Big rant at Classical Values about red light cameras (hat tip: Instapundit).
Unlike speed limits which are arbitrarily set too low (and you know they are too low when nearly every single driver is disobeying the posted limit), traffic lights are necessary to regulate traffic flow when there is actually traffic at an intersection.
On the other hand, enforcement of laws via camera is a whole new world of big brother watching you. But in theory, the camera doesn't see anything that a cop hiding near the intersection wouldn't have been able to see. I'm sure thats what the courts have held.
This issue has brought up a lot of libertarian debates and is similar to the drug sniffing dog and national ID card issues I recently posted about.
Technology allows better enforcement of existing laws. Enforcement of just laws is good (like red light running or murder) but enforcement of unjust laws (like speed limits or drug possession) is bad.
But the thing to fear is that the government could uses its new powerful information gathering ability for bad purposes such as rooting out and arresting people for speaking out against the government. The reason why the Second Amendment was placed into the Constitution was to give ultimate power to the people in case they needed to rebel against the government. Technological law enforcement, like removing people's weapons, makes a future revolution that much more difficult if not impossible.
Unfortunately, the technological genie is out of the bag and can't exactly be put back in. I predict an ever increasing use of cameras and other technology with only a tiny percentage of people complaining about it.
22 comments:
They shouldn't be speed limits, they should be recommendations, and there should be no fines. And then if you cause an accident because you exceeded the recommendations, that should factor in for liability purposes.
Hey Librarian Girl, I put a link to your page on my page!
Yes, recommendations. The problem with enforcing speed limits is that now you have some people following an arbitrary law (where the speed is set too low) and others driving the way the highway is built to be driven. The relative speed difference causes the danger.
That plus if you take away the fines you will eliminate the danger inherent when everybody hits their brakes at the same time upon seeing a cop on the highway.
There is something more Orwellian about hidden cameras which might result in more people complaining about this. One fear is that by using it for something relatively benign such as enforcing traffic laws, people will become more accustomed to electronic surveilance and be less likley to protest if expanded to other areas.
This reminded me of a science fiction story I once read where there were devices which supposedly read people's minds and exploded it anyone had subversive thoughts. Actually (in the story) they were set to explode randomly to give the impression they could prevent subvesive thought.
There is a curious inconsistency here in arguing that laws regarding driving through red lights are acceptable while speed limits are not. While many would disagree, it would be consistent to argue that the government does not have the right to set any traffic laws, but why one and not the other? Is it that driving through a red light is more likely to result in an accident? What if it is an area with minimal traffic and someone could be certain that they would not hit anyone by going through the red light? In this case, there is less risk from prohibiting driving through a red light than there is in regulating speed limits in more heavily populated areas.
Speed limits are not necessarily a clear cut case of the government imposing rules unjustly. Here's an example where perhaps the local government could be faulted for not making the speed limit lower. The major street in my subdivision is residential, but over time was extended to have an outlet on a second main street. When this was done, the street was reclassified as a different type of street joining two main streets, and the speed limit was raised. The residents of the subdivision wanted a lower speed limit out of concern for the safety of their children. Is the government wrong in this case for imposing a speed limit higher than those living on the street desire? As an example of strange government thinking, the response of the local government was to place devices to monitor the speed which people were driving through the street, to set the limit based upon how most people were driving. Therefore if the majority were driving too fast, they would keep the speed limit higher, without consideration of the safety issues.
What about my right to take exits at consciousness losing speeds????
The residents of the subdivision wanted a lower speed limit out of concern for the safety of their children.
People need to teach their children not to walk in the street. I'm sick and tired of zillions of unnecessary laws multiplying for the "sake of the children."
We live in a democracy and the laws should therefore reflect the will of the people. Speed limits should reflect how people actually prefer to drive instead of what some nanny-state bureaucrat thinks.
On the highways around DC, the posted speed limits are 55 but every single driver is going faster than that. The speed limits are set too low.
Traffic lights, on the other hand, are necessary to get efficient use out of the roads. Imagine if all the traffic lights were replaced by four way stop signs. No one would be able to get anywhere.
Which is fairer--speed limits which reflect what the people living in the area want (the lower speed limits) or the way that others drive who do not live in the area but pass through the subdivision? We get a fair amount of traffic from people who do not live in the subdivision to either look at the houses or to use the street as a short cut between the streets on each side of the subdivision.
Teaching kids not to go in the street is not always successful.
I am intrigued by the speed limit recommendation idea. If I understand it correctly there would be a recommended speed limit for a road which you could or could not chose to obey, if however you are involved in an accident then your percentage of liability goes up. So theorhetically driving my new corvette on a residential street (normally zoned at 25 or 35 mph here) I could be going 225 mph hit a school bus full of nuns kill them all and face no criminal penalty. So as soon as I pay off my court judgement, probably pretty minimal because we all now that religous people are losers so they aren't any great loss to society, i can jump into my new corvette and go do it again. cool i like this idea. While we are at it why don't we make traffic lanes and one way streets recommendations too. sometimes it is just too big a hassle to go around the block and you know that those one way street signs were put there arbitrarliy. Man this is such a cool idea, lets roll it out to other areas. Electrical codes, just a recommendation, if you don't follow em and that apartment building burns down killing 400 people, well we will just handle it through liability. Think how much less it will cost to build a house. Not letting pilots drink before they fly, just a recommendation, if they slam their palne into the middle of the pacific on the way to hawaii well no problem we will just sue. This is gonna be a cool new world. Woo Hoo
LG,
We do not live in a democracy. & if I have any say about it we never will. We're in a constitutional republic with democratically elected representation. to paraphrase churchill a democracy is two wolves & a sheep voting on what's for lunch; a republic is a heavily armed sheep contesting the vote. :)
But addressing some other comments...
It's easier to explain the unjustness of speeding laws if we go back in time ten years. The interstates were designed in the 1950's to be used by 1950 era cars. They were constructed with about 70 mph in mind as the normal speed. Now ten years back we had the federally imposed 55 mph speed limit. That was in place since the 70's - not for driver safety but to give the appearance of doing something about the gas shortages. 15 mph slower in cars with a few generations improved technology was unjust - especially since the feds had no buisiness setting the limits in the first place. (& please, don't try to justify it with the ICC - it won't work).
Now there are a few places I know of where the limit should reasonably be 5 to 10 mph higher than it is. I obey the limits as they are but I wouldn't try to defend them across the board.
The government doing studies & consulting experts is no justification for what they do as a matter of policy (or law for that matter). Think about it - you're saying you trust the same folks who gave you the uber-effecient DMV to do other things like figure out what a safe speed is? That's kind alike hiring Abbot & Costello to do neurosurgery on your wife's cerebral cortex.
The camera thing - busting someone going through a red light is not the big deal. What is the big deal is the lack of appeal that the accused seem to have in those cases. & that's a big deal not because everyone who runs a red light & gets their pic taken is really innocent, but because it has broader implications. namely a weakening of the effectiveness of defense against state charges across the board & an informal shift in the burden of proof. It's not anything noticable yet, but an overly broad precedent or two & the camera thing could mean trouble for people accused of other things - some justifiably prohibited & some not.
One last nitpick for LG - the 2A wasn't placed in the constitution to give the people power. It was placed in there to acknowledge a power people possessed inherently long before government existed. It seems trivial but it's a very important distinction.
Chad,
before you get too happy I have tow words for you: criminal negligence.
No libertarian I know of wants to rely solely on the civil process. But prior restraint based laws aren't generally seen as desriable. Punishing someone for their potential to cause harm is not a good idea. Punishing people when they actually cause harm on the other hand is necessary & proper.
So how about this - you do 225 in a suggested 25 zone & hit someone you face the death penalty whereas if you'd have been doing 55 you'd face 20 years as opposed to doing 23 & either have charges dropped or face 3 weeks of cu=ommunity service 9the theory being that at 23 mph odds are good that the victim was just as negligent if not moreso than you were).
Persoanlly I can think fo a lot more pressing matters to tend to than revamping the speed limit system. But in principle it'd be necessary to tackle it at some point to get rid of any & all prior restraint based laws there are.
Does the "suggested speed limit" idea seem more reaosnable to you now?
David,
It sounds like it's harder to teach the parents that they are responsible for their kids' actions than to teach the kids how to behave. Any reason why a parent shouldn't be in a position to stop their 3 year old from running towards a busy street?
Chad, in such a case as you described you would still be charged with manslaughter. And what makes you think you would survive an accident in which you were driving 225 mph?
Generally we would try to keep the kids from going in the street, but as in this case we are talking about the street the kids live on, there will be cases where a kid winds up in the street.
To avoid having a kid killed or injured by a car is a very desirable goal, and it is safer to use more than one means of accomplishing this. This includes both parents attempting to keep the kids out of the street and lower speed limits in case this fails.
Actually I don't believe I would since vehicular manslaughter requires a contributing element such as speeding (no longer a factor), or drinking. As for surviving, well I am an optimist.
Publicoa,
Drawing upon my vast knowledge of the law, gleaned from years of watching law and order, I believe that in order for a criminal negligence charge to be filed, you have to do something tht you have reasonable knowledge that it will result in death or injury. Is it really reasonable for me to have expected that bus full of nuns to be there. Don't they share a large percentage of the responsibility after all they could have been safely back in their convent and its not my responsibility that they weren't. And since the speed limit was just a suggestion and I am driving a car designed to be capable of doing 225 mph and I know what a good driver I am is it really that unreasonable that I was driving that fast. After all like Scott from yesterdays discussion I routinely exceed the speed limit and have never had a problem before.
A reasonable person would know that there are often pedestrians in the street and other vehicles to look out for. I read a case about a person who was driving 80 on Woodward Avenue in Detroit (the police were chasing him) and he hit a motorcyclist and was charged with and convicted of manslaughter. The jury found that a reasonable person would have foreseen that he was putting other lives at risk at 80 mph. Your argument that it is the nuns fault would not fly.
heheh! flying nuns!
We are slowly getting around to my actual point, which is that speed limits are not set arbitrarily, but are reasonable assumptions made by traffic engineers on what conditions will prevail on a given roadway. That is why you have a blanket residentail speed limit unless otherwise posted. Residential streets are built to a certain standard, highways to another one. It also has to take into account all the different types of vehicles on the road, varying road conditions, condition of vehicles (believe it or not everyones car isnt in as good as shape as my corvette) and the experience level of the drivers. Thats why you have speed limits, to enhance public safety, not to inconvience people or generate revenue. As a former Ambulance attendant I have seen many accidents where the driver thought they knew better than the posted speed limit, almost every one had at least one fatality, so I tend to support them even if they are inconvienent at times.
Your sample is obviously not representative of the majority of people who drive over the speed limit, by definition.
Whatever reason speed limits are established, that does not change the fact that they do inconvenience people, and they do result in money being paid to the state.
"Even supervised children sometimes make it to the street(usually with a parent running to catch them). To make an "ass"umption that because children should be supervised and thus are never going to make it to the street is foolish"
Agreed. Plus, even kids who are old enough to be outside on their own might not be as careful as they should be 100% of the time. Kids in a residential neighborhood often walk and play in or near the street. Even if I disagree with this (and wouldn't want my child doing this), I still do not want to see the neighbor's kids get hit by cars.
Again, the main point of my comment is that speed limits are not necessarily a case of government setting a speed limit which is too low. While I believe there are cases where it is too low, and even that there are areas where this is done to raise money through tickets, there are also cases where the people living in an area are the ones requesting the lower speed limit. In this case most of the neighborhood even wanted a lower speed limit than was set by the local government.
Scott,
You're right my sample doesn't apply to most people. Actually its not a sample since many and most aren't good data groups :-) It was an anecdotal observation. My highly subjective opinion is that most people who speed do so by 5 to 10 mph, which is within the safety range of road design. I don't really have a problem with that. The other type of speeder is the one who is just in a huge hurry and is in and out of traffic, tailgating, cutting people off. That I have a real problem with because it makes the road unsafe for me. That is where the idiot cam would be handy. Unfortunately they would probably crash after being hit by the laser. Maybe we could hit them with a burst of highly concentrated radiation so they can't reproduce or send a squad of paid thugs. to their house to beat the with a sock full of oranges
Skimming through some of the comments, I only wish to point out something that many commentators seem to be missing.
There are costs and benefits to every policy. There are benefits to setting speed limits; saving lives, preventing wear on the roads. And there are costs: longer time spent on the roads, time taken for people to get places, cost for administration to enforce those limits.
When one argues against the speed limit, he simply believes the costs exceed the benefits. The same applies to the contrary. There is nothing, so far as I can see, prima facie wrong with arguing either way, but simply pointing out a benefit on one side of the debate but failing to consider the corresponding costs is unpersuasive.
Notice nobody is willing to take extreme positions of either polarity. Nobody is arguing that we should abolish driving altogether, nor is anyone arguing that drivers should be immune from liability. This suggests that both think the proper tradeoff between costs and benefits lies somewhere in the middle of the extremes.
What is missing from all the comments I have read is some proposal for measuring the benefits and costs, a way to find the point where they equal each other, an equilibrium. Libertarians who want to privatize roads believe a market mechanism is the proper way of finding this point--they do not trust the government to do it, as the government is not a market.
Others may feel differently, but I am curious as to what mechanism they propose in its stead. If they propose that the government is accurate in its measurement of costs and benefits, I am skeptical, and don't know how one would construct a proof showing this to be so.
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