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That's great, unless he needs to drive to get to work in order to get a paycheck and keep his head above water for another week. Do people really not understan

That's great, unless he needs to drive to get to work in order to get a paycheck and keep his head above water for another week. Do people really not understand that there are people who do not have the luxury of a risk-free life?

greedo 14y ago
Teaching someone to measure risk is part of parenting, and a good sign of maturity. Driving without insurance is strike one in that calculus, and then hitting a pedestrian is strike two. Helping them out of debt is merely enabling strike three in this scenario. Take a look at your local newspapers mugshot section. Ours publishes them online, and when bored, it's a fun diversion. The majority of the arrests are for DUI, or driving on a suspended license from a prior DUI. A great cross section of people who don't even care about their impact upon others.
- elemenohpee 14y ago
  Not sure what DUIs have to do with this. I'm thinking about the guy who lost his job, and the closest position he could find was 50 miles away from his home, which he can't move out of without losing a lot of money. He's exhausted from the long commute each day and the stress of being up to his neck in debt, which is what he's distracted by when he doesn't see the pedestrian step out from behind a parked car. It's got nothing to do with maturity or whatever, it's about doing what is necessary to survive and provide for your family. It's pretty callous and insulting to tell someone in this situation that they deserve to be crushed under debt because you don't want to "enable" their behavior.
  - greedo 14y ago
    As a society, we expect people to follow norms of behavior; we usually call them laws. Driving without insurance is breaking the law. Driving impaired in the case of alcohol is against the law. Driving impaired because you're tired and exhausted and stressed about life and then striking a pedestrian is usually going to result in either criminal charges or civil charges at the minimum. You might even have to wear a sign... http://fxn.ws/SwNfY1 http://fxn.ws/SwNfY1 EDIT: Here's a link for people who think that anything coming from Fox should be dismissed out of hand immediately: http://security-today.com/Blogs/REACTION/2012/11/Woman-Sentenced-to-Wear-Idiot-Sign.aspx http://security-today.com/Blogs/REACTION/2012/11/Woman-Sente...
    - mkr-hn 14y ago
      Patronizing someone and linking to fox news to support a nonsense narrative isn't helping your case. Edit on your edit: Selecting a single extraordinary instance to support your case isn't helping your case. This is no different from someone looking at the idiotic things on Fox News' prime time shows and saying they represent all conservatives. I know many decent conservatives who think Fox News is for idiots, just as I know many poor people who are completely responsible and still struggle.
      - greedo 14y ago
        Really? The sentence the judge imposed might be extraordinary, but you can't believe idiotic driving is unusual.
        mkr-hn 14y ago
        You linked that in response to elemenohpee arguing that debt is not always, or even often, a result of irresponsibility. What exactly are you arguing? What was your goal in linking to that?
        greedo 14y ago
        Elemenohpee was trying to argue that someone who drives without insurance and hits someone wasn't responsible for their actions. If that's an argument you want to back, have at it.
        mkr-hn 14y ago
        It's amazing how two people can read the same thing and come to wildly different conclusions.
        elemenohpee 14y ago
        That's what you want my argument to be, because it would be much easier to dismiss. In reality what I'm saying is that I don't think it's right to have a society that puts crazy amounts of pressure on people and simultaneously refuses to acknowledge the negative influence that those pressures have on behavior.
  - philwelch 14y ago
    Funny. I was thinking of the guy who lost his job, lost his wife to leukemia and has all of her medical bills left over, had his car repossessed and his house foreclosed upon, and was just crossing the street to stay the night at his cousin's house when an uninsured driver puts him into the hospital by crushing his body with 2000 pounds of speeding steel.

greedo 14y ago

Teaching someone to measure risk is part of parenting, and a good sign of maturity. Driving without insurance is strike one in that calculus, and then hitting a pedestrian is strike two. Helping them out of debt is merely enabling strike three in this scenario. Take a look at your local newspapers mugshot section. Ours publishes them online, and when bored, it's a fun diversion. The majority of the arrests are for DUI, or driving on a suspended license from a prior DUI. A great cross section of people who don't even care about their impact upon others.

elemenohpee 14y ago
Not sure what DUIs have to do with this. I'm thinking about the guy who lost his job, and the closest position he could find was 50 miles away from his home, which he can't move out of without losing a lot of money. He's exhausted from the long commute each day and the stress of being up to his neck in debt, which is what he's distracted by when he doesn't see the pedestrian step out from behind a parked car. It's got nothing to do with maturity or whatever, it's about doing what is necessary to survive and provide for your family. It's pretty callous and insulting to tell someone in this situation that they deserve to be crushed under debt because you don't want to "enable" their behavior.
- greedo 14y ago
  As a society, we expect people to follow norms of behavior; we usually call them laws. Driving without insurance is breaking the law. Driving impaired in the case of alcohol is against the law. Driving impaired because you're tired and exhausted and stressed about life and then striking a pedestrian is usually going to result in either criminal charges or civil charges at the minimum. You might even have to wear a sign... http://fxn.ws/SwNfY1 http://fxn.ws/SwNfY1 EDIT: Here's a link for people who think that anything coming from Fox should be dismissed out of hand immediately: http://security-today.com/Blogs/REACTION/2012/11/Woman-Sentenced-to-Wear-Idiot-Sign.aspx http://security-today.com/Blogs/REACTION/2012/11/Woman-Sente...
  - mkr-hn 14y ago
    Patronizing someone and linking to fox news to support a nonsense narrative isn't helping your case. Edit on your edit: Selecting a single extraordinary instance to support your case isn't helping your case. This is no different from someone looking at the idiotic things on Fox News' prime time shows and saying they represent all conservatives. I know many decent conservatives who think Fox News is for idiots, just as I know many poor people who are completely responsible and still struggle.
    - greedo 14y ago
      Really? The sentence the judge imposed might be extraordinary, but you can't believe idiotic driving is unusual.
      - mkr-hn 14y ago
        You linked that in response to elemenohpee arguing that debt is not always, or even often, a result of irresponsibility. What exactly are you arguing? What was your goal in linking to that?
        greedo 14y ago
        Elemenohpee was trying to argue that someone who drives without insurance and hits someone wasn't responsible for their actions. If that's an argument you want to back, have at it.
        mkr-hn 14y ago
        It's amazing how two people can read the same thing and come to wildly different conclusions.
        elemenohpee 14y ago
        That's what you want my argument to be, because it would be much easier to dismiss. In reality what I'm saying is that I don't think it's right to have a society that puts crazy amounts of pressure on people and simultaneously refuses to acknowledge the negative influence that those pressures have on behavior.
- philwelch 14y ago
  Funny. I was thinking of the guy who lost his job, lost his wife to leukemia and has all of her medical bills left over, had his car repossessed and his house foreclosed upon, and was just crossing the street to stay the night at his cousin's house when an uninsured driver puts him into the hospital by crushing his body with 2000 pounds of speeding steel.