6 ms·

Sounds a bit like a variety of legal realism, roughly the idea that the law is not what's formally written down, but the collection of practices that can be inf

Sounds a bit like a variety of legal realism, roughly the idea that the law is not what's formally written down, but the collection of practices that can be inferred from what people (judges, prosecutors, police, etc.) actually do. If Wall Street practices have become culturally normalized, especially among elites, then they simply get thought of as "legal", regardless of whether they follow the letter of the law, and it appears radical to argue that they should be prosecuted for doing things that are just normal practice and therefore presumptively legal. It looks to many people like you're trying to change the law in that case (the government intervening to overturn normal business practices) even if formally you're just enforcing the law as actually written. Many people in a position to initiate prosecutions shy away from that unless they have strong political backing (e.g. from a popular politician willing to make trust-busting or taking on Wall Street their signature issue).

jbob2000 11y ago
Can I use that argument to get out of speeding tickets? It's culturally normalized to go 10-20kph over the limit, and people actually get pissed if you do the limit on the highway.
- _delirium 11y ago
  Where I live (Texas) the de facto norm really does appear to be that you're entitled to add 10 mph (~15 kph) to the posted speed limit, and that's roughly what the police enforce. People get really angry and start writing their politicians if police start frequently writing tickets for less than that, so they usually don't. Some police out in West Texas used to be notorious for setting up speed traps on the highways and enforcing the speed limit strictly (as a source of revenue), so the state legislature actually cracked down on them because people were so angry.
  - notahacker 11y ago
    The UK has strict guidelines about where fixed speed cameras may be located and how they should be signposted for similar reasons.
  - uremog 11y ago
    I always thought that came from the error rate of old radar guns?
- smm2000 11y ago
  I drive 9mph over speed limit and I have not been ticketed a single time in 9 years I am driving. Cultural norm is that speeding 10mph is OK so police ignores some speeding in most locations.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
  - Retric 11y ago
    http://fightyourspeedingticket.com/fifty-miles-over-the-posted-speed-limit/ http://fightyourspeedingticket.com/fifty-miles-over-the-post... Speeding often has surprisingly low fines. Get caught doing 115 in a 65 mph area in Florida. That's ~1,000$ for a first offence. Second time they revoke your license for a year and more than double the fine, next they revoke it for 10 years and charge you 5k. But, first time around it's kind of meh, IMO. Of course you will probably also get reckless driving which is stiffer. http://www.leg.state.fl.us/Statutes/index.cfm?App_mode=Display_Statute&URL=0300-0399/0316/Sections/0316.192.html http://www.leg.state.fl.us/Statutes/index.cfm?App_mode=Displ... Considering the high risk of killing someone you would think the could come up with a better deterrent.
    - johan_larson 11y ago
      Here in Ontario there are big signs on the highways that say if you're caught driving more than 50 kph (~30 mph) over the speed limit they take your license and your car (!) right there by the side of the road.
      - eric_h 11y ago
        That's news to me! Admittedly, I haven't been on a highway in Ontario in ~2 years, but I definitely never saw signs like that then (of course, I definitely saw people exceeding the speed limit by 50kph on more than one occasion, and given how quickly my uncle made it to my grandparents' house in Ontario the last time he headed over from Montreal, I suspect he may have too ;). - Canadian raised in the US, spent a fair amount of time in Canada
- superuser2 11y ago
  In many jurisdictions there is a tacit understanding between police and residents that 9mph over the freeway speed limit will not get you pulled over, 10mph+ is fair game. You probably couldn't use that in court to get out of a ticket, but as a matter of enforcement a massive amount of speeding is routinely tolerated.
- FireBeyond 11y ago
  I think I've even seen it in print (in some of those newspaper articles, like "Ask law enforcement questions"), but definitely from discussions with them, but Washington State Patrol's "stated" policy for speeding (at least on highways) is "Under 10 Over" and they won't target you.
  - rconti 11y ago
    Anybody who's been anywhere near the Seattle metro area knows what a bloodbath the speed traps are. Targeted or not, they like to do insanely stupid things like park their cruisers on the shoulder of a bridge, inches from the lane of travel, lights off, at night, trying to "ambush" people.
    - vkou 11y ago
      Only on I-90. For some reason, nobody enforces speed limits on the toll bridge that tech workers take to Google/Microsoft...
      - rconti 11y ago
        Well, 520 used to not have any SPACE for cops. Occasionally they'd hide out at the little cutout for the bridge maintenance people. I'm not sure how this has changed, didn't they widen the bridge or something? Maybe there's more space for cops now.
    - poulsbohemian 11y ago
      The west side of the state is nothing compared to the east. The WSP on the east side of the cascades pull people over whenever they need some revenue, regardless of their speed. They are filthy thieves shaking down anybody that looks vulnerable. When I drive to Seattle, you can anticipate seeing the WSP approximately every 20 minutes the entire way across - until you hit the west side of the cascades, in which case you'll only see them occasionally up and down I-5. They are monsters and I'd be fine getting rid of them entirely. They are not making the roadways of Washington any safer and do not represent the values of the people of this state.
- ryanlol 11y ago
  If speeding tickets were intended to stop people from speeding rather than just to collect money from them, the answer would probably be yes.
- ccvannorman 11y ago
  If you're white, sure.
- danharaj 11y ago
  That would be an instance of fallacious reification[1]. Legal realism would say that the law is not enforced based on whether or not you obeyed the speed limit. The cop's whim, bias, and whatever organizational pressures bear down on them all contribute to your ticket. The statute itself is only a small part of the law. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reification_(fallacy) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reification_(fallacy)
- Thriptic 11y ago
  Effectively that's how the law is enforced anyway. I've never seen someone pulled over for doing <= 10 over the limit on a highway. On large highways you can typically get away with going <= 15 mph over.
  - jessaustin 11y ago
    I've gotten a hefty ticket for 7mph over. This was on a rural road with wide shoulders and broad turns. The spot where I was busted is a really long straightaway with absolutely no driveways or other sources of entering/exiting traffic. The road would be perfectly safe if the limit were 65mph rather than 55mph. You probably won't "see it" until it happens to you. Highway patrol is managed for revenue generation rather than public safety.
  - tracker1 11y ago
    If you're ever going through Southern Utah, between Vegas and SLC, don't do it... my last ticket was for 6mph over. Pretty pricey, for what it was at that.
- Lawtonfogle 11y ago
  When you consider the real reason you are getting the ticket isn't that you were speeding, everyone else was as well, but that you are an easy money with an out of state plate or maybe the color of your skin wasn't appreciated by the officer. Now, real speeding tickets are given for people who are violating even the extended limits, but for the reality is that legal realism + over arching laws + selective enforcement means that the law actually is that being the wrong skin color or from the wrong location or displaying the wrong political bumper sticker is a ticketable offense as long as the officer doing so is being discrete enough.
- undersuit 11y ago
  Montana raised the speed limits from 75 to 80mph last summer. I've noticed an odd effect... the traffic is now predominantly moving between 75 to 80mph, not 75 to 85mph.
  - CamperBob2 11y ago
    This isn't an odd effect at all, it's perfectly well understood. Google the "85th percentile rule" for more. If most drivers are "automatically" adding 9-10 MPH to the speed limit, it means the speed limit is too low.
cowardlydragon 11y ago
I guess there is no ramifications to consistently fucking over black people in criminal prosecutions. right? This is whitewashing. In all the ways you can apply it.
galtwho 11y ago
and the problem with unwritten rules is that it is majority who knows best on how to read them. when you don't run within the majority culture you are always making mistakes in their interpretation and then you have law officers who choose to make examples every now and then. guess who gets booked? PS : one of the advantages of privilege

jbob2000 11y ago

Can I use that argument to get out of speeding tickets? It's culturally normalized to go 10-20kph over the limit, and people actually get pissed if you do the limit on the highway.

_delirium 11y ago
Where I live (Texas) the de facto norm really does appear to be that you're entitled to add 10 mph (~15 kph) to the posted speed limit, and that's roughly what the police enforce. People get really angry and start writing their politicians if police start frequently writing tickets for less than that, so they usually don't. Some police out in West Texas used to be notorious for setting up speed traps on the highways and enforcing the speed limit strictly (as a source of revenue), so the state legislature actually cracked down on them because people were so angry.
- notahacker 11y ago
  The UK has strict guidelines about where fixed speed cameras may be located and how they should be signposted for similar reasons.
- uremog 11y ago
  I always thought that came from the error rate of old radar guns?
smm2000 11y ago
I drive 9mph over speed limit and I have not been ticketed a single time in 9 years I am driving. Cultural norm is that speeding 10mph is OK so police ignores some speeding in most locations.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- Retric 11y ago
  http://fightyourspeedingticket.com/fifty-miles-over-the-posted-speed-limit/ http://fightyourspeedingticket.com/fifty-miles-over-the-post... Speeding often has surprisingly low fines. Get caught doing 115 in a 65 mph area in Florida. That's ~1,000$ for a first offence. Second time they revoke your license for a year and more than double the fine, next they revoke it for 10 years and charge you 5k. But, first time around it's kind of meh, IMO. Of course you will probably also get reckless driving which is stiffer. http://www.leg.state.fl.us/Statutes/index.cfm?App_mode=Display_Statute&URL=0300-0399/0316/Sections/0316.192.html http://www.leg.state.fl.us/Statutes/index.cfm?App_mode=Displ... Considering the high risk of killing someone you would think the could come up with a better deterrent.
  - johan_larson 11y ago
    Here in Ontario there are big signs on the highways that say if you're caught driving more than 50 kph (~30 mph) over the speed limit they take your license and your car (!) right there by the side of the road.
    - eric_h 11y ago
      That's news to me! Admittedly, I haven't been on a highway in Ontario in ~2 years, but I definitely never saw signs like that then (of course, I definitely saw people exceeding the speed limit by 50kph on more than one occasion, and given how quickly my uncle made it to my grandparents' house in Ontario the last time he headed over from Montreal, I suspect he may have too ;). - Canadian raised in the US, spent a fair amount of time in Canada
superuser2 11y ago
In many jurisdictions there is a tacit understanding between police and residents that 9mph over the freeway speed limit will not get you pulled over, 10mph+ is fair game. You probably couldn't use that in court to get out of a ticket, but as a matter of enforcement a massive amount of speeding is routinely tolerated.
FireBeyond 11y ago
I think I've even seen it in print (in some of those newspaper articles, like "Ask law enforcement questions"), but definitely from discussions with them, but Washington State Patrol's "stated" policy for speeding (at least on highways) is "Under 10 Over" and they won't target you.
- rconti 11y ago
  Anybody who's been anywhere near the Seattle metro area knows what a bloodbath the speed traps are. Targeted or not, they like to do insanely stupid things like park their cruisers on the shoulder of a bridge, inches from the lane of travel, lights off, at night, trying to "ambush" people.
  - vkou 11y ago
    Only on I-90. For some reason, nobody enforces speed limits on the toll bridge that tech workers take to Google/Microsoft...
    - rconti 11y ago
      Well, 520 used to not have any SPACE for cops. Occasionally they'd hide out at the little cutout for the bridge maintenance people. I'm not sure how this has changed, didn't they widen the bridge or something? Maybe there's more space for cops now.
  - poulsbohemian 11y ago
    The west side of the state is nothing compared to the east. The WSP on the east side of the cascades pull people over whenever they need some revenue, regardless of their speed. They are filthy thieves shaking down anybody that looks vulnerable. When I drive to Seattle, you can anticipate seeing the WSP approximately every 20 minutes the entire way across - until you hit the west side of the cascades, in which case you'll only see them occasionally up and down I-5. They are monsters and I'd be fine getting rid of them entirely. They are not making the roadways of Washington any safer and do not represent the values of the people of this state.
ryanlol 11y ago
If speeding tickets were intended to stop people from speeding rather than just to collect money from them, the answer would probably be yes.
ccvannorman 11y ago
If you're white, sure.
danharaj 11y ago
That would be an instance of fallacious reification[1]. Legal realism would say that the law is not enforced based on whether or not you obeyed the speed limit. The cop's whim, bias, and whatever organizational pressures bear down on them all contribute to your ticket. The statute itself is only a small part of the law. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reification_(fallacy) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reification_(fallacy)
Thriptic 11y ago
Effectively that's how the law is enforced anyway. I've never seen someone pulled over for doing <= 10 over the limit on a highway. On large highways you can typically get away with going <= 15 mph over.
- jessaustin 11y ago
  I've gotten a hefty ticket for 7mph over. This was on a rural road with wide shoulders and broad turns. The spot where I was busted is a really long straightaway with absolutely no driveways or other sources of entering/exiting traffic. The road would be perfectly safe if the limit were 65mph rather than 55mph. You probably won't "see it" until it happens to you. Highway patrol is managed for revenue generation rather than public safety.
- tracker1 11y ago
  If you're ever going through Southern Utah, between Vegas and SLC, don't do it... my last ticket was for 6mph over. Pretty pricey, for what it was at that.
Lawtonfogle 11y ago
When you consider the real reason you are getting the ticket isn't that you were speeding, everyone else was as well, but that you are an easy money with an out of state plate or maybe the color of your skin wasn't appreciated by the officer. Now, real speeding tickets are given for people who are violating even the extended limits, but for the reality is that legal realism + over arching laws + selective enforcement means that the law actually is that being the wrong skin color or from the wrong location or displaying the wrong political bumper sticker is a ticketable offense as long as the officer doing so is being discrete enough.
undersuit 11y ago
Montana raised the speed limits from 75 to 80mph last summer. I've noticed an odd effect... the traffic is now predominantly moving between 75 to 80mph, not 75 to 85mph.
- CamperBob2 11y ago
  This isn't an odd effect at all, it's perfectly well understood. Google the "85th percentile rule" for more. If most drivers are "automatically" adding 9-10 MPH to the speed limit, it means the speed limit is too low.

cowardlydragon 11y ago

I guess there is no ramifications to consistently fucking over black people in criminal prosecutions. right? This is whitewashing. In all the ways you can apply it.

galtwho 11y ago

and the problem with unwritten rules is that it is majority who knows best on how to read them. when you don't run within the majority culture you are always making mistakes in their interpretation and then you have law officers who choose to make examples every now and then. guess who gets booked? PS : one of the advantages of privilege