Speeding Ticket Robots — Laws As Algorithms 400
An anonymous reader writes "As the age of autonomous cars and drone surveillance draws nearer, it's reasonable to expect government to increasingly automate enforcement of traffic laws. We already deal with red light cameras, speed limit cameras, and special lane cameras. But they aren't widespread, and there are a host of problems with them. Now, Ars reports on a group of academics who are attempting to solve the problem of converting simple laws to machine-readable code. They found that when the human filter was removed from the system, results became unreasonable very quickly. For example, if you aren't shy about going 5 mph over the limit, you'll likely break the law dozens of times during an hour of city driving. On the freeway, you might break it continuously for an hour. But it's highly unlikely you'd get more than one ticket for either transgression. Not so with computers (PDF): 'An automated system, however, could maintain a continuous flow of samples based on driving behavior and thus issue tickets accordingly. This level of resolution is not possible in manual law enforcement. In our experiment, the programmers were faced with the choice of how to treat many continuous samples all showing speeding behavior. Should each instance of speeding (e.g. a single sample) be treated as a separate offense, or should all consecutive speeding samples be treated as a single offense? Should the duration of time exceeding the speed limit be considered in the severity of the offense?' One of the academics said, 'When you're talking about automated enforcement, all of the enforcement has to be put in before implementation of the law—you have to be able to predict different circumstances.'"
I'll just go ahead and take the metro (Score:5, Funny)
rather than risk a speeding ticket every clock cycle.
Re:I'll just go ahead and take the metro (Score:5, Funny)
rather than risk a speeding ticket every clock cycle.
So you, for one, do not welcome our new robotic speeding ticket issuing overlords?
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robots.txt
Re:I'll just go ahead and take the metro (Score:5, Interesting)
rather than risk a speeding ticket every clock cycle.
Won't happen - by then they'll have mandatory auto-kill switches installed in your car, and after you burn off all your points (state laws depending), it'll kill the engine and force you to wait for the obligatory patrol car and tow truck. Call it less than 5 miles (one station per mile) if you drive like I do.
(I am curious though - did the folks in TFA consider Texas' 'flow of traffic' laws? Hell, you can get passed by an unconcerned patrol cruiser while you're doing 90 mph on the Sam Houston...)
Just set it to clock speed (Score:2)
You got 1.5 billion tickets in the last second, because you went 1.1 MPH over the speed limit.
Yeah, that will go over real swell.
Especially since, much easier would be to add a routine to the smart cruise control to never exceed the speed limit to begin with.
Re:Just set it to clock speed (Score:4, Insightful)
and if they don't pull you over to ticket you, how does it fix the problem? you are ticketed for speeding because someone somewhere has deemed that speed unsafe to yourself and/or others in that location. if you simply ticket, you didn't fix the problem. if you pull them over and ticket, then there is a good chance they will shy away from speeding for a little while.
I know people who've received multiple automated speeding tickets but they didn't get the first one for three days, then they got three more form the same location. Lesson learned, but potentially to late.
Re:Just set it to clock speed (Score:5, Insightful)
Or because the cop in question needs a few more tickets issued to make his quota.
Or perhaps the area is a "speed trap".
If ALL speedlimits were based on safety requirements ONLY, there's not be all that much speeding. As witnessed by the fact that virtually everyone speeds, and yet the carnage level on the roads is mostly based on the alcohol content of the drivers. Or the features on their phones....
Re:Just set it to clock speed (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course there arent any official quotas.. but you can be damned sure if the officer gave 0 tickets out each month that he would be fired.. proving that there are in fact both acceptable and unacceptable levels of ticketing.. which are of course quotas.
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regardless if quotas exist or not, a human still pulled you over, a mailed ticket is simply a cash grab (potential future deterrent), it has no effect in the now.
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Given the fact that you cant simply hire and fire police officers (they have to go through reveiw boards to be sacked and new cops take years of training) this is untrue.
What about your "fact" makes it untrue?
You seem to be suggesting that a cop whose duties include traffic enforcement would not get fired if they gave out 0 tickets month after month because of the magic of "review boards."
I don't think that you are thinking about this clearly, that perhaps you are biased in a way that prevents you from thinking frankly and honestly about this, because what you are claiming is obviously not true.
Re:Just set it to clock speed (Score:4, Insightful)
No, I'm certain you aren't thinking about this clearly.
The problem is, people who get speeding tickets dont want to take responsibility for their actions. In order to overcome their cognitive dissonance about this they continually create conspiracy theories that absolve them of their responsibility.
The speeder didn't get a ticket for speeding, it's revenue raising so no need to take responsibility. A speeder didn't get a ticket for speeding, they got a ticket so they get a quota.
No matter how much evidence against their conspiracy theory there is, because they cant admit responsibility for it they cant thing straight about it.
What makes it untrue?
Police forces, especially in Australia have repeatedly said there is no quota. Yet the conspiracy exists. Not because they're lying but because people who habitually speed need to absolve themselves of responsibility when they get a ticket.
What you are claiming is obviously not true, just by using occams razor.
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The problem is, people who get speeding tickets dont want to take responsibility for their actions.
This has nothing to do with whether or not a cop gets fired for giving out 0 tickets month after month.
No, I'm certain you aren't thinking about this clearly.
yes, thats why its you that goes off on tangents in order to somehow ignore the fact that an cop that writes 0 tickets month after month will as a matter of fact be fired.
Police forces, especially in Australia have repeatedly said there is no quota.
No official quota, sure. You are now just saying what I already responded to in my first post. The fact that there is no official quota does not change the fact that an officer that gives out 0 tickets month after month they will be fi
Re:Just set it to clock speed (Score:4, Insightful)
What exactly is wrong with that? If you accidentally speed as a once off then 3 days shouldn't be an issue.
If you are speeding consistently then you really need to be taught what a law is and multiple speed tickets should hopefully accomplish that.
You shouldn't use speeding tickets to determine what you're going. You should look at your bloody speedo.
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Speeding isn't that big of a cause of accidents,
No, Speeding is a big cause of fatalities.
People who try to defend speeding always try to mix up accidents with fatalities. The main cause of accidents is driver error, but at 60 KPH driver error gets you sent to the hospital. 75 KPH gets you sent to the morgue.
You get a lot of low speed impacts, but next to no fatalities. You get few high speed impacts but they almost always end with a fatality.
Picture it like this, the mob throws a man off a building, scientifically he died from hitting the groun
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have no regard for other motorists
When all the motorists go at 20mph over the speed limit and it's a very busy metropolitan ring or diametral freeway, doing the speed limit would be showing no regard for other motorists. I've been to enough large U.S. cities where in-city interstate speed limits are ridiculous at 45 or 55mph, yet everyone is going around 70mph in fairly heavy traffic. You slow down and it's instant traffic jam.
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Cruice control send up swith the same issue. If the algorithm exceeds target speed for even a few seconds - steep hill,or got rammed from behind by another driver - then you still end up with a ticket.
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So demand 1.5 billion bench trials.
Problem solved.
But it will never happen. The government would go broke trying to buy postage to send you the tickets.
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Hmm... the state could securitize those tickets into a municipal bond and solve all their budget problems!
1984 (Score:2)
What could possibly go wrong with a large computer system continuously monitoring every American roadway?
Re:1984 (Score:5, Informative)
Last time I visited (been a while though) they had automated cams on highways, capturing your license plate (with timestamp). At the next surveillance point, next cam recognizes your plate again.
If distance / (time2 - time1) exceeds speed limit, voila, ticket.
Re:1984 (Score:5, Interesting)
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Making everyone drive at a consistent speed does not cause tailbacks. Inconsistent speeds do. Which is why when you reach a lower speed you do get a tailback, but once everyone is traveling on that section it goes away.
Incidentally, you may notice that when driving at night, drivers will often brake briefly when entering a long stretch of straight road, due to all the tail lights they see. This can often have the effect of drastically slowing the traffic as it enters that final bend.
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Those average speed cameras are usually only in construction zones on the motorway where the lanes have been narrowed and speed reduced to 50mph, and they have a fairly generous leeway as well. I've never been ticketed for driving 54mph (actual speed, speedo shows 59mph) on cruise through these areas for years, and you're constantly overtaken by people going at least 3-4mph faster... who knows if they get ticketed though. There are also fixed speed cameras, red light cameras and CCTV cameras all over the pl
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Except mainframes died in the mean time that you've been in your stasis pod- these days you're talking about millions of potential computer cops in every vehicle.
Autonomous vehicles (Score:5, Insightful)
(Actually, I don't even think we'll need speed limits once autonomous cars are commonplace -- at least, not on highways)
Re:Autonomous vehicles (Score:5, Interesting)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Yd9Ij0INX0 [youtube.com]
Google's cars actually speed. The engineers quickly found (or knew beforehand) that obeying the traffic laws as written was a good way to either cause an accident, or never get to your destination.
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They don't need to plan that far ahead in government.
But they know they will get a new way to get revenue.
As electric cars become more common... gas tax revenues will drop... already you hear talk of tolls, gps tracking per mile...
Sure, autonomous cars means less ticket revenue.. .suddenly driver registration fees or tolls go up. ...
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...autonomous vehicles that always obey the speed limit
Ticketbot: G-800 series Googlenator, you have been cited for exceeding the speed limit.
[scans through 6502 assembler for appropriate response...]
G-800: Fahq you, ahsshole!
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What we are talking about here has little to do with punishment. It has to with development
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What would be the point when it then promptly crashes into the car ahead? If I could have a car where I could sit back and relax with a cup of coffee and a newspaper while it drives me to work I would gladly have it go at (or even under) the speed limit. In an automated system, there could even be a designated lane (accessible for a small fee) where cars would go faster, and those of us not in a rush could chill in the regular lanes. Sounds fantastic.
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Why bother. The offence would simply be something to the effect of "tampering with an automated vehicular safety / control system". And anything that the monitoring network determines are "out of parameter" activities would just trigger a more thorough investigation. eg. changing a vehicle to go faster (or fall outside any other specification) than allowed by the road's mandated control algorithm, would be so easily detected that you may as well broadcast the fact that your car is malfunctioning.
In fact, th
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Missing tag (Score:2)
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Terrible idea (Score:3)
The Constitution makes it pretty clear that laws and punishment shouldn't be discretely related. Laws (and algorithms) are written by humans and humans aren't infallible. There's always an exception. Case in point, look at the way sexual predator lists are being abused by over-exuberant prosecutors.
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You could still go to court if you tought that the ticket was unfair.
Re:Terrible idea (Score:4, Insightful)
... and get railroaded, then have some hefty court costs lumped on top of the already excessive fine (as a punishment for exercising your rights), not to mention the time missed from work to go down to the courthouse and fight it...
Sorry, hard for me to believe there are still people out there who buy the whole "right to defend yourself" lie...
My #1 feature request from car makers (Score:5, Funny)
And it's trivially easy to implement. You know how newer cars will beep if the seatbelt isn't engaged, and other examples of trying to correct driver behavior?
Society needs one of those to nag people who don't use turn signals. Make it so.
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It think it's worse when they don't use the turn signal at the right time. A lot of drivers use the turn signal redundantly with the actual turn manoeuvre (when we can already see the car, you know, turning), rather than as an advance warning that a turn is about to happen.
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agreed. It's especially annoying to see a car that looks like it's just coming to a stop in the flow of traffic, THEN they signal.
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It doesn't do that if you are turning at a light, just if you lane-drift. And it doesn't stop you, just buzz the steering wheel. (My mother-in-law has one. Pretty neat.)
Let me know when they replace the "mild buzzing in the steering wheel" system with a "50,000 volt shock to the arse..."
My mother-in-law could use a new set o' wheels herself...
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I think that's the automatic lane keeping feature. Something that should be mandatory in all cars.
Of course, I think all cars should come with adaptive cruise control with pedestrian detection. So make of it what you will.
Re:My #1 feature request from car makers (Score:5, Funny)
Of course, I think all cars should come with adaptive cruise control with pedestrian detection. So make of it what you will.
So the car speeds up when it detects a pedestrian?
I am intrigued by you views and would like to subscribe to your newsletter.
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So the car speeds up when it detects a pedestrian?
To be fair, it does solve the problem of a specific person crossing outside of cross walk in front of oncoming traffic once and for all....
..and I guarantee you that quite quickly many people will just stop doing it, while the rest maybe deserve the die because they are in fact threatening the life of the driver and others in the area by attempting to cause an accident.
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The system isn't there to remind you to use your turn signal.
It's there because if you're drifting out of lane without using your turn signal you may very well be falling asleep or distracted and not REALIZE you're drifting out of the lane.
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That's only for when there's an obstruction on the other lane, either a wall or some car in your blind spot. And it also engages the brakes on one side to get you back into your lane.
I predict... (Score:2)
I will run red lights for 1 day and argue I should only get 1 ticket.
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The flipside is the extreme opposite - there's a stretch of road just outside Paris (A86, for those playing at home) - that is a tunnel of about 10km long. It's got a speed camera placed every 1 - 2KM (hidden, with infra-red flashes). Even though it's the same stretch of road, with an incredibly short distance between each camera, if you're doing 10km/h over the limit, you will end up with 6 tickets (at 80EU each) - AND have the points withdrawn.
That is to say, you can lose 500EU + your licence for the same
SeaQuest (Score:2)
We can make a horrible world. (Score:5, Insightful)
Our technologies and laws allow us to do lots of things.
We should perhaps ask instead, what kind of society we are making?
If we're making a miserable place that focuses on details of law-breaking more than the big factor, which is how safe/smart of a driver someone is, we're penalizing good behavior and encouraging people to live in a nit-picky miserable world.
We can make a horrible world, if we want; however, we might prefer not to.
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Everyone wants laws to counter the things that bug them. In the end, there are people outraged by everything where as I am humored. I live a happy life, and am only disappointed when someone elses ridiculous outrage is turned into laws affecting me.
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We can make a horrible world, if we want; however, we might prefer not to.
We've already made a horrible world, at least as far as the law is concerned. It doesn't exist anymore as a way of codifying commonly-held morals, but rather as a way of giving people in power ways of removing others quickly and discreetly. Everyone is a criminal. Everyone. And all it takes to ruin someone's life is to hear the word "Guilty". It's not any small coincidence that housing, employment, public assistance -- everything is tied to not having a criminal record. Considering how ludicriously easy it
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A solution would be to make it illegal to have a change in speed limit above a certain rate downwards...
That's already illegal, but good luck getting the local circuit judge to rule against the Mayor of CockTown, who also happens to be his brother-in-law...
Common sense.. (Score:2)
To me, that would be a much more worthwhile goal to strive for.
There are consequences... (Score:3)
An automated system, however, could maintain a continuous flow of samples based on driving behavior and thus issue tickets accordingly.
An unanticipated consequence of an "always-on" mass surveillance system. "Big Brother is always watching."
Finally (Score:2)
It's about time computers started issuing automated citations. I've still got no clue what to do with the seashells.
the difference is (Score:4, Insightful)
... that an actual cop will PULL YOU OVER to issue a ticket. The speeding behavior stops, and the roads become safer, at least while your car is parked at the side of the road, and hopefully remain safer when you proceed, suitably chastised. The cop has a chance to ensure that you are not inebriated or otherwise unfit to drive before he allows you to proceed. If you choose to speed again and he catches you again, you get stopped and a second ticket is issued. Repeat as necessary.
Issuing tickets based purely on observation fail to stop the illegal behavior and do little to make the roads safer, until much much later, when the ticket catches up with you in the mail (assuming a ticket is enough to change your behavior).
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But, but then you couldn't be ticketed multiple times. Think of the lost revenue.
The thing is current systems will give a separate ticket for each data point. The difference is, you only have one or two data points per drive.
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One Enforcement Per Law Per Cop (Score:2)
Sure, automate the detection, but the enforcement, IMHO, must be manual, i.e., a ticket must be issued in person by an officer of the law. Furthermore, that cop should only be able to charge you with one instance of each law broken, i.e. one speeding charge, one reckless charge, etc. I think that would strike a decent balance.
Of course, this won't actually happen since people are unwilling to pay reasonable taxes and police departments are forced to provide their own revenue somehow.
not quite (Score:2)
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Breaking News: Instructions for computers..... (Score:2)
How about.. (Score:2)
You're getting sandwiched between two 18-wheelers. If you break, the car following will definitely run into you.
If you press the pedal to the medal, computer will say no. Fair?
A job for legislators, not programmers (Score:2)
The legislative process is appallingly imperfect, to be sure, but at least it has the pretense of openness and consideration of constituent interests. That's where these decisions need to be made.
Fortunately, sin
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Currently, it's the cops who decide which car to pull over, how is that better? Also, this was just research, a programmer would likely get the set of rules to implement from the police. At least it would create an objective, potentially transparent system that treats every driver the same. Getting a ticket would depend on driving behaviour instead of luck.
Comment removed (Score:3)
Re:You know.. (Score:4, Insightful)
Less sweepingly, I propose that all traffic fines be pooled on a state level and distributed by population proportion - this will be easier to get passed, but will prevent shitty little townships from funding themselves entirely through farming their nearby interstate highway for tickets.
The fact that enforcing traffic law is wildly profitable means that the system is naturally and automatically corrupt and attracts corrupt people to run it. When you uncouple the action from the reward, bad behaviour tends to stop.
it would cause a (Score:2)
just think if traffic monitoring robots started issuing tickets for every slightest infraction, i bet many angry people would start destroying them with a good whack with a hammer, or paintball guns on the cameras and sensors
Built-In Tolerance (Score:2)
In addition, the traffic laws themselves may have a tolerance built-in. For example, in Pennsylvania, the law mandates a 10-mph tolerance under most circumstances, and no court can accept a ticket for less than that over the limit.
Slack Makes the World Go Around (Score:5, Insightful)
Automated law enforcement is almost universally a terrible idea. Its the kind of thing an eager-beaver engineer without much real world exposure would come up with. Either that, or a fascist.
The world runs on slack. Not just laws, but pretty much every human interaction requires slack at some point. Slack is the lubricant that makes society work. Without slack the machinery of society will freeze up and burn out.
On the other side of the spectrum, too much slack and the wheels just spin without getting any traction. We need the right amount of slack - fortunately there is usually lots of meta-slack in determining what is the right amount of slack.
wrong optimization problem (Score:2)
It's easy if you state the problem correctly: how to reach the income level the local municipality expects from the speeding tickets, while minimizing the number of tickets (processing fees) and potential court challenges.
Um... (Score:2)
The roads would be shut down (Score:2)
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It's NTSB(National Traffic Safety Board) rules that the speed limit should be set to the 90th percentile - IE if the speed limit is set correctly, 90% of motorists on the road would not be speeding. 90% of average speed would have most motorists speeding. On the other hand, most jurisdictions round down rather than up like the NTSB recommends...
What safety studies have shown is that motorists will tend to select a more or less safe speed even if there are absolutely no speed limit signs, and some indicati
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I renovated a house not long ago where the late owner did a lot of work himself... poorly. Many of the outlets had their ground and neutral reversed. Sure, the world continues to spin and appliances will work when plugged into it. It could also kill a person quickly in certain situations.
I make a distinction about that being a good safety regulation imposed by law, versus speed limits where one driver can be safer over the speed limit than a less capable driver under the speed limit.
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that's another good distinction.
I've heard of semi drivers getting multiple tickets on the same stretch of road for going the same speed, once for going too fast, once for going too slow (compared to the rest of the traffic flow). Speeding should be a judgement call, not a fixed thing. Being above the limit by 15% on a nice, dry, sunny summer day isn't as bad as being 15% above on a snowy/icey winter morning/evening. So long as you're not driving like an ass
Re:GASP we break the law all the time and no one d (Score:5, Insightful)
ng above the limit by 15% on a nice, dry, sunny summer day isn't as bad as being 15% above on a snowy/icey winter morning/evening.
Except, it's not safe to pull cars over in the rain or heavy traffic, so you only get speeding tickets when it's perfectly safe to speed. Sadly, I don't believe ticketing and safety have anything to do with each other any more. Personally, I'd love to see some ticketing for lack of turn signals, failure to yield and tail gating. Then again, I'd like to see the cops start obeying those laws.
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Re:GASP we break the law all the time and no one d (Score:4, Informative)
And there were studies that showed reducing the speed limit to 55 caused more accidents in certain parts of the country and that raising them back to 65 and higher didn't cause an increase.
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I had a friend who got pulled over on the way to a store and ticketed for both speeding and obstructing traffic.
Basically, she was going over the limit, but not enough over the limit to not be impeding a block of cars behind her. I think she managed to get one of them thrown out but I don't remember all that well.
Re:GASP we break the law all the time and no one d (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:GASP we break the law all the time and no one d (Score:5, Insightful)
I make a distinction about that being a good safety regulation imposed by law, versus speed limits where one driver can be safer over the speed limit than a less capable driver under the speed limit.
There are no less capable drivers. I mean seriously, just ask any driver. They are all more capable than average, and therefore it's safe for them to flout the rules of the road, speed laws, you-name-it, because they feel safe, and really, when have feelings ever let anyone down as a means of perfectly objective self-assessment?
Re:GASP we break the law all the time and no one d (Score:5, Interesting)
It's more about driver intoxication level and the number of other vehicles on the road. 600 cars going 50 MPH on a one-mile stretch of 4-lane freeway is extremely dangerous. 60 cars going 80 MPH on that same mile of freeway is must less dangerous.
The trouble is with making laws that can represent the danger inherent in widely varying situations. So we end with laws that make sense some of the time (at best) but have no rationale for existence at other times. For example, who cares if you run a red light at a rural intersection instead of waiting 2 minutes for the light to cycle when there are no other cars? The police will definitely ticket you if they see it, but there's nothing unsafe about stopping, looking both ways, and then proceeding if there is no cross traffic.
Re:GASP we break the law all the time and no one d (Score:4, Insightful)
Who would have thought we can break many laws every day and no one dies.
That's a pretty good indicator that the law in question shouldn't be a law at all. I welcome these kinds of automated systems with perfect enforcement. If perfect enforcement of the law creates problems, it's a bad law. Repeal it.
Re:GASP we break the law all the time and no one d (Score:4, Informative)
That's not his point.
His point was exactly what he stated - that we all, individually, break many laws on a daily basis, often unknowingly, and no one dies as a result. The proportion of speeding offenses vs deaths caused by excessive speed is just icing on the cake.
Case in point: ever discuss a broadcasted sporting event in a public place, without express written consent of the sporting organization and broadcasting network? If you said 'yes,' then you've broken the law, even though it has harmed not a soul.
I'm pretty sure that's what AC was getting at.
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While true, as a percentage of cars on the road, population, or miles traveled, its been going down. Which I only know because those have mostly all gone up over the years and the raw number of deaths hasn't really changed.
Thing is, its not just about whether or not some people die. "Any at all" is a terrible standard for any system that has to deal with 300 million people, or even fractions of it. A better thing to think about is the point of diminishing returns.
A while back I, and some people had a good c
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It's the poorly defined "reckless driving" that should be ticketed and enforced... not the easily quantifiable speeding. Speeding doesn't cause accidents. It's the stupid folks who dunno how to drive.
THIS, a million times over.
The guy doing 90 MPH in the fast lane, but not riding asses or driving recklessly, is far less likely to cause an accident than the narcissistic highway nannies who will intentionally cut him off at 65 MPH, just to "teach that guy a lesson."
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Going too slow in the fast lane should be a reckless/careless driving ticket to start with.
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Do not allow a horrid little man to sit in a room while robots collect checks for him.
ah, high frequency trading; yes, let's put those parasites to the flames.
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Given that practically everybody breaks several laws a day, the only thing that keeps it from blowing up in our faces is the inefficiency. Every law effectively has a clause built-in that it has to bother someone badly enough to make them want to do something about it. Anything that allows for pushbutton law enforcement needs a counterbalance lest our legal system become progressively more draconian through unintended consequences.
Fines as revenue are a problem since they add an unwarranted incentive to the
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And in Australia, you DO get fined for going 5mph over the limit. That's 8km/h... worth a couple of hundred dollars in most .au states. I've driven extensively in the USA and in Australia, and in my experience the .au cops are already much like a computer - they will fine you for the most minor infringement on a clear dry day, and get very hostile if you try to reason with them.
In the US however, some headroom is allowed over the speed limit, in particular, I've found, in snowy states in summer. It's almost
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