4 ms·

Devil's Advocate: Look at a Youtube video of any country where they don't enforce traffic laws. It's chaotic and unsafe. Fear of consequences is the only thin

Devil's Advocate: Look at a Youtube video of any country where they don't enforce traffic laws. It's chaotic and unsafe. Fear of consequences is the only thing that keeps people somewhat sane on the road, the alternative is chaos or literally having police every quarter mile looking for infractions. Until we have self-driving cars, it's beneficial for society and everyone who has to drive for traffic violations to be punished harshly after a certain threshold. Devil's Advocate 2: Single motherhood shouldn't entitle you to ignore traffic laws. If anything, if you get more traffic violations, you are more likely unsafe for your children (who have no one else to depend on), so maybe they should be taken away (foster care being worse is a separate issue)

stonogo 6y ago
You're arguing to the wrong assertion. She was not jailed for traffic infractions. She was jailed for failing to pay fines, which incarceration is expressly against the law. C.f. https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/10/07/446681086/aclu-sues-benton-county-wash-for-operating-modern-day-debtors-prison https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/10/07/446681086... for a recent example of this being prosecuted.
- chmod775 6y ago
  So basically you have to pay money to go prison which you don't have so you go to prison again for which you have to again pay money which you don't have so you go to prison for which you have to pay money... What.
bilbo0s 6y ago
Devil's Advocate 3: Even if you want to punish someone for unpaid tix? I mean, over a year? Seems a bit excessive to me.
jmoss20 6y ago
1. Citation? I seriously doubt punishments like this one have any effect on general traffic-law compliance. (IIRC, similar research has always showed weak penalties + high/consistent enforcement was the most effective.) 2. "foster care being worse" is exactly the issue, no? Even if I buy the "traffic tickets correlate with unsafe environment" assumption, you're suggesting we remove the kids for their own safety (or a guess at it, based on a noisy signal)...but then suggesting their actual safety is a separate issue?
chmod775 6y ago
> Look at a Youtube video of any country where they don't enforce traffic laws. It's chaotic and unsafe. Those sentencing practices couldn't be further from what, for example, Germany does and Germany's roads are way safer than US roads (going by vehicle kilometers traveled). You don't need to hand out stupidly excessive sentences like you get for pretty much anything in the US to have safe roads. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-related_death_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-r... > Single motherhood shouldn't entitle you to ignore traffic laws. So your children should be taken away if you get a parking ticket? What?
simonh 6y ago
Read the article, he was found in direct violation of 10 provisions of the state judicial code by a full enquiry. This has nothing to do with road safety. He did the same thing to hundreds of other people too poor to pay fines for all sorts of things.

stonogo 6y ago

You're arguing to the wrong assertion. She was not jailed for traffic infractions. She was jailed for failing to pay fines, which incarceration is expressly against the law. C.f. https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/10/07/446681086/aclu-sues-benton-county-wash-for-operating-modern-day-debtors-prison https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/10/07/446681086... for a recent example of this being prosecuted.

chmod775 6y ago
So basically you have to pay money to go prison which you don't have so you go to prison again for which you have to again pay money which you don't have so you go to prison for which you have to pay money... What.

bilbo0s 6y ago

Devil's Advocate 3: Even if you want to punish someone for unpaid tix? I mean, over a year? Seems a bit excessive to me.

jmoss20 6y ago

1. Citation? I seriously doubt punishments like this one have any effect on general traffic-law compliance. (IIRC, similar research has always showed weak penalties + high/consistent enforcement was the most effective.) 2. "foster care being worse" is exactly the issue, no? Even if I buy the "traffic tickets correlate with unsafe environment" assumption, you're suggesting we remove the kids for their own safety (or a guess at it, based on a noisy signal)...but then suggesting their actual safety is a separate issue?

chmod775 6y ago

> Look at a Youtube video of any country where they don't enforce traffic laws. It's chaotic and unsafe. Those sentencing practices couldn't be further from what, for example, Germany does and Germany's roads are way safer than US roads (going by vehicle kilometers traveled). You don't need to hand out stupidly excessive sentences like you get for pretty much anything in the US to have safe roads. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-related_death_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-r... > Single motherhood shouldn't entitle you to ignore traffic laws. So your children should be taken away if you get a parking ticket? What?

simonh 6y ago

Read the article, he was found in direct violation of 10 provisions of the state judicial code by a full enquiry. This has nothing to do with road safety. He did the same thing to hundreds of other people too poor to pay fines for all sorts of things.