Driverless Cars Could Cripple Law Enforcement Budgets 626
colinneagle writes "Google's driverless cars have now combined to drive more than 700,000 miles on public roads without receiving one citation, The Atlantic reported this week. While this raises a lot of questions about who is responsible to pay for a ticket issued to a speeding autonomous car – current California law would have the person in the driver's seat responsible, while Google has said the company that designed the car should pay the fine – it also hints at a future where local and state governments will have to operate without a substantial source of revenue.
Approximately 41 million people receive speeding tickets in the U.S. every year, paying out more than $6.2 billion per year, according to statistics from the U.S. Highway Patrol published at StatisticBrain.com. That translates to an estimated $300,000 in speeding ticket revenue per U.S. police officer every year. State and local governments often lean on this source of income when they hit financial trouble. A study released in 2009 examined data over a 13-year period in North Carolina, finding a 'statistically significant correlation between a drop in local government revenue one year, and more traffic tickets the next year,' Popular Science reported. So, just as drug cops in Colorado and Washington are cutting budgets after losing revenue from asset and property seizures from marijuana arrests, state and local governments will need to account for a drastic reduction in fines from traffic violations as autonomous cars stick to the speed limit."
Approximately 41 million people receive speeding tickets in the U.S. every year, paying out more than $6.2 billion per year, according to statistics from the U.S. Highway Patrol published at StatisticBrain.com. That translates to an estimated $300,000 in speeding ticket revenue per U.S. police officer every year. State and local governments often lean on this source of income when they hit financial trouble. A study released in 2009 examined data over a 13-year period in North Carolina, finding a 'statistically significant correlation between a drop in local government revenue one year, and more traffic tickets the next year,' Popular Science reported. So, just as drug cops in Colorado and Washington are cutting budgets after losing revenue from asset and property seizures from marijuana arrests, state and local governments will need to account for a drastic reduction in fines from traffic violations as autonomous cars stick to the speed limit."
Next target, please (Score:5, Insightful)
So what's the next shakedown target in this game of "citizens vs government"?
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
As we speak, we have large penalties for all the driving offences, speeding, not stopping, bad lane changes and signal failures. The main reason is the large cost of the police and court system.
I suggest they impose a summary fine amount, with no points or other consequences, of $10 on each offence and use traffic cams to impose them. The ticket would have a choice of $10 pay and be done with it or $300 for a court appearance, plus driver demerit points and insurer notification of a trial discovers guilt. U
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Yes, life would be so much easier if we could just eliminate that whole legal system thing.
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Re:Next target, please (Score:4, Insightful)
As it is now, people are forced to fight and win/lose, the system costs rise.
Speeding tickets is the one place where plea bargins makes sense... So yeah consider that...
On topic, this article is ridiculous.. most Americans won't be able to afford a new self driving car for years... So the poor will still have to pay tickets for many years to comes (you really have well rigged system for the rich).
Either way, when self driving cars are dominating you'll also see other things, such as: fewer accidents, less time wasted in traffic, less wear and tear on the road. All things that save the state money.
Not to mention all the productive hours people spending in traffic, where they could be productive, make money and generate even more taxes.
Better transportation is probably good for the economy.
Re: (Score:3)
If we're about as dumb as we always have been, more tickets for jaywalking, more sales taxes (which are politically okay because they affect poor people a lot more than rich people), and cutting spending (on poor people obviously).
Re:Next target, please (Score:5, Insightful)
Nah, they already trumped all that with terrorism. Why do you think we are looking at pot legalization in the next few years? The fact that the entire stance on pot was based on lies has been known for a long time. The fact that its safer than alcohol is pretty much uncontroversial, so what changed?
Very simply the war on terror came along and gave them a reason to justify budgets like never before. Just the other day my wife and I were walking past the local park and saw a picnic basket on a blanket, with nobody anywhere around (it turns out to have been left by the bridal party off taking pictures nearby).
As we walked past my wife joked "Downtown there would already be police investigating". We didn't get another 10 steps before 3 uniformed officers crossed the street and began walking into the park.... they barely made it to the blanket as the bridal party came back....but seriously.... investigating picnic blankets now? This is police work now?
Don't know if you noticed, but the fatherland security money is flowing into these departments like gangbusters. They are getting all manner of new equipment.....all without actually having to do anything dangerous like....breaking into people's homes to raid them. All they have to do is wave their hands and say words like "credible threat" and its like magic.
The common sense reasons that drug prohibition is a dismal failure are nothing new, nothing changed except...they realized they didn't need it.
Re:Next target, please (Score:5, Insightful)
Riiiiiight.... because banning alcohol worked so much better. How about coming to their senses and respecting an individuals right to pursue happiness for themselves, whatever that means....and not outlawing the lifestyle choices of people who have done nothing to harm anyone.
Dunno if you heard this one but "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" have always seemed like perfectly fine inalienable rights to me, we should work on implementing that inalienable part.
Re:Next target, please (Score:4, Insightful)
and not outlawing the lifestyle choices of people who have done nothing to harm anyone.
Careful, or you'll leave the door open for someone to say, "But they harm me indirectly by making me pay more in taxes, or cause me emotional harm."
The problem with that is that it can be applied to just about every non-essential activity in existence. Want to go ice skating? What if you get hurt and cost tax payers money? And your family will be so sad! Oh, and how about, "These substances make people more likely to commit crimes, so they should be banned entirely." I love that one.
Yeah, there's no direct harm of others happening, but authoritarian assholes don't care about that. Land of the free, home of the brave.
Re: (Score:3)
1. Destruction of property (smash your car).
2. Physical harm (smash your head).
3. Psychological harm (stalking someone).
We already have laws that cover this stuff. We have plenty of settled cases that show what is and what isn't harmful. There's always going to be room in the law for some wiggle room - and that, I think, is okay. Every situation is going to be different (which is why mandatory sentencing laws are so terrible).
If someone wants to rot their brain with a kilo of coke, well, I don't approve but
Re:Next target, please (Score:4, Interesting)
Hopefully people will come to their senses and outlaw tobacco and alcohol while simultaneously legalizing marijuana.
well there someone who hasn't a clue about what the effect on an outright ban on alcohol does....ever heard of prohibition and what happened there in America??
it created a massive criminal industry along with masses of violence and death... mostly from bullets but also from VERY badly made alcohol which poisoned people.Which is to say it created FAR MORE pr4oblems than it cured... in fact it cured NONE....
so perhaps before opening your sanctimonious mouth and letting your belly rumble... know what you are talking about first.
Re:Next target, please (Score:5, Insightful)
The war on drugs has turned large areas of the US into war zones
and that is not a good thing.
It is for the companies that are profiting by it.
Re:Next target, please (Score:5, Insightful)
The war on drugs has turned large areas of the US into war zones
and that is not a good thing.
It is for the companies that are profiting by it.
Well it is more than just companies looking for profit.
It is a collection of interests that all profit one way or another
from a common outcome.
The ones that bothers me most are the morally correctitude driven folk that
want to save a soul by outlawing sin.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
As someone that occasionally and responsibly brews and enjoys alcohol, but is allergic to MJ: fuck off.
Re:Next target, please (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh how I wish they were able to feasibly enforce already-in-effect statutes regarding smoking where prohibited and for littering. I've long said that if I had Powerball money, I'd hire dozens of off-duty cops to do nothing but stand visibly at major intersections writing littering citations for smokers who throw their butts out (usually lit) rather than stuff 'em in the ashtray.
I'm also sick of people who smoke all the way to the entrance to a store and drop the lit end at the threshhold cos they couldn't be arsed to put it in the provided ashcan / pole thing because it's off to the side of the entrance.
</endrant>
Re:Next target, please (Score:4, Funny)
Get out of my head!
My Powerball power fantasy includes me roaming the country with high-speed vehicles, with my team of enormous bodyguards, tossing lit cigarettes back in people's cars.
"Hey, you must have dropped this."
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My Opinion... (Score:4, Funny)
Good /GrumpyCat
Polite (Score:2)
If vendor pays, mod your car (Score:5, Funny)
Re:If vendor pays, mod your car (Score:5, Funny)
Is this wise? They know where you live. Plus, your car can tow away itself.
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If the vendor pays, then the vendor owns the brain in the car you bought rather than YOU owning the brain in YOUR car.
They will make modding the car illegal as they own it. And if they are liable for it's misbehavior, that even makes sense.
Do you want to live in a world where you own your property?
Or would you prefer to rent a license from the corporate overlords?
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Do you want to live in a world where you own your property?
I take it you don't actually read EULAs...
Seriously, what makes you think, considering the way electronic/software law has gone, that the manufacturers won't make you sign a document that waives their responsibility AND your ownership of the machine, like, game consoles, or mobile phones, or [name something with hardware/software]? If I'm not legally allowed to modify the software in my 13 year old Xbox, I highly doubt I'd be allowed to do the same with a brand new auto-car.
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If the vendor pays, then the vendor owns the brain in the car you bought rather than YOU owning the brain in YOUR car. They will make modding the car illegal as they own it. And if they are liable for it's misbehavior, that even makes sense.
Do you want to live in a world where you own your property? Or would you prefer to rent a license from the corporate overlords?
I don't mod my car now, for the same reason the vast majority of people do not mod their cars now: it would void the warranty. I doubt they would make it explicitly illegal to "mod" an autonomous car, they would just place significant liability responsibility on anyone tampering with the autonomous driving systems. As well they should: if you tamper with them and that tampering causes someone to die, you should be held fully responsible.
I own my own home (and the land its on), I don't rent or lease becaus
That sounds like great news (Score:5, Insightful)
Saving the common people several billions a year would send nothing but good vibrations up the economic chain. Yeah, some cops may lose their jobs, but the billions extra that people would have every year means other jobs get created elsewhere.
Re:That sounds like great news (Score:4, Insightful)
And direct and indirect public and private expenses due to traffic accidents will plummet saving much, much more than the speeding tickets could ever generate.
Re:That sounds like great news (Score:5, Insightful)
Saving the common people several billions a year would send nothing but good vibrations up the economic chain. Yeah, some cops may lose their jobs, but the billions extra that people would have every year means other jobs get created elsewhere.
There is no reason for any police to lose their job. Now the police can go back to doing what they are supposed to be doing. Traffic tickets aren't supposed to be a source of revenue. Every police office operating a radar gun and giving out traffic tickets is one less police officer available to go after real criminals.
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This. The revenue for cops should come from state/local taxes, the money for the roads should be through the DMV/licensing fees (like it is in most of the places I've lived). If these cops don't need to be out stopping petty speeding crimes, that makes them available to bust the *real* criminals: politicians.
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I like this world you imagine where police officers "go after real criminals". Sounds better than our world.
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Of course there is a reason (there is no money to pay them), and traffic tickets ARE a major source of revenue, so it doesn't really matter what they were "supposed to be".
The only way to maintain the same number of police officers would be to collect an extra $300,000 per officer in whatever municipality pays their salary. It doesn't matter where the money comes from when they are calculating the budget - if income from fines drops, they have to make it up somewhere else.
And it's so much more complicated
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Holy crap! I want to be a cop that gets paid $100k a year when including benefits!!! Cops, especially beat cops, are like the lowest of the low in the police food chain. City I live in, the ones pointing a radar gun at you and responding to 911 calls typically make $24k a year. Include some of the crappiest health care (HSA for the fund yourself insurance type of person) and $10k life insurance policy (for when you eventually get shot, enough to put you in the ground, maybe)
No cities look at cops as the
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Unlike neoliberal economists I categorize economic activity by importance. Cops shaking down motorists for cash is a deadweight loss to the economy.
Translation: (Score:5, Insightful)
The justice system and the police are primarily a revenue tool, to be unleashed as required, and controlled by factors other than the law.
And people wonder why the police are largely treated with mistrust and disdain.
If speeding tickets are just a shake down to pad out budgets, then the police are just flunkies, crooks and toll collectors.
Fuck the police.
There's no money lost... (Score:5, Insightful)
There's no money lost here. Writing tickets didn't generate anything for the economy, other than perhaps the reduction in destruction of property. Clearly if driverless cars aren't breaking the laws, then that reduction is occurring in a much more efficient manner. Thus driverless cars are a net GAIN to the total economy, not a drain.
Supply and Demand (Score:2, Insightful)
Less speeders means less traffic cops which means less need for traffic cops which means budget problem solved. Cops that exist to give traffic tickets will not be needed. After all, if traffic tickets pay their salary, and there are no more traffic tickets...sounds like supply and demand balancing things out just fine.
Re: (Score:2)
You acquire a gun, preferably one without a smart gun system.
Oh no! (Score:5, Insightful)
Seems to me that if enforcement actions are no longer necessary, then you won't need as big of a police force so the loss of revenue will be offset by not having to pay the salaries of all of those traffic cops. This is a non-issue.
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Seems to me that if enforcement actions are no longer necessary, then you won't need as big of a police force so the loss of revenue will be offset by not having to pay the salaries of all of those traffic cops. This is a non-issue
Traffic enforcement is clearly revenue generating, over and above the cost of the enforcement itself.
Other police work, is clearly not. There is no revenue from solving a murder, or a missing person, nor for catching a rapist, or theif.
So the traffic enforcement was subsidizing th
Re:Oh no! (Score:4, Interesting)
Wouldn't that be a shame (Score:2)
Re:Wouldn't that be a shame (Score:4, Insightful)
So no more end-of-the-month speed traps by police departments to balance their budgets? Whatever will our police departments do for money?
Wait, I've gotten speeding tickets before and I've always had to write the check to the city/county courthouse, not the police department.
Re:Wouldn't that be a shame (Score:4, Informative)
Which usually goes back to local law enforcement, or at least a portion of that, but not in all states. There are cities here in Missouri where the local governments made up most of the revenue from traffic violations. A couple cities were famous for this until the state passed some laws prohibiting them from doing this.
Nebraska, I believe, collects all traffic fines revenue and then doles that money out to the schools instead of police departments. Doesn't matter if it's a local cop or a state trooper who pulls you over and issues you the citation, the money goes to the state to prevent what occurred in Missouri.
Freeway Neutrality? (Score:4, Interesting)
Allow the local governments to charge more for faster lanes.
Oh, wait, they already do that in some localities [hctra.org].
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Or allow people to pay more for the luxury of driving 10 mph faster. (I'm being sarcastic.)
So what...? (Score:5, Insightful)
So law enforcement budgets will be lower, but the need for law enforcement will also be lower because you won't have to pay as many cops to run around patrolling the roads and writing tickets. Plus there will be fewer injuries and less property damage due to reckless driving, which means less economic waste.
If law enforcement legitimately needs more money, then raise taxes and pay for it. People keep talking like it's bad for the economy to permanently address problems because we'll have fewer jobs consisting of temporarily patching those problems. It's just another variation on the "broken window fallacy" [wikipedia.org].
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Agreed, it's very frustrating how few people understand the broken window fallacy
Kind of a problem ... (Score:5, Insightful)
The car is either driverless, or it isn't. Either the car maker is responsible, or the owner is.
But, really, who the hell is going to take liability for a device which says "I'm in charge of driving, you just sit there" right up until it goes into panic mode half a second before you impact with something and says "bummer dude, you're now in charge, evade quickly, liability transferred to passenger".
Sorry, but if I'm sitting there reading my newspaper or whatever, I'm not controlling the vehicle. If I'm responsible for controlling the vehicle, then I will actually be controlling the vehicle.
There's simply no room for a sudden shift in blame to the person in the drivers seat ... that makes no sense whatsoever.
And if the car suddenly loses its marbles and mows down a bunch of schoolkids, you think the cargo/passengers suddenly own responsibility for that?
This to me has always been the point at which driverless cars kind of fall apart, determining who is really in charge, and defining what that means.
Re:Kind of a ??? ... (Score:2)
Driverless is not very accurate description of what is going on. Semi-autonomous seems a bit better but lacks marketing flash.
I'd suspect that no matter what the 'driver' is going to be given the ticket, maybe the 'car' gets a copy too. Some investigation will have to be done (and laws updated) to determine fault (what is you live in a no fault state). Was the car in autonomous mode? Was the firmware/software current? Did the driver ignore a warning?
The expectations of the driver will also have to be d
Re:Kind of a ??? ... (Score:4, Insightful)
The car is either autonomous, or it isn't. If it isn't autonomous, I'll drive it myself and be in control the whole time.
Semi-autonomous means we'll give you the illusion you're not in control, but we might randomly shift blame to you.
Either the car is 100% in control, or the driver is 100% in control. There is no gray area in which both are in control. There is no transition from "car in charge" to "human in charge".
It has to be all or nothing. Semi-autonomous is a huge bit of weaseling to say "we're mostly in control, but you're responsible". It can't be a fluid thing where once you've dozed off or started doing something related to not driving the car where all of a sudden you are in control and must react.
If you really think liability is going to be determined by what firmware the car is running, and who is responsible for updating it ... then I will tell you right now, driverless cars will forever be in the domain of a gimmick, but for which the actual laws aren't inadequate. And, if the laws aren't adequate, you either need to fix all of the laws, or basically say you can't have driverless cars.
Me, I'd refuse to take any responsibility for the vehicle, and wouldn't sit in an operators seat. Either the car has it and can handle it, or it bloody well can't.
And, until someone settles the legal questions of "what happens when I'm sleeping in my backseat with nobody to interact with the car", being in a legal gray area more or less nullifies anything supposedly useful about a "semi autonomous car".
Re: (Score:2)
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No person should be responsible, because no person should be required present.
tickets are punishment, not revenue sources (Score:3)
700,000 miles without a citation? (Score:5, Funny)
... but have they tested it with a black dude in the driver's seat [youtube.com]?
Are they needed? (Score:3)
Or properly fund the police force (Score:5, Insightful)
You know through taxes.
While you're at it how about properly funding schools through taxes rather than bake sales. Actually there are a lot of things that could benefit just by being properly funded by taxes.
Law enforcement budgets are shams (Score:5, Insightful)
More and more departments are buying more and more stuff they simply don't need. More and more departments are starting up SWAT teams they don't need. I'm sorry, a town of 5,000 simply doesn't need a special weapons and tactics unit. They just don't. Studies have shown that when departments start up special units, guess what? They want to use those units. These units get paid more. Police salaries are already too high in many places. Police administration salaries are ridiculously high, some over $250,000. Admin salaries should be capped below 100k. Police salaries should be capped at well under 100k. Public servants should never be getting rich. All public service jobs should be capped.
For too long, police and cities have begun to rely on the "revenue" from tickets and parking citations. Parking I can see somewhat. But too many places have quotas that police have to meet with giving out citations rather than actually policing. All cities should require police to walk their beats for the first few years like they used to. Police have gotten away from this and as a result, the streets are worse, no one knows anyone else, and the police don't have a vested interest like they once did.
Enough of this nonsense.
How do you pull over a driverless car? (Score:5, Interesting)
Would it pull over if it sees the blinking lights / siren behind it?
Could you spoof it with a bunch of blinking xmas lights on the side of the road?
Re: (Score:2)
Hmmm... if only there was some way to use sound as a data communications medium...
Why is that a bad thing? (Score:2)
Need more cops (Score:4, Insightful)
So? (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is "law enforcement" agencies using enforcement as revenue streams for cities and states.
This puts law enforcement against the very people they are supposed to serve and protect.
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This puts law enforcement against the very people they are supposed to serve and protect.
Not according to the SCOTUS - go look up "Warren v DC"
Per that decision, the job of LEOs is to, "maintain the status quo," and they in fact have "no duty to protect the safety of individual citizens."
Food for thought next time your local PD starts trying to scare you into increasing their budget so they can hire more officers to "protect" the public.
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Yes. Having fines go to local law enforcement really is the root of the problem.
Weighted Dice (Score:2)
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Obscene (Score:3)
If the system is funded in large part by criminalizing a behavior so consistent and common that it can fund life-long full time salaries with benefits and pensions, then it's a system worth dismantling. Defending the need to criminalize otherwise law abiding adults for budgetary purposes is obscenely poor governing. If we, as a society, deem the crime important enough to stop, and it's rampant enough to be an epidemic, make an earnest effort to stop the crime. If it's really not that big of a deal, change the laws to reflect that. Riding the sweet spot where it's not enough of a penalty, consistently enough, to really dissuade people from doing it, yet it's enough to be profitable for the people exacting the fines, is unethically exploitative. If your government department needs funding, then get it through taxes, not extortion.
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(queue the comments about taxes being extortion)
Slashdot Car Analogy (Score:2)
So this would be like those autonomous traffic light camera's issuing automatic tickets, which it totally about driver safety and totally not about the creation of a revenue stream.
Issuing speeding tickets should be about you know "law enforcement" and "public safety", not the generation of wealth.
In the new world we are heading, autonomous cars would likely be tamper proof (unless at a properly registered service prefecture), and should a seal be broken, its location would be immediately transmitted for ma
solution: captcha road signs (Score:2)
Coming soon to a street near you (Score:5, Funny)
Driverless car pulled over by driverless cop car and given a ticket.
Bad Funding Model (Score:2)
If the government operations, police etc, are reliant on speeding tickets and other fines to operate then there is a serious problem with the funding model for that operation.
A very serious self interested model that should have been rejected from conception by a rational society.
Ok the civil structure is funded by fineing people for misbehaving. Means that the civil structure either requires that people misbehave or that people who are not misbehaving get ticketed anyways. The pressure will then be on the
Radical change for law enforcement (Score:3)
It's not just about the money. Traffic stops are a major tool that police use in law enforcement. If they think someone is suspicious, they look for a traffic violation as an excuse to pull them over and investigate. Likewise, normal traffic stops give officers a chance to notice suspicious activity.
Someone should dig up the numbers for the percentage of arrests that begin with a traffic stop.
I'll Google that for me:
http://www.nhtsa.gov/About+NHT... [nhtsa.gov]
While there may not be solid data nationally, at least in this one area, traffic stops account for about a third of all arrests.
well (Score:2)
1. good... Our law enforcement is far to militarized as it is. Fewer MRAPs and Assault Rifles would do the police some good. Maybe they should have more patience and be a little less willing to start throwing stun grenades and spraying the room with lead if they couldn't afford vests.
2. The driver should receive the ticket. People will be modding their cars just like they do their phone. Give the driver the ticket, who will then call the car manufacturer for reimbursement if it was the manufactures fault.
Why isn't this a saving in less need for enforce? (Score:2)
Boy, the GOP must LOVE this idea because it reduces the size of government and frees up police for more important jobs
6 billion at 300k per cop (Score:5, Informative)
is 20,773 cops NATIONWIDE, or 415 cops per state....
$300k number is garbage (Score:5, Informative)
That $300k number is just absurd. $6.2 billion in fines, divided by $300k per police officer, would imply only 21,000 police officers. There are 34,500 officers in New York City ALONE. Wikipedia puts the total at around 930k sworn officers with arrest powers (765k state/local, plus 44k part-time, plus 120k federal).
Even using only fulltime, and ignoring the Federal officers, would get you to about $8k, not $300k.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L... [wikipedia.org]
Re:Just Tack on a Fee (Score:5, Insightful)
Taxing EVs makes perfect sense. They still need roads to be built and maintained.
Adding an enforcement fee for a car that doesn't need enforcement is just absurd. If the number of tickets being written drops because there are no more speeding cars and reckless drivers, then just reduce the size of the police force. You don't need patrol cops any more and that's a good thing. Instead of employing people as patrol cops, they can instead work as artists or scientists or something that makes the world better instead of being a necessary evil.
Re:Just Tack on a Fee (Score:5, Insightful)
The vast majority of road wear is from heavy trucks, mostly bringing stuff like groceries that we all need. The only reason we have a gas tax is because it's taxable. That's the only government process for deciding what to tax: is it reasonably practical to tax X? Yes? Then we're just arguing about the rate.
Re:Just Tack on a Fee (Score:4, Insightful)
Two other reasons for a gas tax are because it's less regressive than a sales tax, and because it provides the proper incentive not to consume more fuel than necessary (i.e., drive less or drive a more fuel-efficient vehicle). Driving less reduces the need for fewer lane-miles of road, and that saves us all even more money.
Re:Just Tack on a Fee (Score:5, Interesting)
While I can't quite say tailpipe emissions are a complete non-issue, there are only a handful of cities in the US where they even matter a little. ULEV and better cars really don't matter unless the air above your city never circulates with the outside world (which does actually happen in a couple of places).
But that's all a dodge. Forcing other people to drive less has been core to leftwing philosophy for decades now. It all about tribal identification, not about anything practical. (Which is why the Tesla throws the right for a spin: it's a really nice American car, but then it's a hippie electric car that might as well come with a "Coexist" bumpersticker, such cognitive dissonance!)
Re: (Score:3)
Such as the San Joaquin Valley, where dirty air costs up to $1,600 per person per year [fullerton.edu] in medical costs and lost work.
That's the opposite of the right wing, which supports road and fuel subsidies and zoning and density limits [baconsrebellion.com] that force people to drive more.
Re:Just Tack on a Fee (Score:5, Informative)
The wear from driving on roads is non-linear with vehicle weight. It really is the trucks that matter.
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The wear from driving on roads is non-linear with vehicle weight. It really is the trucks that matter.
If trucks paid their fair share of the road maintenance, we'd probably see a lot fewer trucks on the interstates as freight shifted to trains (which are far more efficient and would be more cost-effective, if the trucking industry weren't heavily subsidized in the form of roads; railroads have to maintain their own track). Eventually we might even see long haul freight move off of the roads entirely, which would allow us to build cheaper interstates since they wouldn't have to withstand the constant poundin
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Why should it be paid out of income taxes? You're assuming that's the right way, but do you have any basis for that assumption?
I'm fine with government being responsible for building roads, and to some extent road-building costs should be broadly distributed, including to non-users because they benefit from having the option of using the roads even if they don't. But it also makes perfect sense for those that incur the heaviest costs to pay the bulk of them, not for any punitive reasons but for economic e
Re:Just Tack on a Fee (Score:5, Insightful)
Adding an enforcement fee for a car that doesn't need enforcement is just absurd.
The way I read it, is its not an enforcement fee for a car that doesn't need enforcement. Its a $1000 tax on (I think) all cars to support local police municipal revenues so they can continue to pursue criminals where there isn't a net payoff at the end... like nearly all of them.
Right now, it appears some of the revenue from traffic fines pays for the detectives investigating theft, arson, fraud, missing persons, murder, hunting with out a license, public urination, vandalism, and so on.
Take away the traffic fines, and sure, you don't need nearly as much traffic enforcement, but they would also face a budget crisis within the rest of the department even if they let go of all the excess 'traffic enforcement' officers. Clearly that money to pay for regular police work is still going to have to come from somewhere. Raising local taxes is the obvious solution, whether its a tax-per-vehicle, or it gets added into property taxes, or whatever... its going to have to happen.
Broken system is broken. (Score:5, Insightful)
Which have nothing to do with cars. So why tax cars? Why not a general tax or a property tax or such?
Putting a $1,000 fee for transportation will really hurt a lot of poor people.
Re:Broken system is broken. (Score:4, Insightful)
An unexpected $250 fine REALLY hurts poor people. Taxation by citation is regressive and hell and is only tolerated because it protects safety(a little).
Re:Just Tack on a Fee (Score:5, Insightful)
I pay roughly 45% of my annual income in Taxes (split between state and federal), this is not including sales tax, fuel tax, property tax, and registration. With all of that added in (some via estimate) it is pretty easy to get that number to between 50 and 55%. I will never agree to a tax increase, ever. What we have here is a very poorly run situation, one where police are required to "tax" people from breaking silly laws and distracting the police from doing what they should be doing, stopping real crime.
In a world where it takes an hour or more for police to come to my home after it has been robbed, yet you can drive around and see 10 speed traps, there is something wrong. Tickets should not be used as a source of income for the police departments, there should be no incentive for them to harass what are otherwise law abiding, tax paying citizens. "There is a person across town who is being murdered, and here is the officer writing a citation to someone who has never committed a real crime."
Re: (Score:2)
Instead of employing people as patrol cops, they can instead work as artists or scientists or something that makes the world better instead of being a necessary evil.
My neighbors and I are willing to pay a decent amount to keep bad drivers in line. Who will pay for the new art that's created by these would-be cops?
Re: (Score:3)
I can fully get behind this. So how do we get cops to actually start prosecuting the bad drivers instead of just sitting by the side of the road and nabbing people who are driving safely but exceeding a semi-arbitrary number?
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Taxing EVs makes perfect sense. They still need roads to be built and maintained.
Adding an enforcement fee for a car that doesn't need enforcement is just absurd. If the number of tickets being written drops because there are no more speeding cars and reckless drivers, then just reduce the size of the police force. You don't need patrol cops any more and that's a good thing. Instead of employing people as patrol cops, they can instead work as artists or scientists or something that makes the world better instead of being a necessary evil.
Except traffic enforcement (despite how much we might despise it) is not the "necessary evil" in this case. Traffic enforcement is done by officers not needed at actual incidents, like trouble calls, emergency response, etc. Take away "those officers" and you have a police force that can't respond nearly as well to a major incident like an active shooter, armed robbery in progress, pursuit, etc. and will not respond as fast to incidents like breaking/entering, assault, etc. where response time is critical
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unless you're saying that federal or state agencies should have hooks into all driverless cars so they can control car behavior. NOT!
note that there will always be a balance of owner power and pas
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I'm sure federal and state agencies will have hooks into car control behavior, that's likely a given...
If you're actively telling the car to "push" a yellow light, you're sort of missing the point of a driverless car, unless you expect to be able to tell it to push all yellow lights, which seems pretty irresponsible.
Re:Just Tack on a Fee (Score:5, Insightful)
If we dropped human drivers, speed limits could be increased in many cases (sometimes the design of the road itself is the limiting factor, and new roads would assume driverless conditions).
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What is dangerous is what I refer to as "steering wheel att
Re:Just Tack on a Fee (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Just Tack on a Fee (Score:5, Insightful)
The figures are nonsense. There are 18,000 law enforcement agencies [bjs.gov] in the U.S.
Whoever did the sums appears to have confused agencies with police officers, since that gives $344,444 per agency.
There are about 461,000 sworn officers in local police departments, giving a revenue per officer of $13,449. Local police officers only make up 2/3 of the total number of officers in the US, so the actual revenue per officer is even lower.
Re:Just Tack on a Fee (Score:4, Insightful)
That's actually a good point: since the occupants would have zero control over their vehicle, it would be trivial for LEOs to set up drive-through nudie scanners, redirect all traffic through them, then single out the cars that "appear to be carrying contraband" and put them on a separate track for an "enhanced" search.
The fact that such a thing would be mind-bendingly unconstitutional will probably never even cross their minds, so long as the practice remains profitable.