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If you calculate the odds, the odds that an interaction with the police is a desired one is fairly low. You're either getting stopped / questioned / arrested /
by mancerayder 5y ago
If you calculate the odds, the odds that an interaction with the police is a desired one is fairly low. You're either getting stopped / questioned / arrested / whatevered by the police when you're suspected of a crime. Or, something terrible happen and you're reporting a crime. The only 5 star experience is the tourist asking for directions, and even that is stretching it.
A restaurant provides a service in exchange for a payment. A police officer is taught to uphold the law, and interactions with the citizenry isn't like a hotelier interacting with a guest after a flight.
I'm not justifying anything the police do, or excusing anything. The case I'm making is that the metaphor of Yelp and service are just wrong. In the U.S., at least. And certainly in big cities. It's no picnic being on either side of the police-citizen interaction.
- colecut 5y agoIt doesn't have to be this way though. Instead of having, say, quotas on how many speeders they need to catch in a given month, maybe they could use that time proactively helping people or something. I guess that is too utopian.
- mancerayder 5y agoIf you don't catch speeders, you up the risk of speeders causing a vehicular crash, which can lead to injury or death for you and me. Legislative branches passed laws around maximum vehicle speed, cops enforce that as a deterrent. It's for all of us, not the waste of time you seem to be suggesting? I was in Texas recently and saw first hand what it looks like when police enforce 0 traffic laws. It ain't pretty.