Police Details, Cameras, & Enforcement Methods

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Equilibria said:
Lots of people in this City and on this website brag about living a car-free LIFESTYLE. If being car-free is one, then not being car-free is also one.

Again, my point is not that speeding is a lifestyle, and it's not that this is a bad law as written. My point (as you state pretty well) is that speeding is not a crime like rape or enslavement, it is something that every driver on the highway is typically doing 100% of the time. Laws against speeding are meaningless in the United States - actual enforcement is a contract between cops and drivers that the real speed limit is 10-20 mph higher than posted and occasionally some people will get pulled over at a speed trap or something to pretend that the law matters. The other way enforcement actually happens is through the design of roads that make it actively uncomfortable to drive faster than the design speed, but that's not a matter of law, it's a matter of road design.

I'm all for designing infrastructure that prevents people from being killed, I just think we can do that without demonizing 70% of the population. I understand that that's an unpopular opinion on a website where people suggest responding to tragedies by locking people up without trial.


Both of you are functionally making the same argument here. Since all people who drive are taught by life experience (and more or less by driver's ed) that speeding is just a part of driving, then every driver is a speeder. I'm absolutely lumping commuters into a lifestyle punctuated by misdemeanors (though not felonies), because everyone on the highway must commit a misdemeanor the whole time they're on that road to avoid getting honked at and given the finger by people passing them. The suggestion that it is possible for basically anyone to live in a less-dense area and make your critical trips in a car and not ever exceed the speed limit is absurd with the way we have built our society (and the social contract, which speeding is 100% baked into). We're having a conversation about speeding, not running red lights, passing school buses, driving in bike lanes, driving on sidewalks, driving on the wrong side of the road, or intentionally ramming people with your car. They are not equivalent acts, the way the law is currently enforced does not make them equal, and FWIW neither does the proposed law, which limits the size of camera-enforced fines and doesn't allow insurance companies to assign points for them.
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While I agree we can do without demonizing 70% of the population (even if we wish to advocate for change), and while I agree that what you post here is one promising perspective on what's happening with speeding, I do not think the "social contract" view is the only view.

I offer a different view (which is not necessarily mutually exclusive from yours):
EVERY measurement has a tolerance. And there is necessarily a wide tolerance band on this particular measurement (though I will admit it is wider than needed). Not only do instruments have accuracy and precision limitations, but, as is more operative in this case, borderline measurements would be contested like crazy. I do not want my government mired in dispute cases for speeds 2MPH above the limit. A lot of less economically advantaged people drive, and it is worth their time to contest such things (as is the case with parking tickets). It is almost impossible for the government to "prove" measurements that close to the limit. So, social contract or no social contract, we were not going to be issuing tickets for small infractions.

On the flipside, without any speed limits, there are plenty of kids who are going to drive 110MPH because its fun and they are inexperienced. So, while there may be a social contract that we can go 15MPH over highway speeds, there is sure as hell seriousness taken that we can't drive 110MPH. So, yes, speed limits still serve a purpose.

A speed camera need not be much different from a cop with a radar gun: put a large tolerance on it, and it's not a violation of the social contract.
But here's a key difference: with the human cop, you know there's a tolerance buffer, but you don't know precisely what it is, so you back off a notch or two from what you ultimately think you can get away with ....but with the speed camera, it's more likely to be algorithmic and therefore able to be determined. So it becomes obliged that the speed camera's tolerance be set slightly lower than the typical cop's, else, the effect of installing the camera with a known tolerance is, in fact, everyone driving slightly faster than they otherwise would have (all else equal). And so it is that slight obligatory lowering of the buffer that would probably piss everyone off.
 
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Equilibria said:
Lots of people in this City and on this website brag about living a car-free LIFESTYLE. If being car-free is one, then not being car-free is also one.

Again, my point is not that speeding is a lifestyle, and it's not that this is a bad law as written. My point (as you state pretty well) is that speeding is not a crime like rape or enslavement, it is something that every driver on the highway is typically doing 100% of the time. Laws against speeding are meaningless in the United States - actual enforcement is a contract between cops and drivers that the real speed limit is 10-20 mph higher than posted and occasionally some people will get pulled over at a speed trap or something to pretend that the law matters. The other way enforcement actually happens is through the design of roads that make it actively uncomfortable to drive faster than the design speed, but that's not a matter of law, it's a matter of road design.

I'm all for designing infrastructure that prevents people from being killed, I just think we can do that without demonizing 70% of the population.


Both of you are functionally making the same argument here. Since all people who drive are taught by life experience (and more or less by driver's ed) that speeding is just a part of driving, then every driver is a speeder. I'm absolutely lumping commuters into a lifestyle punctuated by misdemeanors (though not felonies), because everyone on the highway must commit a misdemeanor the whole time they're on that road to avoid getting honked at and given the finger by people passing them. The suggestion that it is possible for basically anyone to live in a less-dense area and make your critical trips in a car and not ever exceed the speed limit is absurd with the way we have built our society (and the social contract, which speeding is 100% baked into). We're having a conversation about speeding, not running red lights, passing school buses, driving in bike lanes, driving on sidewalks, driving on the wrong side of the road, or intentionally ramming people with your car. They are not equivalent acts, the way the law is currently enforced does not make them equal, and FWIW neither does the proposed law, which limits the size of camera-enforced fines and doesn't allow insurance companies to assign points for them.
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So... What are you arguing for, exactly?

Let's clarify a couple of points - the new camera law excludes highways, so they're irrelevant to the discussion at hand - there should be no vulnerable road users there anyways. The law as written accepts that speeding is a reality - otherwise it wouldn't give you a +11 mph margin, +6 in school zones. That excludes the vast majority of speeding in MA, and we already accept that school zones should have lower tolerances - otherwise they wouldn't have 20mph limits on otherwise 35+mph roads. You also can't assign Merit points to a driver because you can't verify the identity of someone behind the wheel when you can't check their license. That part is like a parking ticket - it's a fine for the registered owner of the car for allowing it to be driven at speed, or to occupy a parking space without paying - the mechanics just don't allow fault to be attributed.

So let's simplify - the law as written isn't necessarily what's enforced, right? Much like speeding, Boston also has a long standing traditions of jaywalking. But it's undisputed that both are against the law. Most will not dispute that a statie running traffic on I-90 has the right to pull you over for doing 90, you might grumble if they did at 80, and at 70 you might fight the ticket. There's a margin to these things, but it's a reasonable public policy objective to reduce speeding in the Commonwealth - saturation patrols of staties funded by federal grants to reduce speeds in the name of public safety, as well as targeted enforcement in suburban neighborhoods that complain about local speeds are common. The catch is, in general that is a game of odds- the odds being there isn't a cop around to observe you break the law in the moment. But if you see flashing blue lights down the road? I've never met a driver who doesn't at least lift off the gas and slow down somewhat because of the potential of a ticket - and no one gets upset by that.

But a camera? Installing a camera in this case is basically akin to stationing a cop 24/7 with a radar gun at one very specific 100 ft stretch of road with strict instructions to always issue a ticket for anyone speeding above +11, but also without identifying the driver. You being fined is a practical certainty - and that certainty will act as a powerful deterrent, that will likely carry into zones not so monitored.

You're not directly penalizing or charging anyone for living somewhere that requires driving. There's nothing forcing you to speed to excess. Perhaps it's worth a conversation about our highway speed limits - if 75% do 75 in a 65 zone on I90, perhaps that should be the limit. But doing so would likely mean less tolerance, right? Would you be opposed to a more strictly enforced yet higher limit? Appropriate limits should exist generally, but if they're not enforced they don't exist. But on our existing regional numbered roads? I doubt this will affect 85+% of existing traffic /drivers on those roads.
 
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bigpicture7 said:
While I agree we can do without demonizing 70% of the population (even if we wish to advocate for change), and while I agree that what you post here is one promising perspective on what's happening with speeding, I do not think the "social contract" view is the only view.

I offer a different view (which is not necessarily mutually exclusive from yours):
EVERY measurement has a tolerance. And there is necessarily a wide tolerance band on this particular measurement (though I will admit it is wider than needed). Not only do instruments have accuracy and precision limitations, but, as is more operative in this case, borderline measurements would be contested like crazy. I do not want my government mired in dispute cases for speeds 2MPH above the limit. A lot of less economically advantaged people drive, and it is worth their time to contest such things (as is the case with parking tickets). It is almost impossible for the government to "prove" measurements that close to the limit. So, social contract or no social contract, we were not going to be issuing tickets for small infractions.

On the flipside, without any speed limits, there are plenty of kids who are going to drive 110MPH because its fun and they are inexperienced. So, while there may be a social contract that we can go 15MPH over highway speeds, there is sure as hell seriousness taken that we can't drive 110MPH. So, yes, speed limits still serve a purpose.

A speed camera need not be much different from a cop with a radar gun: put a large tolerance on it, and it's not a violation of the social contract.
But here's a key difference: with the human cop, you know there's a tolerance buffer, but you don't know precisely what it is, so you back off a notch or two from what you ultimately think you can get away with ....but with the speed camera, it's more likely to be algorithmic and therefore able to be determined. So it becomes obliged that the speed camera's tolerance be set slightly lower than the typical cop's, else, the effect of installing the camera with a known tolerance is, in fact, everyone driving slightly faster than they otherwise would have (all else equal). And so it is that slight oligatory lowering of the buffer that would probably piss everyone off.
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I don't disagree with you, but I'm questioning the relationship between what is obviously acceptable (27 in a 25) and what is obviously not (110 on any road) and the speed limit. I'd argue that the thresholds of acceptability are defined by intuition and societal norms (in the context of the design of the road), not by the speed limit, and the speed limit is rarely set with any real relation to what we consider an unacceptably fast speed. This is literally what Germany does with the autobahn - they don't have speed limits and things work fine, at least as compared to US roads. I think the same thing would work here - if you got rid of speed limits on Interstates outside of urban areas tomorrow, people probably wouldn't go much faster than they do now and crashes, fatalities, and serious injuries wouldn't go up. Similarly, if you said the speed limit is 90 and will be strictly enforced by cameras (or speed governors, even) I don't think that many people would even start driving near that speed, since it's about 10 mph beyond what all but the most reckless drivers will consider doing.

Stlin said:
So... What are you arguing for, exactly?

Let's clarify a couple of points - the new camera law excludes highways, so they're irrelevant to the discussion at hand - there should be no vulnerable road users there anyways. The law as written accepts that speeding is a reality - otherwise it wouldn't give you a +11 mph margin, +6 in school zones. That excludes the vast majority of speeding in MA, and we already accept that school zones should have lower tolerances - otherwise they wouldn't have 20mph limits on otherwise 35+mph roads. You also can't assign Merit points to a driver because you can't verify the identity of someone behind the wheel when you can't check their license. That part is like a parking ticket - it's a fine for the registered owner of the car for allowing it to be driven at speed, or to occupy a parking space without paying - the mechanics just don't allow fault to be attributed.

So let's simplify - the law as written isn't necessarily what's enforced, right? Much like speeding, Boston also has a long standing traditions of jaywalking. But it's undisputed that both are against the law. Most will not dispute that a statie running traffic on I-90 has the right to pull you over for doing 90, you might grumble if they did at 80, and at 70 you might fight the ticket. There's a margin to these things, but it's a reasonable public policy objective to reduce speeding in the Commonwealth - saturation patrols of staties funded by federal grants to reduce speeds in the name of public safety, as well as targeted enforcement in suburban neighborhoods that complain about local speeds are common. The catch is, in general that is a game of odds- the odds being there isn't a cop around to observe you break the law in the moment. But if you see flashing blue lights down the road? I've never met a driver who doesn't at least lift off the gas and slow down somewhat because of the potential of a ticket - and no one gets upset by that.

But a camera? Installing a camera in this case is basically akin to stationing a cop 24/7 with a radar gun at one very specific 100 ft stretch of road with strict instructions to always issue a ticket for anyone speeding above +11, but also without identifying the driver. You being fined is a practical certainty - and that certainty will act as a powerful deterrent, that will likely carry into zones not so monitored.

You're not directly penalizing or charging anyone for living somewhere that requires driving. There's nothing forcing you to speed to excess. Perhaps it's worth a conversation about our highway speed limits and appropriate limits generally, but on our regional numbered roads? I doubt this will affect 85+% of drivers on those roads.
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I'm not arguing for or against anything. This didn't start with a discussion of this particular law, it started with someone saying that any law that's "great for everyone that's not in a car" is inherently good.

The reality is that when this passes every town will still have to have a City Council vote or town meeting or something about this. It's going to be argued about a ton all over the state.
 
Equilibria said:
This is literally what Germany does with the autobahn - they don't have speed limits and things work fine, at least as compared to US roads...
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Well, for one, their highways are not chock full of American-style full-size SUVs and pickup trucks. They tend to drive much better handling and braking vehicles...

This said, the Autobahn does always make an interesting comparison case. I just don't think it drops in place in the U.S., vehicle-wise, culture-wise, driving skills-wise, etc.
 
I look forward to spending $100 to buy a reflective license plate cover and never getting pulled over for that because there still won't be any enforcement of actual traffic laws.
 
393b40 said:
I look forward to spending $100 to buy a reflective license plate cover and never getting pulled over for that because there still won't be any enforcement of actual traffic laws.
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I see these on parked cars in NY and I sometimes put a little piece of duct tape on their hood to teach them a lesson. (Can’t be taken off without wrecking the paint.)
 
393b40 said:
I look forward to spending $100 to buy a reflective license plate cover and never getting pulled over for that because there still won't be any enforcement of actual traffic laws.
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damn i look forward to unscrewing it from your car
 
If we're going to kvetch about government putting their thumbs on the scale for particular "lifestyle choices", I don't think drivers have much room to complain.

On the one hand, drivers may face slightly more accountability if they're excessively speeding on certain roads in some municipalities.

On the other hand, accessing my daughter's daycare that is 1 mile as the crow flies from our house requires taking an infrequent bus or walking/biking 3 miles to get around a massive piece of auto infrastructure, with a paltry gutter lane bike lane for .25 miles of that, never shoveled sidewalks, which are only on 1 side of the road (and changing which side 3 times) for 1 mile and no sidewalk at all for a 650ft stretch. This is my experience living next to a heavy rail rapid transit station. I have it good. This is a pretty heavy example, but there are a million little ways in which drivers are specifically catered to at the explicit expense of walking, biking, and transit. Greater Boston may be better than most of the country for living car-free, but it still comes at significant government imposed cost to your time and safety.

All of that said, it's not wrong that as planners, advocates, and regular folks who just want to be able to have the option to actually make a lifestyle choice rather than be forced into a particular one, we need better communications and messaging. If small chipping away at the margins of government enforced auto-dependency such as we've had in the last 10-15 years is met with such consistent hostility, with every victory requiring an energy and resource sucking battle, then we're never going to actually give people the freedom to make driving one of several possible lifestyle choices. We're going to get burned out and lose.
 
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393b40 said:
I look forward to spending $100 to buy a reflective license plate cover and never getting pulled over for that because there still won't be any enforcement of actual traffic laws.
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It's wild how quickly people are willing to admit to lawbreaking and reckless behavior as soon as their right to drive a car anywhere at any speed is brought into question.
 
Equilibria said:
Lots of people in this City and on this website brag about living a car-free LIFESTYLE. If being car-free is one, then not being car-free is also one.

…
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Your assertion that “If being car-free is one, then not being car-free is also one,” is not at all true.

The reason I don’t consider driving to be a “lifestyle” in the United States is because it is a deeply dominant institution for which our country is built, almost universally, to cater to, unquestionably.

Saying driving is a lifestyle in the United States is like saying using a smartphone, wearing shoes, or sleeping in a bed is a lifesyle.

Saying living car-free is a lifestyle is like saying going smartphone-free, or barefoot running, or not owning a bed in your home is a lifestyle.

At any rate, this is a distraction. Nobody is attacking the “lifestyle” of car drivers, even if it was a lifestyle. Policies that ban cell phones from schools aren’t attacking the lifestyle of cell phone users. They are defining their use in a way that, ideally, is better for society.
 
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Jeremi said:
lol internet tough guy here
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I dunno man calling the police doesn't exactly make me "tough". You're the one interpreting that in a weird way.

Also rich considering you are promoting vigilante justice 🤣🤡
 
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sneijder said:
It's wild how quickly people are willing to admit to lawbreaking and reckless behavior as soon as their right to drive a car anywhere at any speed is brought into question.
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It's kind of funny how a lot of people also came out of the wood work to suggest how OK they are with a much more serious crimes of trespass and vandalism. Potentially one that could count as a felony if it damages the paint and costs enough.

thepixelnation said:
damn i look forward to unscrewing it from your car
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Jeremi said:
I see these on parked cars in NY and I sometimes put a little piece of duct tape on their hood to teach them a lesson. (Can’t be taken off without wrecking the paint.)
Click to expand...
 
sneijder said:
It's wild how quickly people are willing to admit to lawbreaking and reckless behavior as soon as their right to drive a car anywhere at any speed is brought into question.
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Probably a city cop or some wannabe douchebag with the thin blue line sticker in his back window. There’s almost no one on the planet with more contempt for traffic laws than them and it explains in large part why traffic enforcement is so lax. God forbid they risk jamming up one of their own.
 
393b40 said:
It's kind of funny how a lot of people also came out of the wood work to suggest how OK they are with a much more serious crimes of trespass and vandalism. Potentially one that could count as a felony if it damages the paint and costs enough.
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Speeding kills tens of thousands of Americans each year. The only metrics by which it’s less “serious” than trespass and vandalism is just how prevalent it is in society and how our justice system treats it. In practice, it’s a much more serious scourge on our society. But I know we won’t see eye to eye on that.

At any rate, that’s a distraction. Vandalism, trespassing, speeding, and illegally modifying a vehicle to evade speeding consequences are all unacceptable behaviors and do not reflect a mature, stable, or well-functioning member of society. These actions should be strongly discouraged.
 
Equilibria said:
I'd argue that the thresholds of acceptability are defined by intuition and societal norms (in the context of the design of the road), not by the speed limit, and the speed limit is rarely set with any real relation to what we consider an unacceptably fast speed.
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Yeah, this is exactly the problem. Drivers (who are a substantial portion of voters) will get pissed off when the posted speed limit has no relationship to the road design and then they get fined for missing a sign. A huge amount of speed limits in Massachusetts are not intuitive based on road conditions.


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bigeman312 said:
At any rate, that’s a distraction. Vandalism, trespassing, speeding, and illegally modifying a vehicle to evade speeding consequences are all unacceptable behaviors and do not reflect a mature, stable, or well-functioning member of society. These actions should be strongly discouraged.
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100% of people who drive regularly exceed the speed limit. The flow of traffic we design our roads for (70 mph on highways) typically exceeds the speed limit. This statement is ridiculous.

Saying things like this kind of proves my point: this conversation is really about hating people whose lifestyle choices (and sometimes they aren't by choice) require them to drive.
 
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