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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 r

by 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.
grumple 6y ago
A few points on this: society doesn’t make speed limits, municipal administrators (and sometimes small town police themselves) do. The speed limits are often set by observation, and they intentionally leave a large number of drivers over that limit (they say this is for safety, but it seems to also be for revenue generation). Look up 85th percentile speed. So some politicians and engineers draw a line so that 15% of the population is in violation and will change the speed limit at any point that this isn’t true (if nobody is in violation, they lower the speed limit). You can’t then cast moral judgment on that 15%. It’s intentional criminalization of the citizenry, even though it’s generally with the intent of saving lives.
- bbarnett 6y ago
  They are also set for other reasons, like "Bob complained a lot, because of the noise of cars", and the limit gets reduced. Or "this road was quiet 20+ years ago", but the city has grown, and now it is a major throughfare, so "Local residents campaigned to get a low speed limit", so that alternate routes are preferable. Both of the above have happened in my locale.
Felz 6y ago
Keep in mind that how strict the speed limits are seems to vary significantly by local laws and driving culture. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_limits_in_the_United_States#Prima_facie https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_limits_in_the_United_Sta... So what might be unacceptable "speedo pedo"ism where you live might be completely normal going 5 miles over the posted speed limit elsewhere. My personal experience is that people tend to drive at a speed they feel safe at, and don't pay that much attention to the signs.
- rangibaby 6y ago
  Japanese law requires the police to prove that you were speeding beyond reasonable doubt, so posted speed limits are all 20km/h+ under the de facto speed limit. It leads to absurd situation like expressways with a posted 60km speed limit but a 100km/h real limit.
- bluecalm 6y ago
  That's the reason we need to enforce speed limit. People are terrible at assessing what's safe. Even if they can somehow manage to assess their personal safety they have terrible judgement when it comes to other road users. You may feel very safe going over speed limit in a residential area but pedestrians, cyclists etc. won't.
bbarnett 6y ago
The "when you do $x, you drain society's emergency resources" is, IMO, an absurd argument. If this is true, then you need to point the finger at so many things. Rock-climbing. Mountain biking. And it progresses, to "anything even remotely risky", where "risky is now the absolute lowest common denominator". And of course, so many sports? Banned. This sort of "walking on eggshells" view of life is quite disturbing to me.
- LeCow 6y ago
  You've just described the world's attitude to Coronavirus.
  - bbarnett 6y ago
    Not even remotely true. The world has responded with "lockdowns", "masks", and more, which is the result of an unprecedented, 100 year class event, that being a pandemic. Your comment isn't really about normality, but instead about an extreme edge case scenario. The only thing worse than a pandemic, might be nuclear war, a massive nuclear accident, or large-scale disaster. Normality need not be conflated with actions during emergency scenarios. Lastly -- imagine if people DID engage in more, "only affected themselves' risky behaviour. It would mean more hospital visits, therefore more hospital capacity, more doctors/nurses/etc etc, which would mean more ability to absorb and deal with large scale emergency issues.
  - jen729w 6y ago
    Perhaps not the greatest example given that it’s killed one-point-six million people to date. That’s an awful lot of people, and if you don’t think that’s a terrible thing then I don’t know how you sleep at night.
    - bluecalm 6y ago
      It's terrible but similar number of people die every year in car accidents yet there is no moral panic. We can't even agree on finally enforcing speed limits but with the virus we closed the whole world. I mean pollution in major cities is a bigger health problem objectively than the virus and yet we still allow old diesels to drive in most of them. What I am saying is not that we shouldn't treat the virus seriously but that we really need a lot not urgency when dealing with topics like speeding and pollution.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

by jl6 6y ago

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.

grumple 6y ago

A few points on this: society doesn’t make speed limits, municipal administrators (and sometimes small town police themselves) do. The speed limits are often set by observation, and they intentionally leave a large number of drivers over that limit (they say this is for safety, but it seems to also be for revenue generation). Look up 85th percentile speed. So some politicians and engineers draw a line so that 15% of the population is in violation and will change the speed limit at any point that this isn’t true (if nobody is in violation, they lower the speed limit). You can’t then cast moral judgment on that 15%. It’s intentional criminalization of the citizenry, even though it’s generally with the intent of saving lives.

bbarnett 6y ago
They are also set for other reasons, like "Bob complained a lot, because of the noise of cars", and the limit gets reduced. Or "this road was quiet 20+ years ago", but the city has grown, and now it is a major throughfare, so "Local residents campaigned to get a low speed limit", so that alternate routes are preferable. Both of the above have happened in my locale.

Felz 6y ago

Keep in mind that how strict the speed limits are seems to vary significantly by local laws and driving culture. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_limits_in_the_United_States#Prima_facie https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_limits_in_the_United_Sta... So what might be unacceptable "speedo pedo"ism where you live might be completely normal going 5 miles over the posted speed limit elsewhere. My personal experience is that people tend to drive at a speed they feel safe at, and don't pay that much attention to the signs.

rangibaby 6y ago
Japanese law requires the police to prove that you were speeding beyond reasonable doubt, so posted speed limits are all 20km/h+ under the de facto speed limit. It leads to absurd situation like expressways with a posted 60km speed limit but a 100km/h real limit.
bluecalm 6y ago
That's the reason we need to enforce speed limit. People are terrible at assessing what's safe. Even if they can somehow manage to assess their personal safety they have terrible judgement when it comes to other road users. You may feel very safe going over speed limit in a residential area but pedestrians, cyclists etc. won't.

bbarnett 6y ago

The "when you do $x, you drain society's emergency resources" is, IMO, an absurd argument. If this is true, then you need to point the finger at so many things. Rock-climbing. Mountain biking. And it progresses, to "anything even remotely risky", where "risky is now the absolute lowest common denominator". And of course, so many sports? Banned. This sort of "walking on eggshells" view of life is quite disturbing to me.

LeCow 6y ago
You've just described the world's attitude to Coronavirus.
- bbarnett 6y ago
  Not even remotely true. The world has responded with "lockdowns", "masks", and more, which is the result of an unprecedented, 100 year class event, that being a pandemic. Your comment isn't really about normality, but instead about an extreme edge case scenario. The only thing worse than a pandemic, might be nuclear war, a massive nuclear accident, or large-scale disaster. Normality need not be conflated with actions during emergency scenarios. Lastly -- imagine if people DID engage in more, "only affected themselves' risky behaviour. It would mean more hospital visits, therefore more hospital capacity, more doctors/nurses/etc etc, which would mean more ability to absorb and deal with large scale emergency issues.
- jen729w 6y ago
  Perhaps not the greatest example given that it’s killed one-point-six million people to date. That’s an awful lot of people, and if you don’t think that’s a terrible thing then I don’t know how you sleep at night.
  - bluecalm 6y ago
    It's terrible but similar number of people die every year in car accidents yet there is no moral panic. We can't even agree on finally enforcing speed limits but with the virus we closed the whole world. I mean pollution in major cities is a bigger health problem objectively than the virus and yet we still allow old diesels to drive in most of them. What I am saying is not that we shouldn't treat the virus seriously but that we really need a lot not urgency when dealing with topics like speeding and pollution.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]