Re: Scofflaws are part of the system of checks and balances

Post #2,524 by addison 7/20/01 11:24:38 PM Reply	Re: Scofflaws are part of the system of checks and balances Nicely said. I tend to agree with you, mostly. The problem is that "scofflawry" also has a slippery slope - at some point, its too far. And that point is hard to determine ahead of time. Addison
Post #2,567 by wharris2 7/21/01 7:34:06 PM Reply	Speed enforcement 95% of all speed enforcement is for revenue raising purposes only. Not for reckless driving. Not for being dangerous to other motorists. There's one town in Ohio that has something like 500 feet of Interstate highway within its borders. They don't even have an on or off-ramp. They vigorously "enforce" the speed limit to such an extent that the Ohio legistlature passed a law that (I forget) either requires an interchange or a mile of interstate or something before a town/community can pull people over. Theoretically, I agree with your statement of princciple. Practically, when everyone breaks the law, the law is bad. And everyone breaks speed limit laws - in fact, if you don't break the law, you very likely are endangering yourself and other drivers by driving so much slower than the prevailing traffic. French Zombies are zapping me with lasers!
Post #3,028 by addison 7/30/01 10:52:39 AM Reply	Re: Speed enforcement 95% of all speed enforcement is for revenue raising purposes only. Not for reckless driving. After having almost been run off the road this weekend, I've got a slightly differnent thought on that. That's 95% of the offenses noted, correct? But, what do you do if you're not enforcing the speed laws? There's more variables there. If you never stop people for speeding unless something happens or it seems to be dangerous, then there will be a lot more dangerous situations. Look at say, highway work zones. People have typically blasted through them... so many states now aggressively enforce the lower limit there, so people slow down and accidents in work zones (and fatalities to the workers) have dropped drastically in those states. What if police never enforced school speed zones? Its like a lot of things - you have to have the possibility there, to enforce behavior. And waiting until there's an accident to assign blame... especially when people presume/delude themselves that they won't have a problem, they are good enough. And I damn sure wish there'd been a cop last night, when this jackass passed me in a no-passing zone, passed traffic at the next light in the turn lane (and then went into the intersection to cut in front of the van at the light), and was doing easily 120 on a rain-slick road, speed limit 55. Without enforcement - that's what would be much more common. Addison
Post #2,756 by mhuber 7/24/01 3:30:32 PM Reply	Jumping off the slippery slope Scofflawry is people jumping off a slippery slope. But it doesn't matter. It isn't something that anyone can control. It isn't to be encouraged, exactly. It simply is the way people are. I don't tell my kids it's OK to ignore laws. I'm probably a bit more scrupulous than most people in following laws, but I don't claim to be entirely clean either. I've been known to drive five over the limit from time to time, and I'm not about to apologize. I see laws as part of how we manage to live together as a society, and as such to be respected, but not as same mystical higher good. Which means those lovely statues of blindfolded women holding scales are wast..., um, no, actualy no well constructed statue of a woman wearing an outfit that only covers one breast is truly wasted on me. Still, I don't think that's what the architect had in mind. And while scofflawry isn't pretty (unlike those statues) if it weren't for scofflaws, beverage-grade alcohol would be illegal in the USA right now. White guys in suits know best - Pat McCurdy

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