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> The best way to get a bad law repealed is to enforce it strictly. - Abraham Lincoln While I can't say that I'm a fan of traffic cams, and I do appreciate th

> The best way to get a bad law repealed is to enforce it strictly. - Abraham Lincoln While I can't say that I'm a fan of traffic cams, and I do appreciate that the author was vindicated in this circumstance, I like the idea of laws that are enforced for every single violation. Traffic law, and indeed most of our laws, seem to be enforced so inconsistently as to be laughable. I'm sure there are instances where, financially speaking, you're better off to break the law and then just pay the fines if you get caught. Similar to when corporations break a law for years and eventually pay a fine that's less than the profit they made from breaking the law. I think if the enforcement were more consistent, we'd end up with much better laws in the long run.

rev_bird 10y ago
This is a tricky topic. I think I disagree with you. I'm certainly in agreement that there's ample evidence of justice being unevenly applied in this country, at least in part because there are humans doing the enforcing. Traffic cams are a great way to get around that -- in this case, it was the (human) bureaucracy that was unfair, not the camera. However, the (main) reason I disagree is because, when you're dealing with people doing things that may not leave a paper trail, enforcement is contingent on supervision. It follows that constant enforcement is contingent on constant supervision, and I'd rather people just not get caught, to be honest. Otherwise we end up in a situation where the argument becomes, "Well of course we have to install tracking chips in all the cars, do you want people to be speeding and get away with it? Of course we have to let the government read our email, that's how people coordinate financial crimes!" This is wandering a little farther into tinfoil-hat territory than I'd meant it to. My originally intended point was that it's a tough line to walk between consistent enforcement and pervasive enforcement.
- aithoughts 10y ago
  > It follows that constant enforcement is contingent on constant supervision I think I've found that it's neither necessary nor sufficient. Constant enforcement just means that you give the ticket no matter who you stopped.
mirkules 10y ago
I couldn't disagree more. The fact that our laws are subjectively interpreted is a blessing. There are so many laws that the Congressional Research Service can't even count them all. In other words, we are all breaking laws every day.[0] Absolute law enforcement is a bad idea, for the fact that it provides no path towards civil disobedience[1] Take for example the Texas "sodomy" law, that prevented homosexual couples from ingaging in sexual acts. If the law were practiced in absolute terms, we would have never had Lawrence v. Texas, and gay people would have remained criminals. If I take a more generous stance towards your argument, and assume that you meant to say only traffic laws should be absolutely enforced, again I think it's a bad idea. It provides no way to argue circumstances in your case (such as "tree was blocking the red light"). In summary, I think absolute enforcement is effectively Orwellian. [0] https://moxie.org/blog/we-should-all-have-something-to-hide/ https://moxie.org/blog/we-should-all-have-something-to-hide/ [1]http://archives.nwtrcc.org/omtfp/civilrole.html http://archives.nwtrcc.org/omtfp/civilrole.html
- cloakandswagger 10y ago
  >In summary, I think absolute enforcement is effectively Orwellian. It is, but that seems to be the point. The only way to highlight the absurdity of having so many laws is to enforce them so strictly that it creates a public backlash. Put another way, the only reason our legislators were able to amass such a large amount of laws is because they are selectively enforced, or not enforced at all (for now).
- ncallaway 10y ago
  > I couldn't disagree more. The fact that our laws are subjectively interpreted is a blessing. There are so many laws that the Congressional Research Service can't even count them all. In other words, we are all breaking laws every day. But the selective enforcement of laws is a disaster. As you say, we are all breaking laws every day. Which means, if any individual prosecutor decides he doesn't like you, they probably have the ability to charge you with something. You've just handed the state the power to jail anyone they decide they don't like. That is truly dangerous.
  - 10y ago
Scoundreller 10y ago
Meanwhile, Germany has photo-radar, but the German police MUST issue the ticket to the driver of the vehicle at the time. Therefore, they take pictures of the front of the car, and the back if needed.
- supergirl 10y ago
  that approach comes with its own problems regarding privacy.
  - aithoughts 10y ago
    Ironically, Germany is quite strong on privacy laws. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bundesdatenschutzgesetz https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bundesdatenschutzgesetz
  - HNSucksAss 10y ago
    How does this present any privacy problems? You're driving around on public roads, being seen by thousands of members of the public. There's no expectation of privacy there at all. Not to mention that they're not publishing the pictures, and the cop is physically issuing the ticket afterward. So... what do you mean?
bmelton 10y ago
> "The best way to get a bad law repealed is to enforce it strictly" This is an approach that I like for most bad laws (though noting that its attribution to Lincoln is questionable). That said, this isn't a case of the law being good or bad, but about the enforcement being bad. Most people would agree that traffic lights are a net good, and that running a traffic light in a way that causes harm would be a bad act, ergo, laws against running traffic lights seem to be overall good on balance. Moreover, it is logical to assume that if people were just running traffic lights whenever they wanted to, that the net result would be in mistakes that would ultimately result in harm. But if you're at a 5 minute red light in the middle of the night with a wife who is in labor and nobody else is around, would you support enforcement of that law against the man who runs that light? Nobody was harmed, no damages were caused, and waiting for the light might potentially have caused a medical issue for which the driver could have sued. The point of the article isn't that "red lights are bad" or that "running red lights is good", but the more nuanced take that "the enforcement of red light laws as both a civil and criminal act while adhering to the tenets and protections of neither is bad", which is (at least taking the article on faith) correct, as applied. At its core, the author does themselves a mild disservice by closing with the standing argument. Yes, I can't sue you for harms you didn't cause, and nor can I sue you for harms you might have caused, but didn't. Moreover, it is true that the state similarly has no standing for suits in which no harms were caused, but that is not the core of the wrong he is fighting.
- TheGrumpyBrit 10y ago
  There's a counter argument that in a situation where your wife is in labour and you're stuck at a red light, you made a conscious analysis of the risks and decided that a $100 ticket was an acceptable price to pay to get your wife to hospital in time. You elected to break the law and so the ticket should stand.
  - bmelton 10y ago
    Which may result in a disenfranchisement of the poor. A friend of mine (who is brilliant, but also an asshole) once shared with me a part of his philosophy on life. This occurred as we were staying in adjacent hotel rooms. There was an after-wedding party going on in his hotel room, and he lights up a cigarette. I mention to him "Hey, you know there's no smoking in DC hotels, right?" to which he responds "Yeah -- it's allowed." Pretty confident he was wrong, I kept at it, until he pointed out that it cost $150. Not understanding, I questioned him, until he broke it down -- it's not allowed, but for violating the rule, the fine is $150. For him, celebrating the wedding of our close mutual friend was a festive occasion, and worth paying the $150 for. In short, he had deemed that the fine was not a fine, but the cost, and he was willing to pay it. If laws are prohibitively expensive for the poor, but merely 'a cost' for the more well to do, then we run the risk of jeopardizing the rule of law entirely, and begs the question of whether or not the law needs to exist if nobody is harmed by its selective infraction. Liability already covers means for reliably determining who is at fault, so where there is incident, the person running the light can be considered at fault. Otherwise, it seems to be just a system for generating fees, and largely from the hoi polloi.
int_19h 10y ago
My understanding is that this is where it runs afoul of that whole criminal vs civil distinction. To do what you want, the law in question must be a criminal law, since civil law requires some direct measurable harm caused by the action to be applicable - and it would be hard to demonstrate direct harm from someone blasting through a red light at an empty intersection. So, you make it criminal law. But that raises the standard of proof significantly - you can no longer go on preponderance of evidence, but you need to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. Cameras, in most cases, simply don't provide enough evidence to meet that bar (not the least because it's hard to see who's driving the car), so in practice, it would mean that most such cases would go nowhere. You also don't want to say that people have committed a misdemeanor for something as trivial as parking wrongly, because there are some long-term consequences of this. Hence, they invent things like "civil violation of criminal laws", such that the standard of proof is closer to that of civil law, but they don't need to prove direct harm - an action can be illegal in and of itself, regardless of consequences. This is justified on the grounds that penalties are "merely" fines, not imprisonment. Of course, the fine can still be very large - and larger still if you're unable to pay, and they start charging you interest. At some point, the interest will cross the line where you may actually get arrested for not paying it, too. All stemming from that initial lack of due process.

rev_bird 10y ago

This is a tricky topic. I think I disagree with you. I'm certainly in agreement that there's ample evidence of justice being unevenly applied in this country, at least in part because there are humans doing the enforcing. Traffic cams are a great way to get around that -- in this case, it was the (human) bureaucracy that was unfair, not the camera. However, the (main) reason I disagree is because, when you're dealing with people doing things that may not leave a paper trail, enforcement is contingent on supervision. It follows that constant enforcement is contingent on constant supervision, and I'd rather people just not get caught, to be honest. Otherwise we end up in a situation where the argument becomes, "Well of course we have to install tracking chips in all the cars, do you want people to be speeding and get away with it? Of course we have to let the government read our email, that's how people coordinate financial crimes!" This is wandering a little farther into tinfoil-hat territory than I'd meant it to. My originally intended point was that it's a tough line to walk between consistent enforcement and pervasive enforcement.

aithoughts 10y ago
> It follows that constant enforcement is contingent on constant supervision I think I've found that it's neither necessary nor sufficient. Constant enforcement just means that you give the ticket no matter who you stopped.

mirkules 10y ago

I couldn't disagree more. The fact that our laws are subjectively interpreted is a blessing. There are so many laws that the Congressional Research Service can't even count them all. In other words, we are all breaking laws every day.[0] Absolute law enforcement is a bad idea, for the fact that it provides no path towards civil disobedience[1] Take for example the Texas "sodomy" law, that prevented homosexual couples from ingaging in sexual acts. If the law were practiced in absolute terms, we would have never had Lawrence v. Texas, and gay people would have remained criminals. If I take a more generous stance towards your argument, and assume that you meant to say only traffic laws should be absolutely enforced, again I think it's a bad idea. It provides no way to argue circumstances in your case (such as "tree was blocking the red light"). In summary, I think absolute enforcement is effectively Orwellian. [0] https://moxie.org/blog/we-should-all-have-something-to-hide/ https://moxie.org/blog/we-should-all-have-something-to-hide/ [1]http://archives.nwtrcc.org/omtfp/civilrole.html http://archives.nwtrcc.org/omtfp/civilrole.html

cloakandswagger 10y ago
>In summary, I think absolute enforcement is effectively Orwellian. It is, but that seems to be the point. The only way to highlight the absurdity of having so many laws is to enforce them so strictly that it creates a public backlash. Put another way, the only reason our legislators were able to amass such a large amount of laws is because they are selectively enforced, or not enforced at all (for now).
ncallaway 10y ago
> I couldn't disagree more. The fact that our laws are subjectively interpreted is a blessing. There are so many laws that the Congressional Research Service can't even count them all. In other words, we are all breaking laws every day. But the selective enforcement of laws is a disaster. As you say, we are all breaking laws every day. Which means, if any individual prosecutor decides he doesn't like you, they probably have the ability to charge you with something. You've just handed the state the power to jail anyone they decide they don't like. That is truly dangerous.
- 10y ago

Scoundreller 10y ago

Meanwhile, Germany has photo-radar, but the German police MUST issue the ticket to the driver of the vehicle at the time. Therefore, they take pictures of the front of the car, and the back if needed.

supergirl 10y ago
that approach comes with its own problems regarding privacy.
- aithoughts 10y ago
  Ironically, Germany is quite strong on privacy laws. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bundesdatenschutzgesetz https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bundesdatenschutzgesetz
- HNSucksAss 10y ago
  How does this present any privacy problems? You're driving around on public roads, being seen by thousands of members of the public. There's no expectation of privacy there at all. Not to mention that they're not publishing the pictures, and the cop is physically issuing the ticket afterward. So... what do you mean?

bmelton 10y ago

> "The best way to get a bad law repealed is to enforce it strictly" This is an approach that I like for most bad laws (though noting that its attribution to Lincoln is questionable). That said, this isn't a case of the law being good or bad, but about the enforcement being bad. Most people would agree that traffic lights are a net good, and that running a traffic light in a way that causes harm would be a bad act, ergo, laws against running traffic lights seem to be overall good on balance. Moreover, it is logical to assume that if people were just running traffic lights whenever they wanted to, that the net result would be in mistakes that would ultimately result in harm. But if you're at a 5 minute red light in the middle of the night with a wife who is in labor and nobody else is around, would you support enforcement of that law against the man who runs that light? Nobody was harmed, no damages were caused, and waiting for the light might potentially have caused a medical issue for which the driver could have sued. The point of the article isn't that "red lights are bad" or that "running red lights is good", but the more nuanced take that "the enforcement of red light laws as both a civil and criminal act while adhering to the tenets and protections of neither is bad", which is (at least taking the article on faith) correct, as applied. At its core, the author does themselves a mild disservice by closing with the standing argument. Yes, I can't sue you for harms you didn't cause, and nor can I sue you for harms you might have caused, but didn't. Moreover, it is true that the state similarly has no standing for suits in which no harms were caused, but that is not the core of the wrong he is fighting.

TheGrumpyBrit 10y ago
There's a counter argument that in a situation where your wife is in labour and you're stuck at a red light, you made a conscious analysis of the risks and decided that a $100 ticket was an acceptable price to pay to get your wife to hospital in time. You elected to break the law and so the ticket should stand.
- bmelton 10y ago
  Which may result in a disenfranchisement of the poor. A friend of mine (who is brilliant, but also an asshole) once shared with me a part of his philosophy on life. This occurred as we were staying in adjacent hotel rooms. There was an after-wedding party going on in his hotel room, and he lights up a cigarette. I mention to him "Hey, you know there's no smoking in DC hotels, right?" to which he responds "Yeah -- it's allowed." Pretty confident he was wrong, I kept at it, until he pointed out that it cost $150. Not understanding, I questioned him, until he broke it down -- it's not allowed, but for violating the rule, the fine is $150. For him, celebrating the wedding of our close mutual friend was a festive occasion, and worth paying the $150 for. In short, he had deemed that the fine was not a fine, but the cost, and he was willing to pay it. If laws are prohibitively expensive for the poor, but merely 'a cost' for the more well to do, then we run the risk of jeopardizing the rule of law entirely, and begs the question of whether or not the law needs to exist if nobody is harmed by its selective infraction. Liability already covers means for reliably determining who is at fault, so where there is incident, the person running the light can be considered at fault. Otherwise, it seems to be just a system for generating fees, and largely from the hoi polloi.

int_19h 10y ago

My understanding is that this is where it runs afoul of that whole criminal vs civil distinction. To do what you want, the law in question must be a criminal law, since civil law requires some direct measurable harm caused by the action to be applicable - and it would be hard to demonstrate direct harm from someone blasting through a red light at an empty intersection. So, you make it criminal law. But that raises the standard of proof significantly - you can no longer go on preponderance of evidence, but you need to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. Cameras, in most cases, simply don't provide enough evidence to meet that bar (not the least because it's hard to see who's driving the car), so in practice, it would mean that most such cases would go nowhere. You also don't want to say that people have committed a misdemeanor for something as trivial as parking wrongly, because there are some long-term consequences of this. Hence, they invent things like "civil violation of criminal laws", such that the standard of proof is closer to that of civil law, but they don't need to prove direct harm - an action can be illegal in and of itself, regardless of consequences. This is justified on the grounds that penalties are "merely" fines, not imprisonment. Of course, the fine can still be very large - and larger still if you're unable to pay, and they start charging you interest. At some point, the interest will cross the line where you may actually get arrested for not paying it, too. All stemming from that initial lack of due process.