Author Topic: "Do you know who I am?"  (Read 2266 times)

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Offline KevShmev

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Re: "Do you know who I am?"
« Reply #35 on: April 23, 2013, 02:40:50 PM »
I have no doubt that speeding tickets are given out more for reaching a quota than for public safety, just like sobriety checkpoints are more about money than safety, but public safety can still be an effect of the actions regardless.  Every time there is a sobriety checkpoint, word gets around quickly that day beforehand, and many people who might have drank too much and then driven, scale back on the drinking, and the roads are safer, at least that night.  That is a good thing.

Online El Barto

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Re: "Do you know who I am?"
« Reply #36 on: April 23, 2013, 03:31:01 PM »
The solution is to set speed limits at the 85th percentile mark, where they belong, and then enforce them strictly. That's where everybody drives anyway, and it's because that's what road conditions allow for. The problem is that the number of drivers you can jack up drops to only 15%, which is bad for business.
You are pretty much the biggest cynic I've ever encountered. Every. Single. Post.
That's great. Now, do you actually disagree with me that speeding tickets are more a function of revenue generation that public safety? Just because I'm often cynical (I prefer to think of myself as pragmatic, BTW) doesn't mean that I'm not often right.
I am not sure what I think. Can you cite any evidence for your claim? In my experience, I've found that (1) the people I've seen get pulled over were speeding, and (2) the speed limit usually matches the flow of traffic anyway.

EDIT: And (3), can you show that this applies to most cities? I've no doubt there exists corruption somewhere, but do you think this is true pretty much everywhere?
No, not really. I can tell you that the flow of traffic isn't related at all to speed limits. Like I said before, people drive the speed they're comfortable driving, up to the point where the fear of a ticket checks them. This has been confirmed in numerous studies, where average speeds remained constant after the posted limits were changed.

All I can really go by is what I've seen and some common sense. I can point to a dozen places in Dallas I'd like to see some enforcement. Never happen. They're all in places that'd be considered high volume. One place I never, ever see speedtraps? Residential neighborhoods. Despite the fact that's where they'd be most useful, you'll never fill a quota that way.
Argument, the presentation of reasonable views, never makes headway against conviction, and conviction takes no part in argument because it knows.
E.F. Benson