A perfect police state (Chapter I: Traffic)

[Sapo]

Imagine that every traffic infraction could be caught and punished without this meaning a violation of your privacy.

Every time you go 1 mile over the speed limit, you park an inch over a yellow sidewalk, get a second over a parking meter, run a light or stop, make a stupid lane switch without using the signal lights, cut in front of someone, anything, it gets recorded and you get punished (and let's assume that punishment is fair and appropriate, the rules are clear and known to you and fairly applied to all).

While you are not committing infractions, the system is completely blind to you. It cannot be used to track you in any way (please don't fight the hypothetical) for better or worse.

Would you agree to live under such system?

It might mean getting a ton of infractions for you in the beginning, but it would soon result in roads with no road rage, no drunk drivers, no speeders, no slow pokes in the fast lane, no jerks in your parking spot or anywhere in sight.

Worth the price?

[The Tao's Revenge]

Would the laws be fair and reasonable? Even if it's limited to your hypothetical what's to stop a government from trying to stack the deck against drivers to raise some funds?

[Muskrat Love]

I already try to drive the best I can, and never decide to speed or make traffic violations, and I still probably do something wrong at least once a week. I just couldn't afford the fines in that system - I already have warrants for my arrest from some unpaid tickets.

People would still violate laws, we'd just have more people owing money to the government or in jail for being unable to pay that money. Unless you change the definition of "fair and appropriate" punishment so that people living to paycheck don't get fined a weeks pay for rolling through a light a split second after it turned red, or a day's pay for accidentally going a few miles over the limit, I would not want this system.

[Acid Lamp]

No, I don't think that I could live under that system. The nature of traffic is simply to complex and fluid to allow for a completely accurate and blind system. Even if the fines are fair, there will still be plenty of people driving like idiots that will cause me to react in a manner that might result in fines for me. For example, let's say that the guy in front of me is not paying proper attention to his destination and slams his brakes hard to cut across lanes to get to burger barn. Now he may or may not get a fine for that action, but to avoid an accident, I have accelerate out of his way breaking the speed limit. Do I get a fine or not?

[SmartAleq]

I'll pass, thanks. I once drove a box truck that had a governor on it set to top out at 65 mph. Coincidentally enough, 65 was the speed limit on the majority of the route I had to follow. I'd come up behind someone doing a few under the limit, get into the left lane to pass and more often than not this would wake the driver up and cause him to speed up to the limit, where we'd be a rolling roadblock unless I braked to get back behind him. Couldn't just speed up a couple mph to get past Dozy McClueless because of the fucking governor. Sometimes mindless obedience to arbitrary rules is a very bad idea.

[Algorithm]

No. It's possible speeding saved my life one night when I saw a large truck barreling down the middle of a narrow road. I accelerated and pulled off on to a side street, as there was nowhere else to pull over so that he wouldn't actually collide with me on his trajectory. I'm sure I broke the law, but it seemed like the driver was intoxicated and wasn't going to change his course to avoid me.

[KidVermicious]

but it would soon result in roads with no road rage

I suspect the opposite. Speed limits infuriate me.

[bengangmo]

Heh...given that just today I drove 150k in a 70k zone I would hate such a system.

However, I suspect that in the real world, if they could track cars so well and to such a level of exactitude I wouldn't be driving at all - the car would be driving itself so the point may well be moot.

[MrDibble]

Imagine that every traffic infraction could be caught and punished without this meaning a violation of your privacy. [...]

Would you agree to live under such system?

This is how I drive right now - as though such a system were already in effect. I never (knowingly) break traffic rules. Ever.

[Lanzy]

Would your system have perfect speed laws, perfect curbs, perfect lines, etc etc?

I do the correct speed, its the limits that are stupid.

[freudian_slip]

There would go my disposable income (almost exclusively from speeding).

[The Cid]

Citizens anywhere and everywhere would defeat or destroy the monitoring devices.

[Sapo]

Interesting to see so much rejection of this idea. I think that 95% of my infractions are in response to someone else's infractions and that I would be so happy to be rid of all vehicular idiocy that I wouldn't mind having to work on preventing the other 5%.

[Muskrat Love]

Interesting to see so much rejection of this idea. I think that 95% of my infractions are in response to someone else's infractions and that I would be so happy to be rid of all vehicular idiocy that I wouldn't mind having to work on preventing the other 5%.

Thing is, perfect enforcement would not necessarily prevent 100% of the vehicular idiocy. People would still get angry and cut off other drivers and do other stuff that forces you into breaking the law. You both might get infractions, but the broke lowlife might just sit off his fines, while you end up spending half your paycheck because of somebody elses mistake.

My main beef is honest mistakes. Like I said, I drive very cautiously (I'm highly motivated, if I get pulled over, I'm going to jail), but I still routinely violate traffic laws by accident. I think most careful drivers would end up with a couple of traffic tickets a month under this system.

[Control-Z]

It would suck. Let your car go 1 MPH over the limit while going down a hill and you're cited. There are degrees of wrongness, and 1 MPH over the limit isn't very wrong at all.

[Sapo]

It would suck. Let your car go 1 MPH over the limit while going down a hill and you're cited. There are degrees of wrongness, and 1 MPH over the limit isn't very wrong at all.
The system could easily be fine tuned for that. Either skip those irrelevant offenses or fine them accordingly at, say, 1 cent per mile.

[bengangmo]

The system could easily be fine tuned for that. Either skip those irrelevant offenses or fine them accordingly at, say, 1 cent per mile.

Quick note - speed cameras in New Zealand (at least used to) do this - they were set such that only those above the 80th percentile were fined. i.e - it wasn't set to a particular speed, but rather took the top 20% of speedsers and ticketed them (obviously you had to be doing more than the posted limit though)

[Algorithm]

Interesting to see so much rejection of this idea. I think that 95% of my infractions are in response to someone else's infractions and that I would be so happy to be rid of all vehicular idiocy that I wouldn't mind having to work on preventing the other 5%.

You assume that the laws are perfectly written with prevention of idiocy as a goal, and that perfect compliance with the law by 100% of a population would result in the absence of idiocy.

Both of those assumptions are wrong.

[Sapo]

You assume that the laws are perfectly written with prevention of idiocy as a goal, and that perfect compliance with the law by 100% of a population would result in the absence of idiocy.

Both of those assumptions are wrong.
I can see the point. Then I counterpoint that the laws can be fixed, and then you say I am assuming law makers are good, and before we know it, I am arguing for a La-La-Land where lawyers put money in your pockets and puppies slide down rainbows.

[Random Precision]

I have long been of the opinion that if every traffic rule were rigorously enforced, it wouldn't be long until we had a new set of much more lenient traffic laws.

Recently in Red Oak, a suburb of Dallas, the police chief was fired for forcing his officers to actually enforce the traffic laws. It seems that this chief wanted to make a name for himself and promised a large increase in fine revenues to the city council. To meet this goal, he required his officers to spend more time on traffic patrol and to cite every violation they witnessed. When some friend of a city councilman get three speeding tickets in a week and whined about it, the chief got the axe.

So I believe if you implement perfect enforcement of the traffic laws, then those laws will be relaxed to the point that people will continue to drive pretty much the way they do now. There may be some incremental improvement in overall driving but likely not enough to justify the program.

[Roo]

it would soon result in roads with no road rage, no drunk drivers, no speeders, no slow pokes in the fast lane, no jerks in your parking spot or anywhere in sight.

Worth the price?
IF (and a big IF it is) these things would happen as a result, I'd go for it. I doubt that these results would happen though. I wouldn't have much to lose since I pretty much follow the rules. I'd put my car on cruise control at the designated speeds and the rest I already follow.

[turing test]

I would love it.

Now there will finally be enough money to fund decent public transport.

I guess in your system cyclist would also face monitoring, but I would be down with that. I can’t and do much on a bicycle to get a fine anyway.

To bad it won’t happen, but it might make some good fiction.

[SmartAleq]

I guess in your system cyclist would also face monitoring, but I would be down with that. I can’t and do much on a bicycle to get a fine anyway.


You're kidding, right? If perfect enforcement were the rule cyclists would be dead broke staying home with ankle bracelets on. Running red lights, running stop signs, "California stops," riding in crosswalks, veering outside bike lanes, riding two-five abreast and blocking vehicle traffic, riding the wrong way down the street, crossing streets in the middle of the block, turning left across two lanes of traffic and not using the "suicide lane," riding on sidewalks, cutting through parking lots to avoid traffic signals, riding without lights or helmets--about the only laws I don't see cyclists breaking as a matter of course are speeding laws! You guys would be hating life tout de suite...

[turing test]

You're kidding, right? If perfect enforcement were the rule cyclists would be dead broke staying home with ankle bracelets on. Running red lights, running stop signs, "California stops," riding in crosswalks, veering outside bike lanes, riding two-five abreast and blocking vehicle traffic, riding the wrong way down the street, crossing streets in the middle of the block, turning left across two lanes of traffic and not using the "suicide lane," riding on sidewalks, cutting through parking lots to avoid traffic signals, riding without lights or helmets--about the only laws I don't see cyclists breaking as a matter of course are speeding laws! You guys would be hating life tout de suite...

Your not talking about the way I cycle, or most people I know. A lot of what you mention here isn't illegal anyway.

Maybe you should step away from the car and take a deep breath before you get a speeding ticket.