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There's a part of me that would love to see this for cars parked in bike lanes. Bikes already get almost no infrastructure compared to driving or walking, havin
by TulliusCicero 7y ago
There's a part of me that would love to see this for cars parked in bike lanes. Bikes already get almost no infrastructure compared to driving or walking, having what little there is so often blocked by the more privileged party adds insult to injury. Not to mention the danger it puts cyclists into where they have to move onto the road where drivers may not be expecting bikes (because, y'know, there's a bike lane on the street).
Of course I realize that this could easily be abused, and you'd instantly get a lot of irate drivers calling for volunteers giving tickets to cyclists who blow through red lights, and it's tricky where exactly you'd want to draw a line there on citizen enforcement.
It seems like a sociologically simpler option may be soon within reach, though: once we have fully self-driving cars, you could commission a few parking enforcement bots that would tirelessly hand out tickets, in a more or less unbiased manner, all day and night long!
- ydj 7y agoWhy is it abuse to ticket cyclists that don’t stop at red lights?
- mrtweetyhack 7y agoBecause he's special
- wanderer2323 7y agoIt's likely not but it is also probably not a good fit for citizen enforcement, which is why it was given as an illustration.
- toast0 7y agoParking tickets are much more reasonable to delegate than a moving violation. You don't have to stop the violator, because they're usually not present, and you can leave the ticket on the vehicle. The circumstances that lead to a finding of violation are subject to less dispute. Cyclist claims light was green, citizen enforcer claims light was red, is harder to prove vs parker says time was 5:30 and citizen enforcer says time was 4:30. Some parking tickets are more sensitive to location -- if the vehicle is very near the boundary between acceptable and not acceptable, perhaps an escalation to a sworn officer is in order, but parking in a red zone / parking in a bike lane / parking in disabled without a visible permit is usually clear cut.
- nosianu 7y agoIt isn't, but the problem I see is this: With so much power there should be a requirement of proof. No problem for parked cars, just take a picture. And for cyclists going through a red light? An always-on camera? Without proof I do see an increased potential for irate "enforcers" to take it out on someone. I tend to think that those who are going to volunteer are going to be a self-selecting subset of the population who take "law & order" more seriously and react more strongly to violations.
- TulliusCicero 7y agoWasn't talking about a particular infraction specifically, just in general giving citizens police-ish powers seems open to abuse. For example, it gives you something that you can hold over someone's head/blackmail them with, "gimme X or I'll submit this ticket". There's also the possibility of lying in various forms (e.g. photoshop or otherwise fake a picture to submit). These problems exist to some extent with professionals too, but it's easier to work on the trust angle with a small pool of salaried people that presumably want to keep their jobs for a long time, as opposed to a large pool of random citizens for whom this is a side gig or volunteer effort.