A New (Hillarious) Low

[rohan]

It was hyberbole. Obviously people get speeding tickets in LA.

Nope.  He wrote it out in plain english - UNHEARD OF. 
He didn't say practically or rarely he was very clear and he said they do "VERY LITTLE TRAFFIC CONTROL."  Which is wrong also.

[Tave]

I'm pretty sure you know what hyperbole means, which makes this all the more confusing...

[rohan]

Whatever dude.  All I know is everytime he gets called out with actual facts you come to his rescue.  Make a guy wonder.

[Tave]

What?

[James Young]

bing_oh writes:

. . .what the hell were we talking about, again? Oh yea...you don't like speed limits. SPEED LIMITS. How, exactly, does increasing speed limits like you want "improve the human condition?"

Speed limits are but a mere symptom of the real issue:  abuse of public trust for profit or political power.  To be legitimate, law must be equitable and reasonable, that is, it must be based in fact and it must treat similar acts in a similar manner.  I?ll address briefly two major sections of law that are emblematic of this process.  Speed limits have never been a part of the uniform rule of right of way but were added later in an attempt to drive the newly invented horseless carriage out of existence because they were scaring livestock.  Obviously, that failed.  They have since been excused by saving tires, saving fuel, limiting drive times and therefore controlling urban sprawl, limiting air pollution, and, oh yes, beginning in the early 1950s by safety.  It seems the National Safety Council was hitting some financial crisis and cooked up this scheme of ?Speed Kills!? to get more donations.  Turns out, their claim was wrong but its legacy haunts us to this day.

The facts are unavoidable:  speed limits do not contribute to traffic safety and, as presently set, actively undermine safety because they are set below the minimum point of the crash incidence curve. 

About $100 billion a year flows from motorists to some government agency although all the LEOs here claim they never see any of it and don?t do their job because of it.  However, somewhere in the hierarchy, somebody is making that decision to generate that money and somebody keeps that money because it never comes back to the motorists.

So, we have an irrational law ? limits set irrationally, violating all kinds of scientific theory ? and we have somebody making $100 billion a year.  Yet, the public gains nothing from having speed limits in place because they do not work.  Not one of the posters here or anywhere else has been able to make a solid case that speed limits contribute a significant positive to public safety.

Let?s sum this up:  arbitrary speed limits cost the public $100 billion a year, they contribute immeasurable contempt for that law, which morph into contempt for other laws in general, they cost an immeasurable amount in lost productivity (over $1 trillion during the lifetime of the NMSL), and they contribute nothing to elevate public safety.

This is clearly abuse of the public trust, is not equitable and is certainly not reasonable.

A similar situation arises with RLCs, a situation predicted by the theory that explains why we have traffic laws based on unfounded assumptions, bad science and a lot of greed.  RLCs are installed where they will yield the greatest number of violations rather than at the most dangerous intersections.  Then, frequently, the yellow light times are reduced in order to generate more violations.  The number of rear-end crashes at these locations increase and the photos are taken at less than 1 second of red rather than the 4-5 seconds where T-bone crashes occur.  (See Rep. Dick Armey and Texas Transportation Institute) Washington, DC, generates about $2 million a month in revenue from this, openly touted as a revenue gimmick.

Again, the public loses money, suffers more crashes, pays higher insurance rates and gains nothing.  Even the dullest person can do the calculus as to the driving force behind this.

"The criminals who wear the badge." Puh-leese! Yes, show me all of the criminals in LE.

Do you deny that there are cops who have been reprimanded, terminated or incarcerated because of their conduct?  ?The vast majority of LEOs sincerely believe in what they are doing and that it is the best course for society,?  -- these were my words.  Why you want to argue something I didn?t say is a very curious situation, perhaps one that you?d like to explore. 

By the way, while I personally disagree with the idea of "professional courtesy," there's nothing corrupt about it. Have YOU ever gotten a warning for a traffic violation? Was THAT warning a form of corruption?

How disingenuous can you get?  If I am given a warning it is because the LEO internalized some reason of importance to him.  The reason LEOs get off with little more than a nod is because they are cops.  The distinction is critical.

Every violation we see, we stop. Every person we stop, we cite. No excuses. No warnings. No slack. Sound good to you?

Sounds stupid to me; you?d never get out of the lot.  I urge LE to do that however, because it would upset so many people that reform would begin the next day.  To coin a phrase, you can piss off the goose that laid the golden egg so much until it says ?No more!?

I don't have a Captain. We don't have a "PR guy. . . So, once again, your obtuse world of political corruption and vast government/insurance conspiracy theories falls apart. Oops.

So, I guess that I just imagined those dozen or so ?legislative affairs officers? for the Texas DPS in Austin or those police captains and chiefs who sat in the California Assembly in Sacramento, telling them of the carnage that would ensue if NMSL were rescinded.

I ask you, if a legislator supports a bill that actively harms the public but which financially helps somebody who donated that legislator a bunch of money, is that not corruption?  I believe it is and I believe we should root it out.  You?re the one to bring up the ?government/insurance conspiracy.?  It is not a conspiracy and doesn?t have to be to operate for their mutual benefit, even if the public is harmed.  Once again, you overstate my case. 

Guess we disagree with about everything tonight. I dont' see much reason in anything you advocate.

Actually, no, you can speak with impunity (and frequently do, from what I've seen). There's no expectation that waht you say is accurate or true.

Actually, I don?t want you to believe me.  I want you to discover it for yourself.  Do the research to find out how effective speed limits are vis-?-vis public safety.   You won?t do it, of course, because you?re unable to challenge your own beliefs.   Just think how stressful it would be when you learn that you?ve been lied to almost all your life.

If you think I?m wrong, prove it.  Not with stupid anecdotes or hounddog?s puerile comments, but with real science and verifiable facts.  I?ll be away for a couple of weeks so you have plenty of time to build up a solid paper.  Be sure to cite your references.

[James Young]

Once again you are full of shit.

Wow, I guess all those PR and rah-rah sites proved me wrong.

[James Young]

To be fair, I think he's saying that traffic isn't as big of a concern as other crimes. Not that they never do traffic enforcement.


It's probably true of any large city. I can get away with driving a lot faster in Phoenix or Denver than I can in my hometown.

That's fair.  The whole point was that LAPD is severely undermanned so they don't waste a lot of time and resources on traffic AND despite that their diminished effort has had no effect on fatality rates at all.  I've driven in LA off and on for 20 years and have never been stopped. 

[TurboDan]

Ugh.  I started this thread to lighten things up a little bit.  James, can you just be happy that the homeless guy living in the NYPD car won't give you a ticket?

[Vinsanity]

JY: I have to disagree with you somewhat about the traffic enforcement in LA. Although not prevalent, it's entirely possible to get caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. I got 2 speeding tickets during the 2 years I drove in L.A. Both during the wee hours in the morning, and both on streets with artificially low speed limits, to the point that it's utterly ridiculous (Howard Hughes Blvd right after the 405 offramp, and Redondo Beach Blvd alongside El Camino College). And there is at least one infamous speed trap that I can remember (San Vicente Blvd in Brentwood), so I just wanted to clarify that L.A. isn't as traffic-enforcement-free as you may have made it sound.