverage, not paying court-ordered child support or not paying a judgment resulting from a motor vehicle accident.
Ah, my beloved home (California...I'm in Seattle these days).
I lived in Sili Valley before and during the (dot)Com(a) and you can bet your ass CHP will pull you over for Impeding The Flow Of Traffic. They can get you and your vehicle off the Freeway *now*, or *after* everyone just runs you over.
My Personal Favorite is having been pulled out of line my very self:
I was heading to San Francisco from Los Gatos, so, 280 it is. For those of you who aren't familliar, 280 is very Wide, wide lanes, lots of them, and it's oddly flat-ish and gently curvy for going through the Palo Alto hills. It's very well graded, and the surface is *Fantastic*...for Speeding Like Hell. The *actual* speed limit there is 75MPH (I'm mostly certain), but, um...I've done 110MPH+ at 02:00 and had CHP pass me like I was strolling along, without so much as a glance. During commute times, in my day (dunno about what it's turned into, rules were different) 95MPH during Rush Hour wasn't uncommon.
So I was doing 70MPH, far right lane (without exits) mostly to keep being being pulverized by something moving at a measurable decimal of "c" when I spy lights in my rear-view, and so I signal and grab some shoulder. Now, CHP (California Highway Patrol) is largely a very cool organization with fairly decent officers who mostly want everyone to play nice and make it to where they're going in one piece...so his first thought is that I was "New" to all of this, and understandably freaked out by the U.S. version of Autobahn.
I had to explain: I was "The (whole) Technical Team" for $StartUpDuJour, and my transmission was slipping like two midgets in a tub of lime Jell-O, and I had no time to fix it because...StartUps and Stuffs!!! AAAAAGH! (No, really, I was exhausted.)
To which he smiled, leaned close, and asked if I wanted two, Count Them; T-W-O Days Off!!! Because he *could* just throw me off at the next exit, or give me a fix-It ticket which would get me a day off (if I lied a wee about how long it took), and another day "in court" (stretching that till it screamed, as well) with the fix. And I could go to my partners and be all "Nope, got Legal Stuff, gotta' fix.", and I said "May I have the ticket, Please?". And he gave it to me. And then he threw me off of 280 at the next exit because I was, very seriously, impeding the flow of traffic.
I got two days off (which was tactically good), car got made safe (which was strategically good). And I have nothing but love for CHP.
In Pennsylvania there is "Driving too fast for conditions", which also has nothing to do with the speed limit. Going the speed limit on an icy road could net you that, for example.
A friend of mine got it once when he rounded a blind corner going too quickly and was unable to stop in time to avoid another car turning on from a side street. He complained to me that they couldn't cite him for speeding because they weren't there to clock him, I tried to explain the difference. He demanded to know how they knew he was driving too fast for conditions; I pointed out he couldn't stop in time, it was self-evident... He claimed he was going to fight it, I advised against it, he was just going to lose. I doubt he did, though.
I had to google this because I didn't believe there was such an offense, but apparently there is. I'm just not clear on what it is - does it mean just working the pedals at an insane speed totally out of control - like 'reckless driving' in the US? Or does it mean just not watching where you are going and not following the rules of the road but possibly at a quite reasonable pace, like one of the dicks who gives cyclists a bad name by running red lights and ignoring pedestrian crosswalks and the like?
If I ever get a ticket, I want it to be for this.
A friend of mine got a moving traffic offence ticket, at zero mph with the engine switched off and the handbrake on.
He was waiting for a temporary traffic signal on a very long cycle, so switched the engine off and put the brake on. Unfortunately, he'd just flown back into the country, was jet lagged to hell and had a massive sleep deficit, so nodded off while waiting and stayed asleep through several cycles, oblivious to people sounding their horns at him. In the end the police turned up, breathalysed him, found he was stone cold sober but very tired, and rather apologetically gave him a ticket. He went to the magistrates court trying to argue that as he wasn't moving it couldn't be a moving traffic offence, but didn't get off.
> so nodded off while waiting and stayed asleep through several cycles, oblivious to people sounding their horns at him.
To be honest, if he was trying to drive in such a state of fatigue, in my neck of the woods he would have been done on a criminal safety charge just the same as if he was drunk. He got off lightly, and was very lucky to fall asleep while stopped.
Can be more dangerous than drunk driving, but no one seems to care.
You can drive along however you like, just do not exceed the "number on a stick" or the cameras will get you.
Thing is tiredness does catch up, you think you are fine, then you start to nod off. Very dangerous.
Nearly happened to me 36 years ago, nearly fell off my bike.
In the UK we have the lovely catch-all of "Driving without due care and attention".
Anon because... well, I can barely face the truth myself. No fatalities, thank goodness. Coming home from a lovely camping/mountain biking weekend. I had one or two of the "hmm, getting sleepy" early warning yawns. Nothing much, didn't seem bad And then...
I was alone and blind in the dark, unaware of who or what I was. Computers booting up probably feel like that. I heard a strange sound, and spent several seconds trying to identify it. Finally I realized it was the sound of grass and such brushing under a moving vehicle. That's strange, that would mean someone driving off road... hey, wasn't I in a truck? Wasn't I driving?
I came to sudden awareness to find myself off the left side of the road, my wife screaming my name and punching me. I yanked it back into the road, clumsily sweeping both lanes as I did so. Dirt flying everywhere. No other cars nearby, didn't hit anything or drive off an overpass. I cleared the area (no, not my dust cloud!) and turned the wheel over.
I. Got. Stinking. Lucky. And I have never ever remotely ignored the "Getting sleepy" thing again.
I've actually found that singing is one of the best things you can do to keep yourself awake.
Had to do some very early/late long runs for work, and sometimes you get hit with a wave of tiredness which you need to hold back until you can get to the next service station for a nap and an energy drink.
Singing (with the radio or sans music) is both an active physical and mental task, but one that does not interfere with your primary task of getting from A to B while remaining on the road in one correctly shaped piece.
Just listening to music/radio is a passive activity, as is just holding the wheel straight on the motorway. You need something active to keep you alert, and you can't really get up and do something else.
He was trying to hit the high notes in falsetto? In falsetto you could be screeching 'without your knowledge'...
You have to give Martha Wash her dues... she has a great vocal range (and yes, that *is* Martha's voice, *not* Zelma Davis' (who was lip synching in the video).
Apologies, TrumpSlurp... It irritates me as one of the resident grammar nazis. I only realised *after* the 10-minute edit window that something was off-kilter. The second opening bracket shouldn't be there (you shouldn't use brackets within brackets). It should be replaced with a comma. I hang my head in shame!
Aga-doo-doo-doo, push pineapple, shake the tree
Aga-doo-doo-doo, push pineapple, grind coffee
To the left, to the right, jump up and down and to the knees
Come and dance every night, sing with a hula melody
There! Got you singing it all afternoon and you can't get it out of your head :o)
Bet you're glad you're going home soon!
Cheers!
Hold a chicken in the air
Stick a deckchair up your nose
Buy a jumbo jet
And then bury all your clothes
Paint your left knee green
Then extract your wisdom teeth
Form a string quartet
And pretend your name is Keith
Skin yourself alive
Learn to speak Arapahoe
Climb inside a dog
And behead an eskimo
Eat a Renault Four with salami in your ears
Casserole your gran
Disembowel yourself with spears
With Trump, Kim Jong Un, Putin, May and Boris in charge, not to mention all the PC nonsense, the world really needs a new Spitting Image. Then we can all go to bed happy and smiling on a Sunday night, thinking the world is not as overrun by clue-less nutters as it is.
And the presidents brain probably still is missing.
1967, or thereabouts. Was ticked for singing in my car. Police said they thought I was shouting obscenities at them. Gave me a ticket. Once they found out I was in the military their boss was very apologetic. I think it also helped that I made a complaint at the station, being recorded as 'stone sober' within a half hour of getting the ticket...
@AC
Hey, don't joke about that. Have you ever been to Florida in winter? You can walk down the rows in a supermarket parking lot counting all the license plates from Quebec, Ontario and New Brunswick.
(Mine's the parka that I took off because the temperature shot up to 80 Fahrenheit once we got to Tallahassee.)