SEATTLE NEWS ARCHIVES & FEATURES
Dori: WSDOT poll frames questions dishonestly to take your tax dollars
May 29, 2019, 1:56 PM

(WSDOT)
(WSDOT)
Want to talk about a waste of our tax dollars? The Washington State Department of Transportation has just sent out one of the most insane surveys that I have ever seen. I have never seen questions so designed to elicit a certain answer. If WSDOT takes this as justification for taxing us more, it is incredibly dishonest.
Let me read to you some of the questions in this WSDOT poll. They called for you to agree or disagree with the given statement.
“In order to reduce serious crashes, I would support lower speed limits on major streets.”
I don’t support lowering speed limits; 25 miles per hour on sidestreets and 30 or 35 on arterials is fine. But according to this question, that means I want more car crashes, injuries, and death. The only way you can be politically correct is to say, “Yes, of course I want to lower the speed limit to reduce serious crashes.”
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Here’s another one. “I would be willing to drive more slowly on streets in cities and towns to make it safer for everybody.”Ìý
Apparently I don’t want to make it safer for everybody, because I don’t want to slow down. And I don’t think them lowering the speed limit is a good thing for regional mobility. They want to gridlock the streets so that they can force everybody out of their cars.
“I value road changes that prioritize saving people’s lives, even if it means changing the way it feels to drive on that road today.”Ìý
I guess I don’t prioritize saving people’s lives, because I don’t really want road changes.
“Every child should learn the rules of the road and how to walk and bicycle safely in school or another place available to children.”Ìý
How much of our tax dollars did WSDOT spend on this poll so that they could get a green light for taking more of our tax dollars and gridlocking us further? Every single question is worded in a way that frames their goal as the only moral choice. People can only give one particular answer — the one WSDOT wants — or else they seem like horrible people.
That is as bogus a survey as I have ever seen, and I have seen a lot of push polls in my life. Using those baited questions as a way to get our tax dollars is absolutely dishonest.