The police in Estonia have started a pilot program, where people who do not currently have a record of bad driving can be issued a time out instead of a fine. If you are caught going up to 20kmh over the limit you incur a 45 minute wait, 21 - 40 kmh over would be a 60 minute wait.
It is an interesting idea.
Lol that's hilarious. If you're late and speeding to get somewhere on time, they'll make you wait twice as long as if you had driven normally.
Do you have to drive your car to a corner and think about what you just did?
Only question is how would they enforce it? Seems like it would be a waste of a cop's time to sit there and watch or continually drive back and forth by where you are to check on you.
Otherwise, not really a bad idea. A time-out is good psychology.
They could take the driver's keys and bring them back in 45 minutes. You better hope the officer doesn't get tied up in an emergency .
Quote from: giant_mtb on October 03, 2019, 11:04:22 AM
Only question is how would they enforce it? Seems like it would be a waste of a cop's time to sit there and watch or continually drive back and forth by where you are to check on you.
Otherwise, not really a bad idea. A time-out is good psychology.
Time is precious to everyone.
Quote from: RomanChariot on October 03, 2019, 12:09:05 PM
They could take the driver's keys and bring them back in 45 minutes. You better hope the officer doesn't get tied up in an emergency .
Yeahhhh that's not a good solution, either. For that reason.
Quote from: giant_mtb on October 03, 2019, 11:04:22 AM
Only question is how would they enforce it? Seems like it would be a waste of a cop's time to sit there and watch or continually drive back and forth by where you are to check on you.
Otherwise, not really a bad idea. A time-out is good psychology.
Cars could be mandated to have a timer built into the software.
This assumes that every car on the road has enough fancy software controlling it that some sort of timer could be programmed in...not gonna happen.
"Alright, everybody! You all are required to go to your dealership to have this BS piece of software installed so we can put you in time-out if you get pulled over for speeding!"
Good luck.
Quote from: giant_mtb on October 03, 2019, 02:52:57 PM
This assumes that every car on the road has enough fancy software controlling it that some sort of timer could be programmed in...not gonna happen.
"Alright, everybody! You all are required to go to your dealership to have this BS piece of software installed so we can put you in time-out if you get pulled over for speeding!"
Good luck.
I will go full-on luddite and drive only old, diesel powered cars. In fact, might want to do that, anyway.
Quote from: Galaxy on October 03, 2019, 10:26:07 AM
The police in Estonia have started a pilot program, where people who do not currently have a record of bad driving can be issued a time out instead of a fine. If you are caught going up to 20kmh over the limit you incur a 45 minute wait, 21 - 40 kmh over would be a 60 minute wait.
It is an interesting idea.
I bet that for a lot of people, this would be a more effective penalty than a fine. I know I would rather pay a fine at current levels than be forced to delay myself for an extended period.
But there are definitely practical and logistical issues. How would it be administered and enforced? Would the person just sit at the side of the road for that time? Must the police officer come back to retuning the keys? What if he can't go back, loses the keys, etc.? Lots could go wrong.
Maybe offenders could be brought to the police station to sit out their time out there. That would be a lot like the detention room where I spent some hours after school in high school. But that required a minder also.
In a sense, we already have this penalty for some violators, who either have to do community service or spend time in retraining classes. There aren't that many basic ways to punish people andost of us have experienced various forms of time out punishment in our lives.
When driving in Estonia, carry a book...just in case. You may need to kill some time.
I agree that the idea would be more effective than a fine for many people, but yes the logistics of it seem terrible.
Quote from: dazzleman on October 03, 2019, 05:42:42 PM
Maybe offenders could be brought to the police station to sit out their time out there. That would be a lot like the detention room where I spent some hours after school in high school. But that required a minder also.
No. Getting somebody from their car on the side of the road and booked into a holding cell alone is gonna take 45-60 minutes. Then they need to be driven back to their car right away. Not gonna happen.
Quote from: giant_mtb on October 03, 2019, 06:17:39 PM
No. Getting somebody from their car on the side of the road and booked into a holding cell alone is gonna take 45-60 minutes. Then they need to be driven back to their car right away. Not gonna happen.
I agree. It's completely impractical. The only thing that could possibly work is to assign offenders a common time to report to serve their time out in a group, similar to the way we were told to report after school to serve the detention time we had been assigned. I still don't see it happening for routine offenses because it would be an expense to administer while fines are income.
Quote from: FoMoJo on October 03, 2019, 06:01:24 PM
When driving in Estonia, carry a book...just in case. You may need to kill some time.
:lol: It''s like what the dean of discipline used to say to us at the beginning of our detention sessions at school..."Make sure you have something to do. You'really going to be her a LONG time.... :lol:
Quote from: giant_mtb on October 03, 2019, 12:39:08 PM
Yeahhhh that's not a good solution, either. For that reason.
Truckers have long been subject to 24-hour shutdown penalties for abusing the service hours rules. Truck gets parked, trailer doors get sealed, and the tires get chalked. If you move the truck or attempt to unload it in that time, it gets impounded.
Quote from: Soup DeVille on October 04, 2019, 07:11:48 AM
Truckers have long been subject to 24-hour shutdown penalties for abusing the service hours rules. Truck gets parked, trailer doors get sealed, and the tires get chalked. If you move the truck or attempt to unload it in that time, it gets impounded.
Yeah, I got that once for forgetting to fill out my day off in my logbook. It was completely unsafe. It threw my sleep schedule so out of wack that I had to start driving again when I would have normally been going to sleep.
Quote from: Soup DeVille on October 04, 2019, 07:11:48 AM
Truckers have long been subject to 24-hour shutdown penalties for abusing the service hours rules. Truck gets parked, trailer doors get sealed, and the tires get chalked. If you move the truck or attempt to unload it in that time, it gets impounded.
The cops could buy massive rolls of gorilla tape and tape the offending vehicle to the ground/guardrail/pole
Quote from: CaminoRacer on October 04, 2019, 10:04:10 AM
The cops could buy massive rolls of gorilla tape and tape the offending vehicle to the ground/guardrail/pole
*buys gorilla tape stock*
This wouldn't work in the U.S. Let's say an elementary school teacher is forced to show up to school at 9 am instead of 7 am because he/she was forced to wait in a holding station for a clocked one hour. The school has to get a substitute teacher and kids' lesson plan is delayed. It impacts the school and the students more than the teacher itself.
Also it runs counter to one of the main reasons for traffic enforcement. The monetary funding of the city.
Quote from: veeman on October 04, 2019, 04:45:00 PM
This wouldn't work in the U.S. Let's say an elementary school teacher is forced to show up to school at 9 am instead of 7 am because he/she was forced to wait in a holding station for a clocked one hour. The school has to get a substitute teacher and kids' lesson plan is delayed. It impacts the school and the students more than the teacher itself.
Also it runs counter to one of the main reasons for traffic enforcement. The monetary funding of the city.
The problems with on-the-spot time outs for traffic violations are massive and it would never work out. It could only work if people were required to report back later to do the time out. But that would require running a baby sitting service that cost money. You last point is the most salient - lack of revenue from it. Maybe they could charge a fee for the privilege of serving a time out. I don't see it taking hold, though. It seems a bit juvenile anyway. And we already do it for more serious offenses, since mandatory retraining classes are a form of time out.
They could force people to watch a driver's ed video on a tablet that tracked the GPS location to make sure they didn't move and then they have to answer quiz questions or something at the end to make sure they actually did it and finished the timeout. The only problem is returning the tablet. Maybe they could use an Amazon drone in reverse, where it will come at the very end and pick up the tablet and take it back to the police station or the cop car where it is at that time.
Quote from: veeman on October 04, 2019, 04:45:00 PM
This wouldn't work in the U.S. Let's say an elementary school teacher is forced to show up to school at 9 am instead of 7 am because he/she was forced to wait in a holding station for a clocked one hour. The school has to get a substitute teacher and kids' lesson plan is delayed. It impacts the school and the students more than the teacher itself.
Also it runs counter to one of the main reasons for traffic enforcement. The monetary funding of the city.
The point of the time out is to cause significant inconvenience. "Pain", if you will. Otherwise, it's not a punishment. Don't want to be a guaranteed hour late to work? Don't speed.
Quote from: MX793 on October 05, 2019, 03:38:46 AM
The point of the time out is to cause significant inconvenience. "Pain", if you will. Otherwise, it's not a punishment. Don't want to be a guaranteed hour late to work? Don't speed.
Yes, I think a time out has to be very inconvenient to be effective. But time outs are also very inconvenient for those who have to administer them, one way or another.
I got a fair number of after school detention in high school, which was basically a time out. The first 3 years, the rule was the if you got a detention, it had to be served that day. You had to cancel whatever other after school plans you had to go to sit in your time out. The last year of high school, since seniors often had a lot of outside obligations, there was an unofficial policy that allowed us to reschedule our detentions to times that were more convenient if we had other obligations after school on a particular day. The effectiveness of the punishment greatly declined because of that. So I think your point is very correct.
But the larger question is, would inflicting a potentially great inconvenience on people for minor transgressions really serve a larger beneficial purpose? Probably not. The logistical and practical problems with the idea really seem to surpass any good that it could do.
"sorry I was late for your heart surgery, got caught speeding, had to be in time-out"
Though, I imagine they'd give the option...do you want a ticket or a time out.
Quote from: giant_mtb on October 05, 2019, 09:35:37 AM
"sorry I was late for your heart surgery, got caught speeding, had to be in time-out"
Though, I imagine they'd give the option...do you want a ticket or a time out.
I would probably choose a fine over a time out in most cases.