5 ms·

Were you in that much of a hurry to not be able to wait 30 seconds for the traffic light?

repeekad 2y ago
That’s not the point, a surveillance state where the panopticon autonomously gives $250 tickets is the issue Rules aren’t meant to be cold hard algorithms to blindly punish people with; we wouldn’t automate a judge with an algorithm why is it somehow different to automate a police officer with one?
- froggit 2y ago
  > Rules aren’t meant to be cold hard algorithms to blindly punish people with; we wouldn’t automate a judge with an algorithm why is it somehow different to automate a police officer with one? The role of enforcing certain laws can be easily fulfilled with simple algorithms as the logic required is on early grade school level. In this case it's something like: if "stoplight is red" and "car doesn't stop", then "driver gets ticket." That's all the algorithm has to do, super easy to automate. Automation allows for enforcement where it would otherwise not be cost effective, like when it's 3am and no one else is around. The judiciary, however, has to interpret all kinds of crazy edge cases that people come up with to try and get out of tickets for rolling stops or whatever legal case, for all laws, because every now and then someone has a valid case. That's a bit harder to do with a couple lines of code and some low cost hardware.
- try_the_bass 2y ago
  Why is that not the point? You violated a law and received a penalty. You're not disputing that you violated said law, but are instead trying to justify it with "barely didn't stop" and "it's 3am and there is no traffic". Isn't the point that you got punished for doing something you would have gotten away with had no one been watching?
  - tway_GdBRwW 2y ago
    because maybe the point is "The basic premise of democracy is that the citizens/ordinary people are trusted as the ultimate source of the law, and the law is to serve them, not them to serve the law." Nice twist to the premise at the end, but no, the point is that the person got punished for using sound and reasonable judgement in a situation where the regulation (not law) was ill thought out.
    - try_the_bass 2y ago
      "Sound and reasonable judgement" to save a couple seconds? That still just seems like rationalization of bad behavior. You're right that the basic premise of democracy is that citizens can be trusted as the source of the law, but it seems to me that this particular citizen can't actually be trusted? I mean, they're demonstrating a lack of integrity, are they not?
      - deergomoo 2y ago
        You're talking about someone who, from their description, slowed down to something like 0.1mph instead of absolute zero. At 3am, in an empty road. How is that bad behaviour, lack of integrity, and a sign someone can't be trusted?
        try_the_bass 2y ago
        Integrity is commonly defined as "doing the right thing, even if no one is watching", is it not? I highly doubt this person would have rolled through the light if a cop were sitting at the intersection watching them, and they knew they were being observed. To several other posters' points, the specific regulation in question exists for safety reasons. Those safety reasons don't go away just because you don't think they apply in the moment. I'm sure every person who has hit (or been hit by) another person when rolling through a right turn like that thought their judgement in the moment was reasonable, too. I'm also sure not every one of those would have been prevented by coming to a complete stop and looking at the turn, but certainly some of them would have, which is a net positive for everyone. This comes at a cost of a handful of seconds, which seems like the most trivial of inconveniences, and wholly worth paying every time.
  - kelnos 2y ago
    I don't actually disagree with some level of automated enforcement, but I do disagree with your phrasing/justification of it. I just don't believe violating the law is always wrong, always bad, or always unsafe. While I would agree that most people are bad at risk assessment, and most people are not good drivers, the law should be flexible enough to deal with cases where breaking it is absolutely fine to do. As a perhaps weird and imperfect analogy, killing another person is illegal... except when it isn't. The law recognizes that sometimes, even if in rare cases, killing another person is justified. This is why we have different words: "homicide" is sometimes not "murder" or even "manslaughter"; sometimes it's "self-defense".
    - johnisgood 2y ago
      Or sometimes it is the death sentence. I agree with you, FWIW.
    - try_the_bass 2y ago
      I wholly agree that violating some laws is entirely justified. However, I don't think any violation is justified by what more or less amounts to laziness and the desire to save an inconsequential amount of time.
- acdha 2y ago
  It’s hardly a surveillance state to say operators of heavy machinery should do so safely: there are many, many dead pedestrians and bicyclists who were hit by someone who _thought_ the road was empty, and American traffic laws are so lenient that it’s disturbing that people think they’re overbearing. It’s estimated that we are effectively subsidizing drivers by close to a trillion dollars annually by not requiring adequate insurance to cover the full cost to victims. Just pay your ticket and drive better before you make a mistake you’ll never recover from.
  - johnisgood 2y ago
    https://bigthink.com/strange-maps/road-deaths-us-eu/ https://bigthink.com/strange-maps/road-deaths-us-eu/ Seems to be more of an issue in the US.
    - acdha 2y ago
      Definitely: bigger vehicles, higher speeds, and because the alternatives to driving have been starved of funding or removed the entire system is loathe to punish bad drivers because taking away someone’s license largely removes their ability to function.
      - johnisgood 2y ago
        Unfortunately the state of public transportation is awful in the US, for sure.
- edmundsauto 2y ago
  America has tried to do this, famously, with the "3 strikes and you're out" laws of the past century.
mauvehaus 2y ago
At 3am? Bed presumably.
lolinder 2y ago
We're talking about a rolling right turn on red, not crossing the whole intersection on red. The turn is allowed but the camera took issue with how much of a stop came first. I don't know very many drivers who wouldn't recognize that camera behavior at 3:00 in the morning as unreasonable.
- c22 2y ago
  Why not just come to a full stop? It's presumably dark out at 3am so you may have missed a pedestrian or a vehicle with no headlights. It only takes an extra second or two to stop and look around.
  - lolinder 2y ago
    At the majority of signal-controlled intersections with city limits there's plenty of visibility even (or dare I say especially) at 3am and the scanning can happen as you approach. (Also, the kind of rolling stop I'm talking about isn't a 5mph roll, it's a near-stop that feels like a stop to the driver but technically doesn't actually bring the tires to stationary. Odds are even you have done this kind of stop pretty regularly without realizing it, and even a cop wouldn't even notice it as incorrect unless they were actively looking for someone to ticket.)
    - c22 2y ago
      Odds are I haven't since I'm always careful to stop twice when turning right on red. (Once before the crosswalk, and again at the far side of the crosswalk to check for cross traffic before executing the turn.)
      - stopsandgoes 2y ago
        Have you ever been rear-ended, stopping twice like that? I have.
        c22 2y ago
gog 2y ago
I believe the commenter is in US where you are allowed to make a right turn on a red light but you must stop and make sure it's safe to do so.
- throwaway2037 2y ago
  There is old Woody Allen joke: The only advantage of LA over NYC is right turn on red light is allowed.
monkeywork 2y ago
That is a discussion that can be had between the offender and the police officer, also depending what you are driving (ie a motorcycle) often traffic lights may not detect you and you can be sitting there forever. Put it this way would you feel comfortable having your phone just passively watching you and anytime you break any law that is on the books it calls the cops on you? If you can see that as over reaching you can understand why others don't want automated enforcement done to them.
- kelnos 2y ago
  > That is a discussion that can be had between the offender and the police officer Once you've been pulled over, a police officer is unlikely to change their course of action based on anything you say to them. Especially in this case, of not coming quite to a full stop at a red light before turning right. The cop knows it was safe to do so. They just want the ticket revenue or to fill up their quota for the month. Or they're just having a bad day and want to harass someone who can't fight back. Or, if I'm being charitable, they're an incessant rule-follower who doesn't understand how reality works.
concordDance 2y ago
Regardless of whether he can wait 30 seconds there is no good reason to impose that cost. Its just randomly making someone's life worse for literally no gain. Time is our most precious and finite commodity and should not be wasted.

That’s not the point, a surveillance state where the panopticon autonomously gives $250 tickets is the issue Rules aren’t meant to be cold hard algorithms to blindly punish people with; we wouldn’t automate a judge with an algorithm why is it somehow different to automate a police officer with one?

froggit 2y ago
> Rules aren’t meant to be cold hard algorithms to blindly punish people with; we wouldn’t automate a judge with an algorithm why is it somehow different to automate a police officer with one? The role of enforcing certain laws can be easily fulfilled with simple algorithms as the logic required is on early grade school level. In this case it's something like: if "stoplight is red" and "car doesn't stop", then "driver gets ticket." That's all the algorithm has to do, super easy to automate. Automation allows for enforcement where it would otherwise not be cost effective, like when it's 3am and no one else is around. The judiciary, however, has to interpret all kinds of crazy edge cases that people come up with to try and get out of tickets for rolling stops or whatever legal case, for all laws, because every now and then someone has a valid case. That's a bit harder to do with a couple lines of code and some low cost hardware.
try_the_bass 2y ago
Why is that not the point? You violated a law and received a penalty. You're not disputing that you violated said law, but are instead trying to justify it with "barely didn't stop" and "it's 3am and there is no traffic". Isn't the point that you got punished for doing something you would have gotten away with had no one been watching?
- tway_GdBRwW 2y ago
  because maybe the point is "The basic premise of democracy is that the citizens/ordinary people are trusted as the ultimate source of the law, and the law is to serve them, not them to serve the law." Nice twist to the premise at the end, but no, the point is that the person got punished for using sound and reasonable judgement in a situation where the regulation (not law) was ill thought out.
  - try_the_bass 2y ago
    "Sound and reasonable judgement" to save a couple seconds? That still just seems like rationalization of bad behavior. You're right that the basic premise of democracy is that citizens can be trusted as the source of the law, but it seems to me that this particular citizen can't actually be trusted? I mean, they're demonstrating a lack of integrity, are they not?
    - deergomoo 2y ago
      You're talking about someone who, from their description, slowed down to something like 0.1mph instead of absolute zero. At 3am, in an empty road. How is that bad behaviour, lack of integrity, and a sign someone can't be trusted?
      - try_the_bass 2y ago
        Integrity is commonly defined as "doing the right thing, even if no one is watching", is it not? I highly doubt this person would have rolled through the light if a cop were sitting at the intersection watching them, and they knew they were being observed. To several other posters' points, the specific regulation in question exists for safety reasons. Those safety reasons don't go away just because you don't think they apply in the moment. I'm sure every person who has hit (or been hit by) another person when rolling through a right turn like that thought their judgement in the moment was reasonable, too. I'm also sure not every one of those would have been prevented by coming to a complete stop and looking at the turn, but certainly some of them would have, which is a net positive for everyone. This comes at a cost of a handful of seconds, which seems like the most trivial of inconveniences, and wholly worth paying every time.
- kelnos 2y ago
  I don't actually disagree with some level of automated enforcement, but I do disagree with your phrasing/justification of it. I just don't believe violating the law is always wrong, always bad, or always unsafe. While I would agree that most people are bad at risk assessment, and most people are not good drivers, the law should be flexible enough to deal with cases where breaking it is absolutely fine to do. As a perhaps weird and imperfect analogy, killing another person is illegal... except when it isn't. The law recognizes that sometimes, even if in rare cases, killing another person is justified. This is why we have different words: "homicide" is sometimes not "murder" or even "manslaughter"; sometimes it's "self-defense".
  - johnisgood 2y ago
    Or sometimes it is the death sentence. I agree with you, FWIW.
  - try_the_bass 2y ago
    I wholly agree that violating some laws is entirely justified. However, I don't think any violation is justified by what more or less amounts to laziness and the desire to save an inconsequential amount of time.
acdha 2y ago
It’s hardly a surveillance state to say operators of heavy machinery should do so safely: there are many, many dead pedestrians and bicyclists who were hit by someone who _thought_ the road was empty, and American traffic laws are so lenient that it’s disturbing that people think they’re overbearing. It’s estimated that we are effectively subsidizing drivers by close to a trillion dollars annually by not requiring adequate insurance to cover the full cost to victims. Just pay your ticket and drive better before you make a mistake you’ll never recover from.
- johnisgood 2y ago
  https://bigthink.com/strange-maps/road-deaths-us-eu/ https://bigthink.com/strange-maps/road-deaths-us-eu/ Seems to be more of an issue in the US.
  - acdha 2y ago
    Definitely: bigger vehicles, higher speeds, and because the alternatives to driving have been starved of funding or removed the entire system is loathe to punish bad drivers because taking away someone’s license largely removes their ability to function.
    - johnisgood 2y ago
      Unfortunately the state of public transportation is awful in the US, for sure.
edmundsauto 2y ago
America has tried to do this, famously, with the "3 strikes and you're out" laws of the past century.

mauvehaus 2y ago

At 3am? Bed presumably.

lolinder 2y ago

We're talking about a rolling right turn on red, not crossing the whole intersection on red. The turn is allowed but the camera took issue with how much of a stop came first. I don't know very many drivers who wouldn't recognize that camera behavior at 3:00 in the morning as unreasonable.

c22 2y ago
Why not just come to a full stop? It's presumably dark out at 3am so you may have missed a pedestrian or a vehicle with no headlights. It only takes an extra second or two to stop and look around.
- lolinder 2y ago
  At the majority of signal-controlled intersections with city limits there's plenty of visibility even (or dare I say especially) at 3am and the scanning can happen as you approach. (Also, the kind of rolling stop I'm talking about isn't a 5mph roll, it's a near-stop that feels like a stop to the driver but technically doesn't actually bring the tires to stationary. Odds are even you have done this kind of stop pretty regularly without realizing it, and even a cop wouldn't even notice it as incorrect unless they were actively looking for someone to ticket.)
  - c22 2y ago
    Odds are I haven't since I'm always careful to stop twice when turning right on red. (Once before the crosswalk, and again at the far side of the crosswalk to check for cross traffic before executing the turn.)
    - stopsandgoes 2y ago
      Have you ever been rear-ended, stopping twice like that? I have.
      - c22 2y ago

gog 2y ago

I believe the commenter is in US where you are allowed to make a right turn on a red light but you must stop and make sure it's safe to do so.

throwaway2037 2y ago
There is old Woody Allen joke: The only advantage of LA over NYC is right turn on red light is allowed.

monkeywork 2y ago

That is a discussion that can be had between the offender and the police officer, also depending what you are driving (ie a motorcycle) often traffic lights may not detect you and you can be sitting there forever. Put it this way would you feel comfortable having your phone just passively watching you and anytime you break any law that is on the books it calls the cops on you? If you can see that as over reaching you can understand why others don't want automated enforcement done to them.

kelnos 2y ago
> That is a discussion that can be had between the offender and the police officer Once you've been pulled over, a police officer is unlikely to change their course of action based on anything you say to them. Especially in this case, of not coming quite to a full stop at a red light before turning right. The cop knows it was safe to do so. They just want the ticket revenue or to fill up their quota for the month. Or they're just having a bad day and want to harass someone who can't fight back. Or, if I'm being charitable, they're an incessant rule-follower who doesn't understand how reality works.

concordDance 2y ago

Regardless of whether he can wait 30 seconds there is no good reason to impose that cost. Its just randomly making someone's life worse for literally no gain. Time is our most precious and finite commodity and should not be wasted.