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> To the inevitable dismay of U.K. street racers who > primarily partake in their favorite illegal motorsport > after hours, the TruCam II also features night

by bArray 6y ago

> To the inevitable dismay of U.K. street racers who > primarily partake in their favorite illegal motorsport > after hours, the TruCam II also features night mode > whereas the first TruCam, which has already reportedly > been in use for the past six years, only worked during the > daytime. I think this really comes down to the letter of the law vs the spirit of it. To the spirit of the law, i.e. saving third-party lives, on a non-busy road doing 35 mph in a 30 mph really going to kill anybody? Is doing excessive speed on an empty well-lit motorway going to kill anybody? Ultimately if you're only a danger to yourself then personally I think the responsibility is on the individual. For example, as I understand it, persons living in Scotland can drive back home drunk in rural areas as the only person they are ever likely to hurt its themselves. As a free person I think you need to have the right to make bad decisions and accept their consequences, as long as those do not impact others. For a long time there has been an unwritten rule (at least where I live) where greater speed is generally more acceptable at night with fewer road users. It's not uncommon for the local police to overtake you at 90 mph for example.

est31 6y ago
IDK about the UK, but in Germany street racers have killed many innocent bystanders, just for the crime of crossing the street at night. So yes please, enforce rules more strongly. In fact, even ambulances crash into each other every now and then at night, because they usually drive without their horns (technically then they aren't allowed to run red lights, only if it's been sounding for at least 15 seconds, but people want to sleep).
- Sebguer 6y ago
  America, as well, even in broad daylight: https://www.fox13news.com/news/suspected-bayshore-street-racers-get-january-trial-date-as-victims-father-criticizes-delays https://www.fox13news.com/news/suspected-bayshore-street-rac...
  - spoonjim 6y ago
    I'd have no hesitation as a juror sending these scumbags to life without parole.
    - smabie 6y ago
      But you don't even know any of the facts of the case? How would you have no hesitation when you have no idea what happened and haven't even listened to the defenses argument?
      - spoonjim 6y ago
        * raced a car * killed someone That's enough for me. Don't care what the arguments are, how much they were peer pressured or what their home lives were like. Obviously if the argument is "the cops got the wrong guy" then I'll listen to it.
        smabie 6y ago
        What if there was a bomb in the car that exploded if the car dropped below a certain speed (ala Speed, the movie)? If it was unclear, the point I'm making is that you are awfully quick to judge someone's guilt based on a web page you read. Also, you don't get to decide sentences as a juror, so your statement doesn't really make sense.
        spoonjim 6y ago
        I know all of these things, and furthermore, I'm not in the jurisdiction so it's all a hypothetical. I'm saying that in the hypothetical where I am asked to pass judgment on, and sentence, someone who street raced (for any reason) and killed a person, I would with no hesitations sentence that person to life without parole, and would probably only hesitate about an hour before sentencing them to death.
        zhte415 6y ago
        What if there was a shark in the passenger seat with a laser on it's head?
- generalizations 6y ago
  > street racers have killed many innocent bystanders, You're not responding to the point. The parent was talking about solitary drivers, and used remote parts of scotland as an example.
  - scott_w 6y ago
    The reality is you never know if you’re really alone. Plenty of people are killed on “empty” country roads because the driver didn’t see them due to inappropriate speed, distractions or a combination.
    - generalizations 6y ago
      Unless you know the area. The parent has a couple of counter examples to that. Seems like the caveats, that sometimes you do actually know you're alone, are exactly the scenarios we're talking about.
      - viraptor 6y ago
        Unless you have constant surveillance on the km in front of you, you cannot know you're alone. Things happen. They may not be likely at all, but as a whole we're not good judges of probability. Also, even if you crash with nobody around at the time, someone else may crash into the rescue team just arriving to help you.
      - petre 6y ago
        If you know you are truly alone, then you know there's no police. Plus there's animals. I see dead foxes, dogs and cats all the time on the road.
        noizejoy 6y ago
        At least in the more remote parts of Canada, hitting a moose at high speed has a very good probability of taking you out along with the moose. So driving respectfully at night is a really good idea.
- dm319 6y ago
  I'm in the UK, and by the time you've reached a certain age, we've all heard of families torn about by bad driving. The couple who we bought our house from, the mother pulled out in front of two racers just down the road from us and ended up with life changing injuries, unable to walk and with brain damage. A little boy at our local nursery died along with his father hitting a van head on who'd crossed the road taking a corner too fast. It's not just boy racers, but plenty of older men and women who are reckless and inpatient in their usual driving. There are people who think that their luxury cars are an excuse to break the road rules as well as the rules of common courtesy. Despite the UK having one of the safest road networks in the world, still around 75 people die or are seriously injured per week in car accidents. For a preventable injury that is still far too high.
  - arp242 6y ago
    Purely anecdotal, I noticed there were far more people in fancy cars going at ridiculous speeds in ridiculous stretches of roads with loads of pedestrians and cyclists around when I lived in Bristol compared to the Netherlands. I called them CICs: "Cunts In Cars". Road design probably plays part in this; a comparatively wide fully asphalted road probably isn't the best design for 20mph. Traffic calming and all that.
    - dm319 6y ago
      It's a prevalent attitude of successful people who are used to lower ethical standards applied to them and being given priority in their day-to-day life. An extra factor is that premium cars (irrespective of wealth) are sought after by people with negative personality traits [1]. I don't know why the difference between UK and Netherlands, maybe due to differences in income equity and judicial fairness? I imagine the behaviour is worse in countries with worse social fairness (Russia, even US?). [1] https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/ijop.12642 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/ijop.12642
      - arp242 6y ago
        In my observation, in the Netherlands someone with a flashy car is quicker seen as a show-off. Generally speaking, it has a somewhat more grounded and egalitarian culture. Someone calling themselves a "Baron such and such" or "Sir so and so" like they do in the UK? The entire country will roll their eyes. In the UK, it's somewhere in-between the mainland European and American attitudes, where someone with a flashy car is seen as deserving of it through their hard work. And not everyone who drives like an idiot has a flashy car by the way; lots of those pumped VW things and whatnot as well (in both countries).
Drunk_Engineer 6y ago
In the US, there are 38,000 persons killed each year in car accidents -- and yet there are still those who think we do too much enforcement.
- 8ytecoder 6y ago
  Traffic stops in the US are a convenient bypass to the fourth amendment. Split traffic responsibilities from regular cops and people would be willing to be more acceptable of reasonable enforcement.
  - TT3351 6y ago
    Whatever employee union that would represent those workers would inevitably start demanding they be issued firearms (at least in the US) due to the legitimate fear of an armed populace, leading to more guns on the streets and more opportunities for deadly violence to break out in a second's notice.
- ALittleLight 6y ago
  I would support steep fines for speeders and racers, with the proceeds going to a racetrack they would be free to use.
  - vkou 6y ago
    I would support permanently revoking their license to drive, impounding their car, and having them do a few hundred hours of community service. They clearly do not possess the good judgement that it takes to safely operate a multi-tonne motor vehicle.
- nitrogen 6y ago
  What proportion of those deaths were caused by something that could have been caught ahead of time by more enforcement?
- cgriswald 6y ago
  It’s reasonable to believe the death rate is too high and there is too much enforcement if that enforcement focuses too heavily on a single aspect of the problem at the expense of focusing on other problem areas. Speed enforcement seems to be the low hanging fruit. There’s (generally) no judgment call, readily accepted evidence, it’s politically palatable, and it’s like shooting fish in a barrel: there’s always someone you can tag. It’s a lot harder to tag someone for driving onto the freeway at 30 mph and failing to merge properly. There’s no “merge trap” to witness it so the cop has to basically happen upon it. There’s not always clear evidence, there’s probably some judgment required too. People don’t like the idea of tickets for going “too slow”; everyone acts like it is absurd. You can’t even blame the LEO because he probably knows the ticket won’t stick. Yet this behavior is extremely dangerous and happens all the time.
gorgoiler 6y ago
It’s strange to see you advocate for 35mph. In many parts of Southern England I saw 20mph become the norm. It makes a lot of sense in terms of road safety as well as noise, and makes little to no difference to journey times.
- simplesleeper 6y ago
  30mph changing to 20mph makes a huge difference to journey time... And london drivers hate it to the point most of them ignore it.
  - frobozz 6y ago
    As if you can drive faster than 15mph in London without smashing into the car in front.
- Noumenon72 6y ago
  20/35 is 4/7 the speed, and therefore it makes every trip take 7/4 as long. So you spend an additional 15 minutes on every 20-minute journey. You're rapidly going to waste more human lifetimes sitting in cars than you would ever save from driving slower.
  - unculture 6y ago
    Much of the time on a typical London car journey is spent idling in traffic, so it’s not so easy to calculate.
    - andylynch 6y ago
      It is measured though! City hall & TRL track this. In outer London the average traffic speed overall is about 20mph. In inner London it’s about 12 and 8 in the centre. I don’t think the 20mph limit makes a real difference to journey times, but it does make the streets safer especially for people not in cars.
  - viraptor 6y ago
scott_w 6y ago
I seriously recommend you follow Surrey Traffic Police, who give some gruelling details of the effects of what people think is “safe” speeding: https://twitter.com/surreyroadcops?s=21 https://twitter.com/surreyroadcops?s=21 There’s a number of police Twitter accounts that you can follow in this theme to learn more.
cdrini 6y ago
I've heard this argument before a lot, but I imagine it doesn't actually apply. Although the likelihood of harming another is reduced by the fact that it's night and there are fewer people around, the likelihood is increased by (1) reduced visibility for both drivers and pedestrians, (2) likely reduced mental clarity due to the fact that it's late, (3) both pedestrians and drivers behaving more carelessly because they think there is a reduced chance of risk as a result of sparsity (meta, eh?). My guess would be that accidents are equally likely if not more likely at night as a result, so folks should be prudent at night.
olegmeister 6y ago
It’s habit. If you learn to flaunt the law half the time, you could inadvertently break it at a time of day when it could have dire consequences. Best to be vigilant and cautious at all times for everyone’s benefit. There’s lots of racetracks and race day Sundays to get your lead foot some action.
brewdad 6y ago
You're a danger to only yourself until suddenly you aren't as alone as you thought you were.
viraptor 6y ago
> doing 35 mph in a 30 mph really going to kill anybody? Quick check says yes: https://www.tac.vic.gov.au/road-safety/statistics/summaries/speed-statistics https://www.tac.vic.gov.au/road-safety/statistics/summaries/... Or specifically, not "speeding will kill someone" because we'll always have some level of accidents. But increased speed translates to increased accidents and increased accidents translate to more deaths.
bigmattystyles 6y ago
Except if you do get hurt, and even if it is just you, the rest of us are, via social contract, obligated to spend common resources to come rescue you and pay for your medical bills. I know you could make this argument against any activity like rock climbing, but then lobby your government. Even if I grant the response I’m expecting, I dont want to be saved or helped if I injure myself, one, bullshit. Two, even if that’s true, we still have to pay someone to come hose blood off the pavement and dispose of the wreck.
- nitrogen 6y ago
  In the US, you are responsible for your own medical bills and ambulance costs if you are in an accident that wasn't someone else's fault.
  - bigmattystyles 6y ago
    And I’m sure all the people I see racing are insured or have the $100k+ a serious accident, injury or property damage entails.
    - nitrogen 6y ago
      Generally, yes, you have to be insured to register a car.
  - freddie_mercury 6y ago
    No you aren't. EMTALA, the Emergency Medical Treatment & Labor Act of 1986 specifically says everyone will be treated regardless of any ability to pay. If someone doesn't have the ability to pay, guess who ends up paying? Everyone else.
    - nitrogen 6y ago
      Not having the ability to pay doesn't mean you aren't responsible. If you do have the ability to pay, and you are required to have insurance that gives you that ability to pay, then you are responsible.
dazc 6y ago
https://www.dailyecho.co.uk/news/18940314.three-donkeys-die-crash-roger-penny-way/ https://www.dailyecho.co.uk/news/18940314.three-donkeys-die-... This driver was probably only doing a few MPH over the 40MPH limit which is quite fast enough for a rural road. There is an A-road alternative for those 'in a hurry' but such carnage is a regular occurance.
- forest_dweller 6y ago
  I actually used to live near there and have driven down that road numerous times. * @7pm in the morning in the winter the whole area can be fogged up and it was dark. I've driven down and cycled down there when it wouldn't have been safe doing 15mph. * Animals can be hard to see, even in good conditions. Especially the donkeys, they are grey, on a black road and the sky is normally grey in England. Many of the animals there have high-vis collars to make them more visible at night. * It depends what section of the road. In one section of that road the visibility is excellent (when there isn't fog). In another stretch even in the summer, the visibility is weird due to much of the road being in partial shade due to the trees. * Drivers go much faster than the 40mph limit in that area almost all the time, especially on the high visibility parts. It doesn't help that if you come off the M25/A31 you would have been going about 70mph and so doing 40mph makes it feels so slow that you can step out of the car. * The three A-roads near are either blocked due to heavy traffic especially in the summer (infrastructure in general is a joke in Hampshire and Dorset) or they don't go where you want.
  - dazc 6y ago
    I agree visibility can be poor but is easilly mitigated by driving at a suitable speed. The only problem, of course, is other drivers behind getting frustrated and overtaking recklessly. The other day one person was so determined to pass me that he almost hit a car coming in the other direction. For all that he arrived in Fordingbridge (2 miles further on) literally 3 seconds before I did.
    - forest_dweller 6y ago
      > I agree visibility can be poor but is easilly mitigated by driving at a suitable speed. Not at all. I've been driving at what seems like a sensible speed for the conditions and suddenly there is a deer right in front of my car. You cannot see some of the animals until you are right on top of them. The fact is that there is too much traffic, there is insufficient infrastructure (and you probably can't add a lot because you will spoil the place) and there are animals freely roaming around. It is recipe of animal deaths in that area. I dunno what the answer is. Paying the police to put up another gatso van isn't going to solve it though.
vkou 6y ago
Street racers don't go down a 30 mph road at 35 mph. They go down that road at 70 mph. They also tend to be very young and incredibly stupid, and incredibly poor at judging risk.
fergie 6y ago
"as I understand it, persons living in Scotland can drive back home drunk in rural areas as the only person they are ever likely to hurt its themselves." As a person who grew up in the Scottish countryside I can assure you that is absolutely not the case, and drunk driving is _extremely_ frowned upon. In fact Scotland has generally had tougher drink driving regulations than England. (https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-30329743 https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-30329743). This kind of comment could be interpreted as casual racism (casting Scots as child-like alcoholics living in a semi-regulated playground), but I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt, since its a Sunday morning and nearly Christmas.
- peteretep 6y ago
  > This kind of comment could be interpreted as casual racism (casting Scots as child-like alcoholics living in a semi-regulated playground) Really?
- bb123 6y ago
  Scots aren’t a race?
peteretep 6y ago
> To the spirit of the law, i.e. saving third-party lives, on a non-busy road doing 35 mph in a 30 mph really going to kill anybody According to: https://ec.europa.eu/transport/road_safety/specialist/knowledge/speed/speed_is_a_central_issue_in_road_safety/speed_and_the_injury_risk_for_different_speed_levels_en https://ec.europa.eu/transport/road_safety/specialist/knowle... That’s 48->56kmh which takes 38% to 66% chance of fatality for pedestrians (eyeballing the graph).
jl6 6y ago
Sorry, you’re totally wrong. The spirit of the law is not just to save third party lives. When you cause an accident, you drain society’s emergency response resources (and increase the premiums of those in your insurance pool). 35mph vs 30mph is a terrible example - this is the scenario where pedestrians and cyclists are most likely to be around. 75mph vs 70mph would have been a better example. Driving at night is more dangerous than at day because of the reduced visibility. Driving when fewer other road users are around is safer than when it’s busy, but you don’t have perfect knowledge and there may be road users you haven’t seen, especially at night. There’s no objective moral cliff edge between 70mph and 70mph+ε, but there is one between complying with the law and breaking it. Society collectively draws the line somewhere and you don’t get to unilaterally decide everybody else is wrong. I’ve heard people saying “I was only going a little over 30!” called speedo pedos, because it’s exactly like saying “she was only a little underage!”. Check out the sibling comments for examples of people who thought they knew better but didn’t. The thing about Scotland is completely wrong, I have no idea why you would think that.
- bartread 6y ago
  > saying “I was only going a little over 30!” called speedo pedos, because it’s exactly like saying “she was only a little underage!” I laughed at "speedo pedos", but is it though? One of these crimes is clearly considerably more serious than the other, and legislators agree with me. That's why in UK law minor speeding offences attract a fine and points on your license[0], but no criminal record, whereas offences of pedophilia result in prison time, a criminal record, and addition on the sexual offenders register. The line of thinking is superficially similar, the weight of the offence isn't, and we shouldn't trivialise serious offences by drawing false equivalences with those that are considerably less serious. [0] This is generally the case, but if you accrue too many points you can of course lose your license. Similarly, more serious speeding offences attract more serious penalties, and may even result in jail time. There are plenty of other examples but, see, e.g., https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-northamptonshire-34744459 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-northamptonshire-34744.... The level of stupidity on display here is truly monumental.
- antonzabirko 6y ago
  Food for thought: social budgets shouldn't determine the extent of your personal freedoms ala ambulances.
arethuza 6y ago
"persons living in Scotland can drive back home drunk in rural areas as the only person they are ever likely to hurt its themselves" That might have been true 40 or 50 years ago - but drinking and driving is how regarded very harshly in Scotland both legally and socially.
peterdn 6y ago
> As a free person I think you need to have the right to make bad decisions and accept their consequences, as long as those do not impact others. Peak Libertarian fantasy to think this should apply here. Unfortunately, the real world is never so ordered and predictable that you can know for certain whether the country road you're about to speed on is completely empty. Just like you, the rest of us have the right to use that road as well whenever we please. Even if you were the sole victim in such an accident, you're ignoring all the second order societal costs. Who will pay for the police time spent investigating the accident, delivering the news to your loved ones, and the cost of bereavement leave on their employers? Who's going to pay for removing the wreck and fixing whatever infrastructure (e.g. the road surface) you might have damaged? What about the mental health effects on the unfortunate neighbour who discovers your mangled corpse? And if you're only injured, how about the costs of an ambulance and medical treatment? We don't all live in the USA where that is (supposedly) borne by the individual. Whether you like them or not, speed limits exist for good reasons. > doing 35 mph in a 30 mph really going to kill anybody? Demonstrably yes. Check out this study by the UK's Transport Research Laboratory. The chances of killing a pedestrian rise dramatically from around 10% at 30mph. The likelihood roughly doubles at 35mph. Remember that kinetic energy increases with the square of velocity, not linearly, so even small increases in speed can have dramatic effects on accident outcomes: https://nacto.org/docs/usdg/relationship_between_speed_risk_fatal_injury_pedestrians_and_car_occupants_richards.pdf https://nacto.org/docs/usdg/relationship_between_speed_risk_...
_Wintermute 6y ago
> For example, as I understand it, persons living in Scotland can drive back home drunk in rural areas as the only person they are ever likely to hurt its themselves. What an absurd comment. Scotland has stricter drink-driving laws than England.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
avianlyric 6y ago
> i.e. saving third-party lives, on a non-busy road doing 35 mph in a 30 mph really going to kill anybody? Yes, the stats show quite clearly that 30mph is the point where pedestrian fatality rates really start climbing. [1] At 30mph, if you have a collision with a pedestrian there’s a 20% chance the pedestrian dies. At 35mph it’s 50% At 40mph it’s 90% The article mentioned the car was doing over 35mph. Additionally in the U.K. 30mph zones are normally residential areas and city centres, places where pedestrians are very common. [1] https://www.roadwise.co.uk/using-the-road/speeding/the-chance-of-a-pedestrian-surviving/ https://www.roadwise.co.uk/using-the-road/speeding/the-chanc...
- Traster 6y ago
  The point is that whilst the danger of a collision goes up as speed increases, you're not considering the context - the conditions. It is unquestionably more dangerous to drive past a school at 8:30am on a weekday at 30mph than it is to drive in that same area at 2am on a Monday morning at 35mph. If we're talking about safety, then the speed limits should be to reflect conditions, but instead what happens is we cap the limit at the lowest value considering worst conditions. Realistically the way we deal with this is through selective enforcement, the police probably aren't going to give you a ticket for 35 in a 30 at 2am on a monday morning, but it's silly to pretend that conditions don't matter.

by bArray 6y ago

est31 6y ago

IDK about the UK, but in Germany street racers have killed many innocent bystanders, just for the crime of crossing the street at night. So yes please, enforce rules more strongly. In fact, even ambulances crash into each other every now and then at night, because they usually drive without their horns (technically then they aren't allowed to run red lights, only if it's been sounding for at least 15 seconds, but people want to sleep).

Sebguer 6y ago
America, as well, even in broad daylight: https://www.fox13news.com/news/suspected-bayshore-street-racers-get-january-trial-date-as-victims-father-criticizes-delays https://www.fox13news.com/news/suspected-bayshore-street-rac...
- spoonjim 6y ago
  I'd have no hesitation as a juror sending these scumbags to life without parole.
  - smabie 6y ago
    But you don't even know any of the facts of the case? How would you have no hesitation when you have no idea what happened and haven't even listened to the defenses argument?
    - spoonjim 6y ago
      * raced a car * killed someone That's enough for me. Don't care what the arguments are, how much they were peer pressured or what their home lives were like. Obviously if the argument is "the cops got the wrong guy" then I'll listen to it.
      - smabie 6y ago
        What if there was a bomb in the car that exploded if the car dropped below a certain speed (ala Speed, the movie)? If it was unclear, the point I'm making is that you are awfully quick to judge someone's guilt based on a web page you read. Also, you don't get to decide sentences as a juror, so your statement doesn't really make sense.
        spoonjim 6y ago
        I know all of these things, and furthermore, I'm not in the jurisdiction so it's all a hypothetical. I'm saying that in the hypothetical where I am asked to pass judgment on, and sentence, someone who street raced (for any reason) and killed a person, I would with no hesitations sentence that person to life without parole, and would probably only hesitate about an hour before sentencing them to death.
        zhte415 6y ago
        What if there was a shark in the passenger seat with a laser on it's head?
generalizations 6y ago
> street racers have killed many innocent bystanders, You're not responding to the point. The parent was talking about solitary drivers, and used remote parts of scotland as an example.
- scott_w 6y ago
  The reality is you never know if you’re really alone. Plenty of people are killed on “empty” country roads because the driver didn’t see them due to inappropriate speed, distractions or a combination.
  - generalizations 6y ago
    Unless you know the area. The parent has a couple of counter examples to that. Seems like the caveats, that sometimes you do actually know you're alone, are exactly the scenarios we're talking about.
    - viraptor 6y ago
      Unless you have constant surveillance on the km in front of you, you cannot know you're alone. Things happen. They may not be likely at all, but as a whole we're not good judges of probability. Also, even if you crash with nobody around at the time, someone else may crash into the rescue team just arriving to help you.
    - petre 6y ago
      If you know you are truly alone, then you know there's no police. Plus there's animals. I see dead foxes, dogs and cats all the time on the road.
      - noizejoy 6y ago
        At least in the more remote parts of Canada, hitting a moose at high speed has a very good probability of taking you out along with the moose. So driving respectfully at night is a really good idea.
dm319 6y ago
I'm in the UK, and by the time you've reached a certain age, we've all heard of families torn about by bad driving. The couple who we bought our house from, the mother pulled out in front of two racers just down the road from us and ended up with life changing injuries, unable to walk and with brain damage. A little boy at our local nursery died along with his father hitting a van head on who'd crossed the road taking a corner too fast. It's not just boy racers, but plenty of older men and women who are reckless and inpatient in their usual driving. There are people who think that their luxury cars are an excuse to break the road rules as well as the rules of common courtesy. Despite the UK having one of the safest road networks in the world, still around 75 people die or are seriously injured per week in car accidents. For a preventable injury that is still far too high.
- arp242 6y ago
  Purely anecdotal, I noticed there were far more people in fancy cars going at ridiculous speeds in ridiculous stretches of roads with loads of pedestrians and cyclists around when I lived in Bristol compared to the Netherlands. I called them CICs: "Cunts In Cars". Road design probably plays part in this; a comparatively wide fully asphalted road probably isn't the best design for 20mph. Traffic calming and all that.
  - dm319 6y ago
    It's a prevalent attitude of successful people who are used to lower ethical standards applied to them and being given priority in their day-to-day life. An extra factor is that premium cars (irrespective of wealth) are sought after by people with negative personality traits [1]. I don't know why the difference between UK and Netherlands, maybe due to differences in income equity and judicial fairness? I imagine the behaviour is worse in countries with worse social fairness (Russia, even US?). [1] https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/ijop.12642 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/ijop.12642
    - arp242 6y ago
      In my observation, in the Netherlands someone with a flashy car is quicker seen as a show-off. Generally speaking, it has a somewhat more grounded and egalitarian culture. Someone calling themselves a "Baron such and such" or "Sir so and so" like they do in the UK? The entire country will roll their eyes. In the UK, it's somewhere in-between the mainland European and American attitudes, where someone with a flashy car is seen as deserving of it through their hard work. And not everyone who drives like an idiot has a flashy car by the way; lots of those pumped VW things and whatnot as well (in both countries).

Drunk_Engineer 6y ago

In the US, there are 38,000 persons killed each year in car accidents -- and yet there are still those who think we do too much enforcement.

8ytecoder 6y ago
Traffic stops in the US are a convenient bypass to the fourth amendment. Split traffic responsibilities from regular cops and people would be willing to be more acceptable of reasonable enforcement.
- TT3351 6y ago
  Whatever employee union that would represent those workers would inevitably start demanding they be issued firearms (at least in the US) due to the legitimate fear of an armed populace, leading to more guns on the streets and more opportunities for deadly violence to break out in a second's notice.
ALittleLight 6y ago
I would support steep fines for speeders and racers, with the proceeds going to a racetrack they would be free to use.
- vkou 6y ago
  I would support permanently revoking their license to drive, impounding their car, and having them do a few hundred hours of community service. They clearly do not possess the good judgement that it takes to safely operate a multi-tonne motor vehicle.
nitrogen 6y ago
What proportion of those deaths were caused by something that could have been caught ahead of time by more enforcement?
cgriswald 6y ago
It’s reasonable to believe the death rate is too high and there is too much enforcement if that enforcement focuses too heavily on a single aspect of the problem at the expense of focusing on other problem areas. Speed enforcement seems to be the low hanging fruit. There’s (generally) no judgment call, readily accepted evidence, it’s politically palatable, and it’s like shooting fish in a barrel: there’s always someone you can tag. It’s a lot harder to tag someone for driving onto the freeway at 30 mph and failing to merge properly. There’s no “merge trap” to witness it so the cop has to basically happen upon it. There’s not always clear evidence, there’s probably some judgment required too. People don’t like the idea of tickets for going “too slow”; everyone acts like it is absurd. You can’t even blame the LEO because he probably knows the ticket won’t stick. Yet this behavior is extremely dangerous and happens all the time.

gorgoiler 6y ago

It’s strange to see you advocate for 35mph. In many parts of Southern England I saw 20mph become the norm. It makes a lot of sense in terms of road safety as well as noise, and makes little to no difference to journey times.

simplesleeper 6y ago
30mph changing to 20mph makes a huge difference to journey time... And london drivers hate it to the point most of them ignore it.
- frobozz 6y ago
  As if you can drive faster than 15mph in London without smashing into the car in front.
Noumenon72 6y ago
20/35 is 4/7 the speed, and therefore it makes every trip take 7/4 as long. So you spend an additional 15 minutes on every 20-minute journey. You're rapidly going to waste more human lifetimes sitting in cars than you would ever save from driving slower.
- unculture 6y ago
  Much of the time on a typical London car journey is spent idling in traffic, so it’s not so easy to calculate.
  - andylynch 6y ago
    It is measured though! City hall & TRL track this. In outer London the average traffic speed overall is about 20mph. In inner London it’s about 12 and 8 in the centre. I don’t think the 20mph limit makes a real difference to journey times, but it does make the streets safer especially for people not in cars.
- viraptor 6y ago

scott_w 6y ago

I seriously recommend you follow Surrey Traffic Police, who give some gruelling details of the effects of what people think is “safe” speeding: https://twitter.com/surreyroadcops?s=21 https://twitter.com/surreyroadcops?s=21 There’s a number of police Twitter accounts that you can follow in this theme to learn more.

cdrini 6y ago

I've heard this argument before a lot, but I imagine it doesn't actually apply. Although the likelihood of harming another is reduced by the fact that it's night and there are fewer people around, the likelihood is increased by (1) reduced visibility for both drivers and pedestrians, (2) likely reduced mental clarity due to the fact that it's late, (3) both pedestrians and drivers behaving more carelessly because they think there is a reduced chance of risk as a result of sparsity (meta, eh?). My guess would be that accidents are equally likely if not more likely at night as a result, so folks should be prudent at night.

olegmeister 6y ago

It’s habit. If you learn to flaunt the law half the time, you could inadvertently break it at a time of day when it could have dire consequences. Best to be vigilant and cautious at all times for everyone’s benefit. There’s lots of racetracks and race day Sundays to get your lead foot some action.

brewdad 6y ago

You're a danger to only yourself until suddenly you aren't as alone as you thought you were.

viraptor 6y ago

> doing 35 mph in a 30 mph really going to kill anybody? Quick check says yes: https://www.tac.vic.gov.au/road-safety/statistics/summaries/speed-statistics https://www.tac.vic.gov.au/road-safety/statistics/summaries/... Or specifically, not "speeding will kill someone" because we'll always have some level of accidents. But increased speed translates to increased accidents and increased accidents translate to more deaths.

bigmattystyles 6y ago

Except if you do get hurt, and even if it is just you, the rest of us are, via social contract, obligated to spend common resources to come rescue you and pay for your medical bills. I know you could make this argument against any activity like rock climbing, but then lobby your government. Even if I grant the response I’m expecting, I dont want to be saved or helped if I injure myself, one, bullshit. Two, even if that’s true, we still have to pay someone to come hose blood off the pavement and dispose of the wreck.

nitrogen 6y ago
In the US, you are responsible for your own medical bills and ambulance costs if you are in an accident that wasn't someone else's fault.
- bigmattystyles 6y ago
  And I’m sure all the people I see racing are insured or have the $100k+ a serious accident, injury or property damage entails.
  - nitrogen 6y ago
    Generally, yes, you have to be insured to register a car.
- freddie_mercury 6y ago
  No you aren't. EMTALA, the Emergency Medical Treatment & Labor Act of 1986 specifically says everyone will be treated regardless of any ability to pay. If someone doesn't have the ability to pay, guess who ends up paying? Everyone else.
  - nitrogen 6y ago
    Not having the ability to pay doesn't mean you aren't responsible. If you do have the ability to pay, and you are required to have insurance that gives you that ability to pay, then you are responsible.

dazc 6y ago

https://www.dailyecho.co.uk/news/18940314.three-donkeys-die-crash-roger-penny-way/ https://www.dailyecho.co.uk/news/18940314.three-donkeys-die-... This driver was probably only doing a few MPH over the 40MPH limit which is quite fast enough for a rural road. There is an A-road alternative for those 'in a hurry' but such carnage is a regular occurance.

forest_dweller 6y ago
I actually used to live near there and have driven down that road numerous times. * @7pm in the morning in the winter the whole area can be fogged up and it was dark. I've driven down and cycled down there when it wouldn't have been safe doing 15mph. * Animals can be hard to see, even in good conditions. Especially the donkeys, they are grey, on a black road and the sky is normally grey in England. Many of the animals there have high-vis collars to make them more visible at night. * It depends what section of the road. In one section of that road the visibility is excellent (when there isn't fog). In another stretch even in the summer, the visibility is weird due to much of the road being in partial shade due to the trees. * Drivers go much faster than the 40mph limit in that area almost all the time, especially on the high visibility parts. It doesn't help that if you come off the M25/A31 you would have been going about 70mph and so doing 40mph makes it feels so slow that you can step out of the car. * The three A-roads near are either blocked due to heavy traffic especially in the summer (infrastructure in general is a joke in Hampshire and Dorset) or they don't go where you want.
- dazc 6y ago
  I agree visibility can be poor but is easilly mitigated by driving at a suitable speed. The only problem, of course, is other drivers behind getting frustrated and overtaking recklessly. The other day one person was so determined to pass me that he almost hit a car coming in the other direction. For all that he arrived in Fordingbridge (2 miles further on) literally 3 seconds before I did.
  - forest_dweller 6y ago
    > I agree visibility can be poor but is easilly mitigated by driving at a suitable speed. Not at all. I've been driving at what seems like a sensible speed for the conditions and suddenly there is a deer right in front of my car. You cannot see some of the animals until you are right on top of them. The fact is that there is too much traffic, there is insufficient infrastructure (and you probably can't add a lot because you will spoil the place) and there are animals freely roaming around. It is recipe of animal deaths in that area. I dunno what the answer is. Paying the police to put up another gatso van isn't going to solve it though.

vkou 6y ago

Street racers don't go down a 30 mph road at 35 mph. They go down that road at 70 mph. They also tend to be very young and incredibly stupid, and incredibly poor at judging risk.

fergie 6y ago

"as I understand it, persons living in Scotland can drive back home drunk in rural areas as the only person they are ever likely to hurt its themselves." As a person who grew up in the Scottish countryside I can assure you that is absolutely not the case, and drunk driving is _extremely_ frowned upon. In fact Scotland has generally had tougher drink driving regulations than England. (https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-30329743 https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-30329743). This kind of comment could be interpreted as casual racism (casting Scots as child-like alcoholics living in a semi-regulated playground), but I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt, since its a Sunday morning and nearly Christmas.

peteretep 6y ago
> This kind of comment could be interpreted as casual racism (casting Scots as child-like alcoholics living in a semi-regulated playground) Really?
bb123 6y ago
Scots aren’t a race?

peteretep 6y ago

> To the spirit of the law, i.e. saving third-party lives, on a non-busy road doing 35 mph in a 30 mph really going to kill anybody According to: https://ec.europa.eu/transport/road_safety/specialist/knowledge/speed/speed_is_a_central_issue_in_road_safety/speed_and_the_injury_risk_for_different_speed_levels_en https://ec.europa.eu/transport/road_safety/specialist/knowle... That’s 48->56kmh which takes 38% to 66% chance of fatality for pedestrians (eyeballing the graph).

jl6 6y ago

Sorry, you’re totally wrong. The spirit of the law is not just to save third party lives. When you cause an accident, you drain society’s emergency response resources (and increase the premiums of those in your insurance pool). 35mph vs 30mph is a terrible example - this is the scenario where pedestrians and cyclists are most likely to be around. 75mph vs 70mph would have been a better example. Driving at night is more dangerous than at day because of the reduced visibility. Driving when fewer other road users are around is safer than when it’s busy, but you don’t have perfect knowledge and there may be road users you haven’t seen, especially at night. There’s no objective moral cliff edge between 70mph and 70mph+ε, but there is one between complying with the law and breaking it. Society collectively draws the line somewhere and you don’t get to unilaterally decide everybody else is wrong. I’ve heard people saying “I was only going a little over 30!” called speedo pedos, because it’s exactly like saying “she was only a little underage!”. Check out the sibling comments for examples of people who thought they knew better but didn’t. The thing about Scotland is completely wrong, I have no idea why you would think that.

bartread 6y ago
> saying “I was only going a little over 30!” called speedo pedos, because it’s exactly like saying “she was only a little underage!” I laughed at "speedo pedos", but is it though? One of these crimes is clearly considerably more serious than the other, and legislators agree with me. That's why in UK law minor speeding offences attract a fine and points on your license[0], but no criminal record, whereas offences of pedophilia result in prison time, a criminal record, and addition on the sexual offenders register. The line of thinking is superficially similar, the weight of the offence isn't, and we shouldn't trivialise serious offences by drawing false equivalences with those that are considerably less serious. [0] This is generally the case, but if you accrue too many points you can of course lose your license. Similarly, more serious speeding offences attract more serious penalties, and may even result in jail time. There are plenty of other examples but, see, e.g., https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-northamptonshire-34744459 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-northamptonshire-34744.... The level of stupidity on display here is truly monumental.
antonzabirko 6y ago
Food for thought: social budgets shouldn't determine the extent of your personal freedoms ala ambulances.

arethuza 6y ago

"persons living in Scotland can drive back home drunk in rural areas as the only person they are ever likely to hurt its themselves" That might have been true 40 or 50 years ago - but drinking and driving is how regarded very harshly in Scotland both legally and socially.

peterdn 6y ago

> As a free person I think you need to have the right to make bad decisions and accept their consequences, as long as those do not impact others. Peak Libertarian fantasy to think this should apply here. Unfortunately, the real world is never so ordered and predictable that you can know for certain whether the country road you're about to speed on is completely empty. Just like you, the rest of us have the right to use that road as well whenever we please. Even if you were the sole victim in such an accident, you're ignoring all the second order societal costs. Who will pay for the police time spent investigating the accident, delivering the news to your loved ones, and the cost of bereavement leave on their employers? Who's going to pay for removing the wreck and fixing whatever infrastructure (e.g. the road surface) you might have damaged? What about the mental health effects on the unfortunate neighbour who discovers your mangled corpse? And if you're only injured, how about the costs of an ambulance and medical treatment? We don't all live in the USA where that is (supposedly) borne by the individual. Whether you like them or not, speed limits exist for good reasons. > doing 35 mph in a 30 mph really going to kill anybody? Demonstrably yes. Check out this study by the UK's Transport Research Laboratory. The chances of killing a pedestrian rise dramatically from around 10% at 30mph. The likelihood roughly doubles at 35mph. Remember that kinetic energy increases with the square of velocity, not linearly, so even small increases in speed can have dramatic effects on accident outcomes: https://nacto.org/docs/usdg/relationship_between_speed_risk_fatal_injury_pedestrians_and_car_occupants_richards.pdf https://nacto.org/docs/usdg/relationship_between_speed_risk_...

_Wintermute 6y ago

> For example, as I understand it, persons living in Scotland can drive back home drunk in rural areas as the only person they are ever likely to hurt its themselves. What an absurd comment. Scotland has stricter drink-driving laws than England.

deleted 6y ago
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avianlyric 6y ago

> i.e. saving third-party lives, on a non-busy road doing 35 mph in a 30 mph really going to kill anybody? Yes, the stats show quite clearly that 30mph is the point where pedestrian fatality rates really start climbing. [1] At 30mph, if you have a collision with a pedestrian there’s a 20% chance the pedestrian dies. At 35mph it’s 50% At 40mph it’s 90% The article mentioned the car was doing over 35mph. Additionally in the U.K. 30mph zones are normally residential areas and city centres, places where pedestrians are very common. [1] https://www.roadwise.co.uk/using-the-road/speeding/the-chance-of-a-pedestrian-surviving/ https://www.roadwise.co.uk/using-the-road/speeding/the-chanc...

Traster 6y ago
The point is that whilst the danger of a collision goes up as speed increases, you're not considering the context - the conditions. It is unquestionably more dangerous to drive past a school at 8:30am on a weekday at 30mph than it is to drive in that same area at 2am on a Monday morning at 35mph. If we're talking about safety, then the speed limits should be to reflect conditions, but instead what happens is we cap the limit at the lowest value considering worst conditions. Realistically the way we deal with this is through selective enforcement, the police probably aren't going to give you a ticket for 35 in a 30 at 2am on a monday morning, but it's silly to pretend that conditions don't matter.