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As much as I hate assholes on the road I do not think that regular people snitching on others is the solution to anything. Where do you draw the line? Do you

As much as I hate assholes on the road I do not think that regular people snitching on others is the solution to anything. Where do you draw the line? Do you know how many laws people do not respect on a daily basis? What's next, filming your neighbor jaywalking on an empty street and reporting it to the police? And everybody cheering? Common people...

halpert 5y ago
Laws that are commonly broken shouldn’t be laws.
- detaro 5y ago
  What's a useful threshold for "commonly"?
- kazinator 5y ago
  Women are commonly raped, particularly in some parts of the world. Now what?
  - halpert 5y ago
    From jaywalking to horrific rapes in other countries. Talk about a slippery slope.
    - kazinator 5y ago
      Firstly, it may be more common in your country than you think. Secondly, I cannot agree with "laws that are commonly broken shouldn't be laws" even if we replace laws with municipal bylaws. People commonly smoke where they shouldn't, don't clean up their dog's poop, park their cars wherever they want, litter and improperly dispose of items and whatever not. So, hey, let's get rid of the rules? If we are going to clean the system of laws that should not exist, we arguably should prioritize those that are commonly broken, but that can't be the sufficient condition. If we don't prioritize those that are broken, we may waste time repealing weird laws covering situations that hardly occur, so the work will have no practical impact. Whether a law should be repealed must be carefully considered on a case-by-case basis, not based on considerations like whether people are breaking it like it's going out of style.
      - halpert 5y ago
        That's a much more nuanced argument, so thanks for writing that out. I'll counter with this: widespread lawbreaking only occurs when laws are selectively enforced or not enforced at all. For instance, most people jay walk because they don't expect enforcement. No one in my town expects dog waste laws to be enforced. Those who pick up their poop do so because they're decent human beings. If you wanted to stop dog waste, however, you could step up enforcement to discourage law breaking. This would work with many commonly broken laws. Singapore is famous for this approach. Therefore, I still think commonly broken laws should be repealed. If the law is important, then it should be enforced. If it's enforced, then people won't break it. Another reason that commonly broken laws should be repealed is that having laws on the book that are selectively enforced is dangerous. They give those in power tools to exploit people they don't like. For instance, traffic laws are frequently violated, but they are selectively enforced. Police use selective enforcement of these laws to target black drivers. There are many examples in the entire justice system where selective enforcement of laws has been used as a tool for suppression. Having this legal grey-area where some people can break the law and some can't is ripe for abuse. Which brings me to my final point regarding countries that have poor safety for women. In corrupt countries, the law exists as a tool to maintain power of a small group of rulers. The mechanism of this control works in a similar, but more extreme, way to how selectively enforced laws can be abused in less corrupt countries. It doesn't make sense to talk about repealing laws in a highly corrupt setting because our fundamental assumptions about what a legal system should do don't hold up (serving and protecting people, maintain social order, etc). Thus, it's not surprising that the most dangerous countries for women also rank extremely high on measures of corruption. In such places, the law basically doesn't matter.
        kazinator 5y ago
        Laws are always selectively enforced. You cannot simply watch every citizen 24 hours a day, and you don't want that kind of society in the first place. What you don't want is there to be some pattern to the selectiveness. Certainly not due to corruption (the enforcers turning a blind eye to some select individuals), but even if there is no such corruption, the patterns are hard to avoid. Just because people figure out that they can get away with something doesn't mean it shouldn't be a law. There may be reasons why it shouldn't, entirely unrelated to the popularity of breaking it. Even if generally enforcing a law seems hopeless, if the law is in place, it can be used in certain situations. Like dog poop. A neighborhood having problems with a particular offender can lean on that law to get something done about them, even if there is no enforcing to help with someone randomly bringing their dog (e.g. by car) from another neighborhood to have a poop. Where I live, streets have an implicit 3 hour parking rule. Street segments which have no signage about parking, and are available for that purpose, essentially have an implicit, invisible "Parking 3H Max" sign. Nobody will actively enforce it; you can park your broken down old van in front of someone's front yard and leave it there for months. If nobody calls to complain, likely nothing will happen to that vehicle. The law exists there for complaints; you can lean on that. You can also lean on it in situations like this: you shoveled deep snow for an hour and a half in front of your house to dig your car out and create a clean parking spot. When you come back from your errand, your dickhead neighbor, or someone else, has parked there. If they stay for 3 hours, you can have them removed. That's the concept you're missing; laws do not have to patrolled by active policing that looks for infractions. Enforcement can be complaint-driven. If you repeal a law that is often broken without causing a problem, you take away the basis for someone to have an actionable complaint in those situations when it does cause a problem.
inetknght 5y ago
Neighbor jaywalking on an empty street isn't dangerous. People on their phones in traffic certainly is. Whether it's dangerous while sitting still is arguable: certainly if the vehicle isn't in a parking lot and the driver isn't paying attention then they might not notice emergencies they're blocking.
- tpoacher 5y ago
  The article mentions the car driver was filmed for a whole minute using his phone in his stationary car, before noticing. A whole minute. Stationary. I'm pretty sure as far as "letter vs spirit of the law" goes, this is pretty much the opposite of what lawmakers were worried about when the "no texting while driving" law was passed. If I were a policeman I'd be arresting the cyclist for reckless driving beside cars while not facing forward, stopping to intimidate drivers, and causing arguments with drivers affecting the focus, calm, and therefore safety of their onward journey.
fizx 5y ago
The USA has a philosophy of having loose laws and occasional enforcement. This is partly cultural, and has a lot of negative side effects, particularly for minorites. It's pretty easy to do drugs or drive 5-10mph over the speed limit as a white person, but it's much more risky if not. Contrast much of Europe, where speed enforcement is done by camera. I got a $20 mailed ticket for driving 5kph over the limit. Fair, easy, scales with the offence, and there's not an excuse to pull over people for racial profiling. So yes, I would love to live in a world where people got tickets for jaywalking on an empty street. Because that would encourage us all to respect laws, and would also encourage reform of laws that aren't working. Unfortunately, reform takes time, and there's a lot wrong with the system. Until then, I'm not judging the "regular person snitching," particularly if they're complaining about behavior that's dangerous to others.
- throwaway0a5e 5y ago
  >So yes, I would love to live in a world where people got tickets for jaywalking on an empty street. Because that would encourage us all to respect laws, and would also encourage reform of laws that aren't working. I'd love to live in that world. Because that world would exist for a week at best before jaywalking stopped be a crime, speed limits went up by 20 across the board and stop lights and signs gained all sorts of complex rules allowing drivers and cyclists to not actually stop in many cases (and all sorts of other laws regarding other issues would be revised similarly). The laws would be changed to reflect how people actually live and that would make dolts who conflate legality with morality a much smaller problem for society. We have procedural mechanisms to make it harder silly laws from being passed. Authoritarians are far less of a danger to people when they have to force their shenanigans through those processes than they are when they simply need to convince enforcement to target this or that issue.

halpert 5y ago

Laws that are commonly broken shouldn’t be laws.

detaro 5y ago
What's a useful threshold for "commonly"?
kazinator 5y ago
Women are commonly raped, particularly in some parts of the world. Now what?
- halpert 5y ago
  From jaywalking to horrific rapes in other countries. Talk about a slippery slope.
  - kazinator 5y ago
    Firstly, it may be more common in your country than you think. Secondly, I cannot agree with "laws that are commonly broken shouldn't be laws" even if we replace laws with municipal bylaws. People commonly smoke where they shouldn't, don't clean up their dog's poop, park their cars wherever they want, litter and improperly dispose of items and whatever not. So, hey, let's get rid of the rules? If we are going to clean the system of laws that should not exist, we arguably should prioritize those that are commonly broken, but that can't be the sufficient condition. If we don't prioritize those that are broken, we may waste time repealing weird laws covering situations that hardly occur, so the work will have no practical impact. Whether a law should be repealed must be carefully considered on a case-by-case basis, not based on considerations like whether people are breaking it like it's going out of style.
    - halpert 5y ago
      That's a much more nuanced argument, so thanks for writing that out. I'll counter with this: widespread lawbreaking only occurs when laws are selectively enforced or not enforced at all. For instance, most people jay walk because they don't expect enforcement. No one in my town expects dog waste laws to be enforced. Those who pick up their poop do so because they're decent human beings. If you wanted to stop dog waste, however, you could step up enforcement to discourage law breaking. This would work with many commonly broken laws. Singapore is famous for this approach. Therefore, I still think commonly broken laws should be repealed. If the law is important, then it should be enforced. If it's enforced, then people won't break it. Another reason that commonly broken laws should be repealed is that having laws on the book that are selectively enforced is dangerous. They give those in power tools to exploit people they don't like. For instance, traffic laws are frequently violated, but they are selectively enforced. Police use selective enforcement of these laws to target black drivers. There are many examples in the entire justice system where selective enforcement of laws has been used as a tool for suppression. Having this legal grey-area where some people can break the law and some can't is ripe for abuse. Which brings me to my final point regarding countries that have poor safety for women. In corrupt countries, the law exists as a tool to maintain power of a small group of rulers. The mechanism of this control works in a similar, but more extreme, way to how selectively enforced laws can be abused in less corrupt countries. It doesn't make sense to talk about repealing laws in a highly corrupt setting because our fundamental assumptions about what a legal system should do don't hold up (serving and protecting people, maintain social order, etc). Thus, it's not surprising that the most dangerous countries for women also rank extremely high on measures of corruption. In such places, the law basically doesn't matter.
      - kazinator 5y ago
        Laws are always selectively enforced. You cannot simply watch every citizen 24 hours a day, and you don't want that kind of society in the first place. What you don't want is there to be some pattern to the selectiveness. Certainly not due to corruption (the enforcers turning a blind eye to some select individuals), but even if there is no such corruption, the patterns are hard to avoid. Just because people figure out that they can get away with something doesn't mean it shouldn't be a law. There may be reasons why it shouldn't, entirely unrelated to the popularity of breaking it. Even if generally enforcing a law seems hopeless, if the law is in place, it can be used in certain situations. Like dog poop. A neighborhood having problems with a particular offender can lean on that law to get something done about them, even if there is no enforcing to help with someone randomly bringing their dog (e.g. by car) from another neighborhood to have a poop. Where I live, streets have an implicit 3 hour parking rule. Street segments which have no signage about parking, and are available for that purpose, essentially have an implicit, invisible "Parking 3H Max" sign. Nobody will actively enforce it; you can park your broken down old van in front of someone's front yard and leave it there for months. If nobody calls to complain, likely nothing will happen to that vehicle. The law exists there for complaints; you can lean on that. You can also lean on it in situations like this: you shoveled deep snow for an hour and a half in front of your house to dig your car out and create a clean parking spot. When you come back from your errand, your dickhead neighbor, or someone else, has parked there. If they stay for 3 hours, you can have them removed. That's the concept you're missing; laws do not have to patrolled by active policing that looks for infractions. Enforcement can be complaint-driven. If you repeal a law that is often broken without causing a problem, you take away the basis for someone to have an actionable complaint in those situations when it does cause a problem.

inetknght 5y ago

Neighbor jaywalking on an empty street isn't dangerous. People on their phones in traffic certainly is. Whether it's dangerous while sitting still is arguable: certainly if the vehicle isn't in a parking lot and the driver isn't paying attention then they might not notice emergencies they're blocking.

tpoacher 5y ago
The article mentions the car driver was filmed for a whole minute using his phone in his stationary car, before noticing. A whole minute. Stationary. I'm pretty sure as far as "letter vs spirit of the law" goes, this is pretty much the opposite of what lawmakers were worried about when the "no texting while driving" law was passed. If I were a policeman I'd be arresting the cyclist for reckless driving beside cars while not facing forward, stopping to intimidate drivers, and causing arguments with drivers affecting the focus, calm, and therefore safety of their onward journey.

fizx 5y ago

The USA has a philosophy of having loose laws and occasional enforcement. This is partly cultural, and has a lot of negative side effects, particularly for minorites. It's pretty easy to do drugs or drive 5-10mph over the speed limit as a white person, but it's much more risky if not. Contrast much of Europe, where speed enforcement is done by camera. I got a $20 mailed ticket for driving 5kph over the limit. Fair, easy, scales with the offence, and there's not an excuse to pull over people for racial profiling. So yes, I would love to live in a world where people got tickets for jaywalking on an empty street. Because that would encourage us all to respect laws, and would also encourage reform of laws that aren't working. Unfortunately, reform takes time, and there's a lot wrong with the system. Until then, I'm not judging the "regular person snitching," particularly if they're complaining about behavior that's dangerous to others.

throwaway0a5e 5y ago
>So yes, I would love to live in a world where people got tickets for jaywalking on an empty street. Because that would encourage us all to respect laws, and would also encourage reform of laws that aren't working. I'd love to live in that world. Because that world would exist for a week at best before jaywalking stopped be a crime, speed limits went up by 20 across the board and stop lights and signs gained all sorts of complex rules allowing drivers and cyclists to not actually stop in many cases (and all sorts of other laws regarding other issues would be revised similarly). The laws would be changed to reflect how people actually live and that would make dolts who conflate legality with morality a much smaller problem for society. We have procedural mechanisms to make it harder silly laws from being passed. Authoritarians are far less of a danger to people when they have to force their shenanigans through those processes than they are when they simply need to convince enforcement to target this or that issue.