4 ms·

Pretty sure the shithead that killed a family in King County two years ago, while doing 110 in a 40 zone (after already wrecking two cars) didn't give two figs

by vkou 2y ago

Pretty sure the shithead that killed a family in King County two years ago, while doing 110 in a 40 zone (after already wrecking two cars) didn't give two figs about street design. Casual speeders would benefit from better street engineering. Excessive speeders don't care. They just don't understand the concept of consequences. A speed governor would have likely saved four lives, and that 18-year old man from a 17 year prison sentence, but sure, let's all wring our hands about why this is a worse alternative to taking away someone's license.

mjevans 2y ago
A clear outlier case. Policy should not be made based on the 1 in 1000000 case that's going to be tragic no matter what's put in place.
- vkou 2y ago
  > A clear outlier case. Everyone speeds a little when they think it's safe, but some people speed excessively. This is about making a remedy available to judges, as an alternative to other, less effective, or more draconic (or both less effective and more draconic), forms of punishment. And judges deal with outlier cases every single day. They job is to look at and weigh all the special cases and considerations, provided by two sides in a dispute, and prescribe one of the many remedies available to them by law. There's nothing fundamentally immoral, tyrannical, or unfair about requiring an repeat offender who has demonstrated their inability to follow the rules of the road to have a conditional license if they want to keep driving, and there's nothing immoral or unethical about using mechanical mechanisms to enforce those conditions. Because the alternative is a full revocation (which is catastrophic to the ability to make a living in this country), or prison (which is catastrophic for a whole lot of other reasons). There's a reason that prescribing ignition interlocks for DUIs results in a dramatically lower recividism rate than license suspensions, and a dramatically lower overall social harm than prison. Locks keep honest people honest, and they put up enough of a hurdle for most less-than-always-honest people to not consistently act like anti-social dipshits. You can circumvent them with effort, but we still use them. They are part of a defense in depth.
  - mjevans 2y ago
    At least in WA State there's not-reckless speeding, which is something like 1-14 mph over the posted limit (I argue it should be more like a _percent_ E.G. going 40 mph in a 25 is WAY worse than going 75 on a 60 mph freeway). Then there's 'reckless endangerment' tier which is +15 over the limit. The example of that guy going 100 in a 40 is beyond even that. It's SO far outside of the range of permissible I don't even know that there's a good legal construct for it. That's the vehicular version of taking an otherwise legal handgun and for relative examples. Not just happening to fire it somewhere you maybe shouldn't have but in a way that was safe. Nor the really stupid but often OK if there aren't people around act of a celebratory shot 'up'. No, that example has gone even further beyond and is like blind-firing at the side of a brick building, headless of how thin those are, of any windows, etc. My argument is that tracking, inhibitors, etc should be too far for the other cases, and not enough for a case like the individual in question. Someone clearly made a product and wants to make money by offering it as a form of limiting other people's freedoms.
    - vkou 2y ago
      > My argument is that tracking, inhibitors, etc should be too far for the other cases, I'm sure the judge is more qualified than you are to make this determination. But if you disagree, let me pose a simple question: In a situation when a judge would suspend someone's license. Why are you opposed to giving them this as an alternative? (If they refuse to comply with this, the judge would happily offer them the suspension instead.) How is it any of your business to prevent someone from choosing this as a lesser punishment? All the harms you've listed are harms to the defendant, but for most defendants, they pale in comparison to the harm of a suspension. Ankle bracelet monitors have all the same concerns that you've listed, yet you'd be hard pressed to find someone who would prefer sitting in prison over being ordered by a court to wear one. If the lesser punishment serves the desires of the prosecution and the courts, and the defendant agrees to it, why do either of them need your consent?
      - mjevans 2y ago
        Slippery slope. It'd be assigned in way more cases because they can, because the _perceived_ impact is lower to someone else. Because it can be handled like yet another tax on offenders, including the poor. Because the companies selling it to the government would continue to lobby to sell it more often for more classes of offense. Take the suspended license situation. At what point is the impact to society enough to just require assigning the person unlimited use of professional drivers to get around instead because the impact to society would be less? Or doing that after they spend time in jail? (As another question, is jail even effective at reform?) The sort of person who repeatedly drives not just fast, but in ways that are clearly unwarranted danger, perhaps shows a larger defect. An individual who might have medical conditions that make rational thought and risk evaluation fail. Sometimes, a person of adult age just isn't a true adult. Some device to limit a car's speed isn't going to prevent that sort of person from running a red light or over a jaywalker.
hollandheese 2y ago
Honestly that just seems more of a case that 18 year olds shouldn't be allowed to drive. If you're not old enough to smoke or drink alcohol, you're not old enough to operate heavy machinery that can kill people.
PetitPrince 2y ago
But doesn't "better street engineering" passively reduce speed because the road is full of bends that's difficult to negotiate at high speed and/or will make you much likely to crash into bollards/tree/stationary cars and/or will wreck your suspension with speed bumps ? My understanding is that a good engineered road will not gently suggest you to drive at this or that speed, but will make you so forcibly.

by vkou 2y ago

mjevans 2y ago

A clear outlier case. Policy should not be made based on the 1 in 1000000 case that's going to be tragic no matter what's put in place.

vkou 2y ago
> A clear outlier case. Everyone speeds a little when they think it's safe, but some people speed excessively. This is about making a remedy available to judges, as an alternative to other, less effective, or more draconic (or both less effective and more draconic), forms of punishment. And judges deal with outlier cases every single day. They job is to look at and weigh all the special cases and considerations, provided by two sides in a dispute, and prescribe one of the many remedies available to them by law. There's nothing fundamentally immoral, tyrannical, or unfair about requiring an repeat offender who has demonstrated their inability to follow the rules of the road to have a conditional license if they want to keep driving, and there's nothing immoral or unethical about using mechanical mechanisms to enforce those conditions. Because the alternative is a full revocation (which is catastrophic to the ability to make a living in this country), or prison (which is catastrophic for a whole lot of other reasons). There's a reason that prescribing ignition interlocks for DUIs results in a dramatically lower recividism rate than license suspensions, and a dramatically lower overall social harm than prison. Locks keep honest people honest, and they put up enough of a hurdle for most less-than-always-honest people to not consistently act like anti-social dipshits. You can circumvent them with effort, but we still use them. They are part of a defense in depth.
- mjevans 2y ago
  At least in WA State there's not-reckless speeding, which is something like 1-14 mph over the posted limit (I argue it should be more like a _percent_ E.G. going 40 mph in a 25 is WAY worse than going 75 on a 60 mph freeway). Then there's 'reckless endangerment' tier which is +15 over the limit. The example of that guy going 100 in a 40 is beyond even that. It's SO far outside of the range of permissible I don't even know that there's a good legal construct for it. That's the vehicular version of taking an otherwise legal handgun and for relative examples. Not just happening to fire it somewhere you maybe shouldn't have but in a way that was safe. Nor the really stupid but often OK if there aren't people around act of a celebratory shot 'up'. No, that example has gone even further beyond and is like blind-firing at the side of a brick building, headless of how thin those are, of any windows, etc. My argument is that tracking, inhibitors, etc should be too far for the other cases, and not enough for a case like the individual in question. Someone clearly made a product and wants to make money by offering it as a form of limiting other people's freedoms.
  - vkou 2y ago
    > My argument is that tracking, inhibitors, etc should be too far for the other cases, I'm sure the judge is more qualified than you are to make this determination. But if you disagree, let me pose a simple question: In a situation when a judge would suspend someone's license. Why are you opposed to giving them this as an alternative? (If they refuse to comply with this, the judge would happily offer them the suspension instead.) How is it any of your business to prevent someone from choosing this as a lesser punishment? All the harms you've listed are harms to the defendant, but for most defendants, they pale in comparison to the harm of a suspension. Ankle bracelet monitors have all the same concerns that you've listed, yet you'd be hard pressed to find someone who would prefer sitting in prison over being ordered by a court to wear one. If the lesser punishment serves the desires of the prosecution and the courts, and the defendant agrees to it, why do either of them need your consent?
    - mjevans 2y ago
      Slippery slope. It'd be assigned in way more cases because they can, because the _perceived_ impact is lower to someone else. Because it can be handled like yet another tax on offenders, including the poor. Because the companies selling it to the government would continue to lobby to sell it more often for more classes of offense. Take the suspended license situation. At what point is the impact to society enough to just require assigning the person unlimited use of professional drivers to get around instead because the impact to society would be less? Or doing that after they spend time in jail? (As another question, is jail even effective at reform?) The sort of person who repeatedly drives not just fast, but in ways that are clearly unwarranted danger, perhaps shows a larger defect. An individual who might have medical conditions that make rational thought and risk evaluation fail. Sometimes, a person of adult age just isn't a true adult. Some device to limit a car's speed isn't going to prevent that sort of person from running a red light or over a jaywalker.

hollandheese 2y ago

Honestly that just seems more of a case that 18 year olds shouldn't be allowed to drive. If you're not old enough to smoke or drink alcohol, you're not old enough to operate heavy machinery that can kill people.

PetitPrince 2y ago

But doesn't "better street engineering" passively reduce speed because the road is full of bends that's difficult to negotiate at high speed and/or will make you much likely to crash into bollards/tree/stationary cars and/or will wreck your suspension with speed bumps ? My understanding is that a good engineered road will not gently suggest you to drive at this or that speed, but will make you so forcibly.