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I don't totally agree with that. A law should either be enforced close to 100% of the time (with exceptions at the discretion of a court), or 0% of the time (i

by bcherny 10y ago

I don't totally agree with that. A law should either be enforced close to 100% of the time (with exceptions at the discretion of a court), or 0% of the time (ie. the law should not exist). If jay walking, pot smoking, or anti-sodemy laws are not really enforced, to me that's a sign that they should be taken off the books. In an over-legislated society, we should focus on having strong core legislations that everyone agrees with. Crimes like murder and rape, on the other hand, should be enforced as close to 100% of the time as possible.

lisper 10y ago
In a perfect world I would agree with you. But we do not live in a perfect world. We live in a world where laws are made by fallible humans, and sometimes they get it wrong. Inefficiency is a useful mechanism to protect us from legislative foibles.
barsonme 10y ago
What about something like speeding? Let's say we get rid of speeding laws since they're not 100% enforced. Should we have unregulated driving? Move towards a law that simply says "no driving unsafely"? IMO those are both poor ideas—they're either unsafe or vague and subjective. I don't see a way around having well-defined speeding laws, yet there are plenty of situations where it's silly to ticket an individual who's going 5+ MPH over the posted limit. I just don't see a win-win scenario.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- ryandrake 10y ago
  I'm fine with no speeding laws. It's not the speeding part that hurts people and causes damage, it's the crashing part. We, as a culture, love to make these second order laws that outlaw not the harmful action but the risky "derivative" of the harmful action. Because some people might crash when they speed, we outlaw speeding. Because some people might hijack planes, we confiscate nail cutters and toothpaste. Because some people might commit mass-murder we outlaw scary looking guns.
  - barsonme 10y ago
    I'd be totally down to remove speed limits in some places (I drive cross-state every weekend, so I'd love it :-) but, in my opinion, speed limits can be useful in certain areas. Off the top of my head: - Residential areas (like actual suburbs or cities) would benefit from speed limits. I'm a bit of a libertarian, but I'd prefer we have intentionally slow things down in highly populated areas, particularly where there's dumb little kids running about and chasing balls into the road. - Parts of unincorporated county where I live have no shoulder, so crashing takes you into somebody's house. (Actually, a local house at the end of a road that comes to a "T" had to install a concrete barrier after a couple cars plowed through their front door.) I can't speak to the math behind it, but IMO it'd be reasonable to limit cars to a speed that prevents them from skipping the little ditch and ending up in my living room. - School zones. (See first bullet.) - Hilly areas and curvy roads (or just roads with limited sight distance). - "Kill zones" (you know, places where elk and deer play chicken with cars). - Frequently icy/wet/slick areas. (A friend of mine managed to slide his truck off the side of a hill he'd lived near his entire life somehow after forgetting it usually ices over.) IMO a lot of it has to do with preventing new or infrequent drivers (to the area) from driving too fast for conditions. Sometimes having a "chilling effect" (of sorts) can be a good thing.
    - adrianN 10y ago
      I also think that speeding laws are good. However I think it would be better if we designed our streets so that drivers don't drive at dangerous speeds. Have frequent speed bumps, narrow lanes, cobblestones, etc on residential streets.
      - Jtsummers 10y ago
        This can have the unintended side-effect of reducing access for emergency vehicles. I lived in a neighborhood once with a traffic circle at the entrance, initially with a tree and shrubbery. That was gone within a year after the ambulances had driven over/through the shrubs a few times. The traffic circle remained, but the physical barrier became, essentially, a 15mph speed bump. Narrow lanes, frequent speed bumps have to be considered carefully. With regard to speed bumps, they need to be the gradual sort (where you can actually pass over them at 15-25mph depending on the slope) rather than the ones that effectively force a stop (a curb in the road). Narrow lanes only work if streetside parking is illegal. And so on. Otherwise, I entirely agree with your point. Design roads so that certain speeds are unattainable, then speed limits barely matter anymore.
- dsfyu404ed 10y ago
  IIRC Montana didn't have speed limits in a lot of places until the national speed limit came around and the federal government threatened to take away federal highway money if they didn't step in line. IIRC some part of Australia got rid of speed limits and nothing happened. It wasn't the end of the world like the concerned mothers association predicted
- bcherny 10y ago
  If the speed limit is 65 but in practice driving 70 is still safe enough, we should raise the speed limit to 70. Going further, there is some evidence that getting rid of the speed limit actually reduces accident rates (eg. German autobahns, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autobahn#Safety:_international_comparison https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autobahn#Safety:_international...). You can look at these sort of stats in the context of the broader idea of removing explicit rules in order to increase personal responsibility and encourage safer behavior (eg. replacing stop signs and traffic lights with roundabouts, https://www.wsdot.wa.gov/Safety/roundabouts/benefits.htm https://www.wsdot.wa.gov/Safety/roundabouts/benefits.htm).
pfranz 10y ago
Sure, in theory. But I see two problems with that--although they're probably the same idea. Judicial, executive, and legislative are decent abstractions. They're fairly slow to change. Executive is probably the easiest to react to public opinion--which isn't necessarily something you'd want in the other two branches. It can repurpose old laws for new problems and can focus on immediate, concerning issues--thankfully, with oversight. Breaking a law is binary, but public opinion can move gradually (I know I just said it can move quickly, but it can also move very slowly). Anti-sodomy laws were enacted (I imagine) when there was a lot of support. There was a very long time between that and the public accepting homosexuality. Yes, in the interim we can have judicial leniency--but that clogs up the courts and we do have mandatory minimums in many laws. There's also weird in between laws, like a Ft Lauderdale law saying horses need lights and a horn after sundown. Makes total sense because it's dangerous. At some point it likely was a huge problem and it was happening often. But it's nice to give officers leniency if I got lost on a trail or my horse got out without having to go to court.
- clort 10y ago
  > But it's nice to give officers leniency if I got lost on a trail or my horse got out without having to go to court. I think the point [made elsewhere] is that it should not be up to the officer to give leniency for any law breaking. The court can do that (via a jury of your peers) but separation of powers means that the officer is not the judge. This transparency is good because if the officer and you on a dark little back lane come to some private agreement about prosecuting you for a law you have broken, that does not serve the society that wanted the law in place. The court record is a public record for a reason?

by bcherny 10y ago

lisper 10y ago

In a perfect world I would agree with you. But we do not live in a perfect world. We live in a world where laws are made by fallible humans, and sometimes they get it wrong. Inefficiency is a useful mechanism to protect us from legislative foibles.

barsonme 10y ago

What about something like speeding? Let's say we get rid of speeding laws since they're not 100% enforced. Should we have unregulated driving? Move towards a law that simply says "no driving unsafely"? IMO those are both poor ideas—they're either unsafe or vague and subjective. I don't see a way around having well-defined speeding laws, yet there are plenty of situations where it's silly to ticket an individual who's going 5+ MPH over the posted limit. I just don't see a win-win scenario.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
ryandrake 10y ago
I'm fine with no speeding laws. It's not the speeding part that hurts people and causes damage, it's the crashing part. We, as a culture, love to make these second order laws that outlaw not the harmful action but the risky "derivative" of the harmful action. Because some people might crash when they speed, we outlaw speeding. Because some people might hijack planes, we confiscate nail cutters and toothpaste. Because some people might commit mass-murder we outlaw scary looking guns.
- barsonme 10y ago
  I'd be totally down to remove speed limits in some places (I drive cross-state every weekend, so I'd love it :-) but, in my opinion, speed limits can be useful in certain areas. Off the top of my head: - Residential areas (like actual suburbs or cities) would benefit from speed limits. I'm a bit of a libertarian, but I'd prefer we have intentionally slow things down in highly populated areas, particularly where there's dumb little kids running about and chasing balls into the road. - Parts of unincorporated county where I live have no shoulder, so crashing takes you into somebody's house. (Actually, a local house at the end of a road that comes to a "T" had to install a concrete barrier after a couple cars plowed through their front door.) I can't speak to the math behind it, but IMO it'd be reasonable to limit cars to a speed that prevents them from skipping the little ditch and ending up in my living room. - School zones. (See first bullet.) - Hilly areas and curvy roads (or just roads with limited sight distance). - "Kill zones" (you know, places where elk and deer play chicken with cars). - Frequently icy/wet/slick areas. (A friend of mine managed to slide his truck off the side of a hill he'd lived near his entire life somehow after forgetting it usually ices over.) IMO a lot of it has to do with preventing new or infrequent drivers (to the area) from driving too fast for conditions. Sometimes having a "chilling effect" (of sorts) can be a good thing.
  - adrianN 10y ago
    I also think that speeding laws are good. However I think it would be better if we designed our streets so that drivers don't drive at dangerous speeds. Have frequent speed bumps, narrow lanes, cobblestones, etc on residential streets.
    - Jtsummers 10y ago
      This can have the unintended side-effect of reducing access for emergency vehicles. I lived in a neighborhood once with a traffic circle at the entrance, initially with a tree and shrubbery. That was gone within a year after the ambulances had driven over/through the shrubs a few times. The traffic circle remained, but the physical barrier became, essentially, a 15mph speed bump. Narrow lanes, frequent speed bumps have to be considered carefully. With regard to speed bumps, they need to be the gradual sort (where you can actually pass over them at 15-25mph depending on the slope) rather than the ones that effectively force a stop (a curb in the road). Narrow lanes only work if streetside parking is illegal. And so on. Otherwise, I entirely agree with your point. Design roads so that certain speeds are unattainable, then speed limits barely matter anymore.
dsfyu404ed 10y ago
IIRC Montana didn't have speed limits in a lot of places until the national speed limit came around and the federal government threatened to take away federal highway money if they didn't step in line. IIRC some part of Australia got rid of speed limits and nothing happened. It wasn't the end of the world like the concerned mothers association predicted
bcherny 10y ago
If the speed limit is 65 but in practice driving 70 is still safe enough, we should raise the speed limit to 70. Going further, there is some evidence that getting rid of the speed limit actually reduces accident rates (eg. German autobahns, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autobahn#Safety:_international_comparison https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autobahn#Safety:_international...). You can look at these sort of stats in the context of the broader idea of removing explicit rules in order to increase personal responsibility and encourage safer behavior (eg. replacing stop signs and traffic lights with roundabouts, https://www.wsdot.wa.gov/Safety/roundabouts/benefits.htm https://www.wsdot.wa.gov/Safety/roundabouts/benefits.htm).

pfranz 10y ago

Sure, in theory. But I see two problems with that--although they're probably the same idea. Judicial, executive, and legislative are decent abstractions. They're fairly slow to change. Executive is probably the easiest to react to public opinion--which isn't necessarily something you'd want in the other two branches. It can repurpose old laws for new problems and can focus on immediate, concerning issues--thankfully, with oversight. Breaking a law is binary, but public opinion can move gradually (I know I just said it can move quickly, but it can also move very slowly). Anti-sodomy laws were enacted (I imagine) when there was a lot of support. There was a very long time between that and the public accepting homosexuality. Yes, in the interim we can have judicial leniency--but that clogs up the courts and we do have mandatory minimums in many laws. There's also weird in between laws, like a Ft Lauderdale law saying horses need lights and a horn after sundown. Makes total sense because it's dangerous. At some point it likely was a huge problem and it was happening often. But it's nice to give officers leniency if I got lost on a trail or my horse got out without having to go to court.

clort 10y ago
> But it's nice to give officers leniency if I got lost on a trail or my horse got out without having to go to court. I think the point [made elsewhere] is that it should not be up to the officer to give leniency for any law breaking. The court can do that (via a jury of your peers) but separation of powers means that the officer is not the judge. This transparency is good because if the officer and you on a dark little back lane come to some private agreement about prosecuting you for a law you have broken, that does not serve the society that wanted the law in place. The court record is a public record for a reason?