Interesting proposal: no traffic stops for most minor infractions

[Loren Pechtel]

Reality to Loren Pectel: if you break the law, and get caught, it's your own fault. No court in history has accepted the 'all the other boys do it too' defence. Widespread flouting of speeding law is a consequence of insufficient enforcement, not an argument against any enforcement at all.

Obey the rules, and avoid a fine. If you can't obey, you shouldn't drive at all; if you merely won't obey, you are volunteering to give away some of your money. It's not rocket science.

There have been successful class action lawsuits over enforcement with no safety benefits. It's just not worth it for any one person to fight city hall over this.

 

[bilby]

Reality to Loren Pectel: if you break the law, and get caught, it's your own fault. No court in history has accepted the 'all the other boys do it too' defence. Widespread flouting of speeding law is a consequence of insufficient enforcement, not an argument against any enforcement at all.

Obey the rules, and avoid a fine. If you can't obey, you shouldn't drive at all; if you merely won't obey, you are volunteering to give away some of your money. It's not rocket science.

There have been successful class action lawsuits over enforcement with no safety benefits. It's just not worth it for any one person to fight city hall over this.

So the conclusion is: Obey the rules, and avoid a fine. If you can't obey, you shouldn't drive at all; if you merely won't obey, you are volunteering to give away some of your money.

It's not worth it to fight city hall over this; particularly as it is easy for a skilled motor vehicle operator to simply comply with the speed limit.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Which is all good and fine, but there are ways to engineer traffic so it is more likely that you will break the law. A 25 mph speed limit sign behind a fir tree bracketed by two 45mph signs is one example, a 40 mph limit on a wide road going across a large flat plain is another. Shortened yellow lights, stop stripes set back from the intersection these are all common ways traffic design contributes to revenue generation.

Yup, one of the big ways of getting red light tickets.

Take an intersection with a lot of right turn activity.

The light turns yellow, the drivers stop. The light turns red, no tickets.

Car #1 creeps forward to make a right turn. Sometimes he gets nailed because his original position wasn't close enough to the stop line but generally that part works ok.

Car #1 finds a space to go, car #2 rolls forward to the position #1 was in. Now, he was behind #1, this is likely not going to line up with the stop line. In this situation a driver will not normally stop at the stop line, he's only moving a couple of miles per hour into a space that was just occupied and thus can't contain a pedestrian.

Note that car #2 didn't stop at the stop line--the camera calls this a red light violation. In the most abusive cases this can be 90% of tickets.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Which is all good and fine, but there are ways to engineer traffic so it is more likely that you will break the law. A 25 mph speed limit sign behind a fir tree bracketed by two 45mph signs is one example, a 40 mph limit on a wide road going across a large flat plain is another. Shortened yellow lights, stop stripes set back from the intersection these are all common ways traffic design contributes to revenue generation.

I have been driving on public roads in Louisiana, since I was 16, so that will be 43 years, this October. I have never actually seen the situation you describe. I hear about it all the time, but the times when I was issued a speeding ticket, the speed limit signs were well posted and visible. If a policeman stations himself where people are likely to drive above the posted speed limit, what the hell else do we pay him to do?

For the most part such abuses have been stomped out now that we have lawyers who take traffic tickets.

My father once got a speeding ticket, highway speed in a 25 mph zone.

3 miles from the town limits, the town was on the other side of a hill (and thus invisible from where he was), it was 3 am, the sign was behind a bush and the cop was behind the sign.

They of course understood that it didn't matter that it was obviously unfair, they were ticketing travelers for which coming back to fight the ticket would cost more than the ticket.

 

[bilby]

Which is all good and fine, but there are ways to engineer traffic so it is more likely that you will break the law. A 25 mph speed limit sign behind a fir tree bracketed by two 45mph signs is one example, a 40 mph limit on a wide road going across a large flat plain is another. Shortened yellow lights, stop stripes set back from the intersection these are all common ways traffic design contributes to revenue generation.

Yup, one of the big ways of getting red light tickets.

Take an intersection with a lot of right turn activity.

The light turns yellow, the drivers stop. The light turns red, no tickets.

Car #1 creeps forward to make a right turn. Sometimes he gets nailed because his original position wasn't close enough to the stop line but generally that part works ok.

Car #1 finds a space to go, car #2 rolls forward to the position #1 was in. Now, he was behind #1, this is likely not going to line up with the stop line. In this situation a driver will not normally stop at the stop line if he is either incompetent, or uncaring about being fined, he's only moving a couple of miles per hour into a space that was just occupied and thus can't contain a pedestrian, and as he doesn't mind paying a fine, he has no reason to stop.

Note that car #2 didn't stop at the stop line--the camera calls this a red light violation, (quite correctly, because it is illegal to turn on red without stopping, as every driver should know). In the most abusive cases places with the most incompetent drivers, this can be 90% of tickets.

FTFY.

 

[Derec]

They of course understood that it didn't matter that it was obviously unfair, they were ticketing travelers for which coming back to fight the ticket would cost more than the ticket.

Yeah, see 'speedersfundus' - fromderinside is very proud of that particular funding mechanism for his town.

 

[laughing dog]

Using the logic that traffic cameras are sometimes used in an abusive fashion, therefore they should not used, then no one should use cars because they are sometimes used in an abusive fashion.

I found the OP interesting because it proposes to reduce the incidence of violations of privacy and human rights by using a method that violates a notion of privacy.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Using the logic that traffic cameras are sometimes used in an abusive fashion, therefore they should not used, then no one should use cars because they are sometimes used in an abusive fashion.

I found the OP interesting because it proposes to reduce the incidence of violations of privacy and human rights by using a method that violates a notion of privacy.

It's not merely sometimes, it's virtually always. No camera can pay for itself writing honest tickets.