4 ms·

Speed cameras? I dont know, as long as people kill people with their vehicles, speed cameras are a tiny evil.

by sevenzero 5mo ago

somehnguy 5mo ago
Speed cameras or not, what you described will always happen. I would prefer no evil instead of a tiny evil however.
- sevenzero 5mo ago
  Likely yea, but with them at least some idiots too stupid to drive get some degree of punishment.
  - new_account_100 5mo ago
    I don't think punishment benefits society in any way whatsoever.
    - sevenzero 5mo ago
      It's the balance society needs for crime. If punishment doesn't benefit society what do we have to do with criminals in your opinion?
    - ToValueFunfetti 5mo ago
      I get where you're coming from here- I also don't see justice as an inherent good. If somebody kills somebody else, the death penalty will only increase the number of victims by one. It does nothing to undo the crime. Karma isn't real. But you have to think about second order effects. The knowledge that you may be punished afterwards serves as a disincentive for doing the wrong thing now. It may be preferable to convince everyone that they would be punished without actually doing the punishment, but it's not possible. Apart from the death penalty, punishments also can directly teach an individual not to commit the crime again.
      - new_account_100 5mo ago
        Justice is distinct from punishment. Someone who is wronged should be made whole, but I don't think society benefits from violating the violator.
        ToValueFunfetti 5mo ago
        Right, I just responded to that claim. Do you have any thoughts on the disincentivizing effects of punishment? Or, if not, we can be more specific. Imprisonment means that an individual is separated from society, making it much harder for them to commit crimes. Most crime is done by young men, and time spent in prison contributes to age. Issuing a 10-year sentence means directly reducing the number of crimes that occur. Is that not beneficial to society? Or if a CFO embezzles $10M, should society be indifferent to whether taxpayers make the company whole or the CFO does it?
  - cortesoft 5mo ago
    In return for everyone giving up privacy. I need a lot bigger of a return if I am going to give up privacy.
    - sevenzero 5mo ago
      Most of you use a smartphone, you're already giving away most of your privacy...
      - cortesoft 5mo ago
        And I get a lot in return
  - somehnguy 5mo ago
    I don’t believe the juice (some speeding tickets) is worth the squeeze (surveillance dragnet covering the country).
redwall_hp 5mo ago
Most pedestrian deaths aren't from speeding. They occur on high traffic roads where the posted limits are beyond what will most certainly be lethal (45mph+). And growing vehicle mass pushes lower speeds into the lethal range, anyway. (Someone's Yukon is going to kill pedestrians at much lower speeds than a Civic.) Alcohol is involved nearly half the time as well...but the driver is intoxicated only 18% of the time. Usually it's drunk pedestrians stumbling into the road. https://www.cdc.gov/pedestrian-bike-safety/about/pedestrian-safety.html https://www.cdc.gov/pedestrian-bike-safety/about/pedestrian-... Pedestrian fatalities are largely not a vehicle speed issue so much as a street design issue. Cities should be planned so nobody is ever walking near higher speed arterial roads, with crosswalks at controlled intersections, foot bridges over long/wide streets, and separated sidewalks. Then areas that need lower speeds (residential areas, downtown areas with street parking) should use narrower designs. In contrast, the city I live in is primarily built around a handful of four lane streets that all of the businesses are along, with no crossings for miles and places where sidewalks randomly disappear. So you'll see pedestrians standing in the middle of a lane, waiting for a gap to run across the next two lanes. It's wildly dangerous, but the problem has nothing to do with people exceeding the speed limit...and even lowering it would achieve nothing.
SilverElfin 5mo ago
They aren’t a tiny evil. It’s safetyism, and safetyism gets regularly abused to violate our rights. See age verification laws or online censorship for other examples. By promoting safety they get a way to conduct surveillance. And flock isn’t the only company in the surveillance game. How long before cameras and ALPRs for speeding end up being used by ICE to unconstitutionally round up people? Regarding road safety: Many roads have artificially low speed limits to either generate revenue or appease anti car activists. But the benefit of cars, getting us quickly to our destinations, is very clear. Vehicle deaths are very rare, and getting to places quickly matters. I see this a lot on highways especially, where a low speed limit like 55-60 should really be 80. We should be designing for faster, not slower, roads. Safety is always improving due to cars having all kinds of driver assistance features now anyways, but we also could just make roads support the speeds people want to drive at. And then the value of surveillance cameras for safety will also go away.
- sevenzero 5mo ago
  >Vehicle deaths are very rare, and getting to places quickly matters. People not having any sort of empathy on HN shouldn't surprise me not gonna lie.
  - SilverElfin 5mo ago
    This is an ad hominem. It is a fact that road deaths are a small cost relative to the benefit of vehicles. If it weren’t, cars and trucks would be outright banned. Most people prefer to have them around, and prefer them to public transit if they can afford them and if infrastructure exists. If you think even one death should mean the benefits don’t matter, then the only solution is to shut down all of society. There is risk everywhere. One death per 100 million miles is a small risk to most people. But that doesn’t mean we are “not having any sort of empathy”.
mschuster91 5mo ago
Many a local government is known to trap people with no good reason. Place a speed limit sign somewhere it's hard to spot from the road and the road does not indicate a speed limit by e.g. reducing lanes, place a few strategic cops and loot everyone who doesn't have a navigation system with speed hints. Bonus, use the opportunity for some nice civil forfeiture scams.
downrightmike 5mo ago
by this logic we need body cams for every pen owner. Pens are class A weapons after all.

Speed cameras? I dont know, as long as people kill people with their vehicles, speed cameras are a tiny evil.

somehnguy 5mo ago

Speed cameras or not, what you described will always happen. I would prefer no evil instead of a tiny evil however.

sevenzero 5mo ago
Likely yea, but with them at least some idiots too stupid to drive get some degree of punishment.
- new_account_100 5mo ago
  I don't think punishment benefits society in any way whatsoever.
  - sevenzero 5mo ago
    It's the balance society needs for crime. If punishment doesn't benefit society what do we have to do with criminals in your opinion?
  - ToValueFunfetti 5mo ago
    I get where you're coming from here- I also don't see justice as an inherent good. If somebody kills somebody else, the death penalty will only increase the number of victims by one. It does nothing to undo the crime. Karma isn't real. But you have to think about second order effects. The knowledge that you may be punished afterwards serves as a disincentive for doing the wrong thing now. It may be preferable to convince everyone that they would be punished without actually doing the punishment, but it's not possible. Apart from the death penalty, punishments also can directly teach an individual not to commit the crime again.
    - new_account_100 5mo ago
      Justice is distinct from punishment. Someone who is wronged should be made whole, but I don't think society benefits from violating the violator.
      - ToValueFunfetti 5mo ago
        Right, I just responded to that claim. Do you have any thoughts on the disincentivizing effects of punishment? Or, if not, we can be more specific. Imprisonment means that an individual is separated from society, making it much harder for them to commit crimes. Most crime is done by young men, and time spent in prison contributes to age. Issuing a 10-year sentence means directly reducing the number of crimes that occur. Is that not beneficial to society? Or if a CFO embezzles $10M, should society be indifferent to whether taxpayers make the company whole or the CFO does it?
- cortesoft 5mo ago
  In return for everyone giving up privacy. I need a lot bigger of a return if I am going to give up privacy.
  - sevenzero 5mo ago
    Most of you use a smartphone, you're already giving away most of your privacy...
    - cortesoft 5mo ago
      And I get a lot in return
- somehnguy 5mo ago
  I don’t believe the juice (some speeding tickets) is worth the squeeze (surveillance dragnet covering the country).

redwall_hp 5mo ago

Most pedestrian deaths aren't from speeding. They occur on high traffic roads where the posted limits are beyond what will most certainly be lethal (45mph+). And growing vehicle mass pushes lower speeds into the lethal range, anyway. (Someone's Yukon is going to kill pedestrians at much lower speeds than a Civic.) Alcohol is involved nearly half the time as well...but the driver is intoxicated only 18% of the time. Usually it's drunk pedestrians stumbling into the road. https://www.cdc.gov/pedestrian-bike-safety/about/pedestrian-safety.html https://www.cdc.gov/pedestrian-bike-safety/about/pedestrian-... Pedestrian fatalities are largely not a vehicle speed issue so much as a street design issue. Cities should be planned so nobody is ever walking near higher speed arterial roads, with crosswalks at controlled intersections, foot bridges over long/wide streets, and separated sidewalks. Then areas that need lower speeds (residential areas, downtown areas with street parking) should use narrower designs. In contrast, the city I live in is primarily built around a handful of four lane streets that all of the businesses are along, with no crossings for miles and places where sidewalks randomly disappear. So you'll see pedestrians standing in the middle of a lane, waiting for a gap to run across the next two lanes. It's wildly dangerous, but the problem has nothing to do with people exceeding the speed limit...and even lowering it would achieve nothing.

SilverElfin 5mo ago

They aren’t a tiny evil. It’s safetyism, and safetyism gets regularly abused to violate our rights. See age verification laws or online censorship for other examples. By promoting safety they get a way to conduct surveillance. And flock isn’t the only company in the surveillance game. How long before cameras and ALPRs for speeding end up being used by ICE to unconstitutionally round up people? Regarding road safety: Many roads have artificially low speed limits to either generate revenue or appease anti car activists. But the benefit of cars, getting us quickly to our destinations, is very clear. Vehicle deaths are very rare, and getting to places quickly matters. I see this a lot on highways especially, where a low speed limit like 55-60 should really be 80. We should be designing for faster, not slower, roads. Safety is always improving due to cars having all kinds of driver assistance features now anyways, but we also could just make roads support the speeds people want to drive at. And then the value of surveillance cameras for safety will also go away.

sevenzero 5mo ago
>Vehicle deaths are very rare, and getting to places quickly matters. People not having any sort of empathy on HN shouldn't surprise me not gonna lie.
- SilverElfin 5mo ago
  This is an ad hominem. It is a fact that road deaths are a small cost relative to the benefit of vehicles. If it weren’t, cars and trucks would be outright banned. Most people prefer to have them around, and prefer them to public transit if they can afford them and if infrastructure exists. If you think even one death should mean the benefits don’t matter, then the only solution is to shut down all of society. There is risk everywhere. One death per 100 million miles is a small risk to most people. But that doesn’t mean we are “not having any sort of empathy”.

mschuster91 5mo ago

Many a local government is known to trap people with no good reason. Place a speed limit sign somewhere it's hard to spot from the road and the road does not indicate a speed limit by e.g. reducing lanes, place a few strategic cops and loot everyone who doesn't have a navigation system with speed hints. Bonus, use the opportunity for some nice civil forfeiture scams.

downrightmike 5mo ago

by this logic we need body cams for every pen owner. Pens are class A weapons after all.