Can traffic fines be logically unjust?

[superccs]

Here's what I am thinking... please let me know if this makes sense to you or if I have broken logic.

Speeding is a victimless crime. Getting caught speeding results in a fine/punishment.
Speeding weakly correlates with increased probability of an harmful collision (victim part).
When you are caught speeding (no victim), there is no evidence to link your behavior with someone else's or your own physical harm.

This just seems like the Tom Cruise movie where people are arrested on thought crimes based on their likelihood of committing harm in the future.

Does this mean that speeding is a nonsense law? Should speeding be legal unless you commit harm?

Thanks, and no I did not recently receive a speeding ticket.

 

[TreyRandom]

Here's what I am thinking... please let me know if this makes sense to you or if I have broken logic.

Speeding is a victimless crime. Getting caught speeding results in a fine/punishment.
Speeding weakly correlates with increased probability of an harmful collision (victim part).
When you are caught speeding (no victim), there is no evidence to link your behavior with someone else's or your own physical harm.

This just seems like the Tom Cruise movie where people are arrested on thought crimes based on their likelihood of committing harm in the future.

Does this mean that speeding is a nonsense law? Should speeding be legal unless you commit harm?

Thanks, and no I did not recently receive a speeding ticket.

Should running red lights be legal unless you commit harm? After all, it's a "victimless crime", right?

Should firing bullets into a crowd (or anywhere else you want) be legal unless you commit harm? After all, it's a "victimless crime", right?

There's a reason why speed limits exist... and it's not just to cramp your lifestyle.

 

[Genx87]

Should running red lights be legal unless you commit harm? After all, it's a "victimless crime", right?

Should firing bullets into a crowd (or anywhere else you want) be legal unless you commit harm? After all, it's a "victimless crime", right?

There's a reason why speed limits exist... and it's not just to cramp your lifestyle.

And what reason is that?

 

[xj0hnx]

And what reason is that?

To control people that are too stupid to realize that they can hurt others. In a perfect world where all people have the utmost responsibility, yes they would be non-sense crimes. Unfortunately people are too stupid to not do shit that harms others. There are however many laws that should be stricken from the books because they are retarded.

 

[Genx87]

To control people that are too stupid to realize that they can hurt others. In a perfect world where all people have the utmost responsibility, yes they would be non-sense crimes. Unfortunately people are too stupid to not do shit that harms others.

So in other words just like the OP stated. Criminalizing something based on a possible harmful outcome. Instead of an actual harmful outcome.

 

[xj0hnx]

So in other words just like the OP stated. Criminalizing something based on a possible harmful outcome. Instead of an actual harmful outcome.

Yip. I don't agree with it, just stating why people do it.

 

[sactoking]

Does this mean that speeding is a nonsense law? Should speeding be legal unless you commit harm?

Colliding with someone potentially causes harm, regardless of speed. The more speed involved, the higher the chance of harm and the greater the potential magnitude of harm. There is a causal relationship between speed and frequency of harm as well as speed and magnitude of harm. As such, speed is regulated on a deterrent basis to reduce the frequency of harmful events as well as the magnitude of harmful events.

From an "individualist" viewpoint it is a "victimless" crime punishing the violator for potential harm but from the collectivist viewpoint of society speeding definitely is not victimless and enforcement does actually lower both frequency and magnitude.

 

[Paul98]

So in other words just like the OP stated. Criminalizing something based on a possible harmful outcome. Instead of an actual harmful outcome.

This is a good thing if done with correctly actually taking the scenario into account. If you have someone shooting towards a crowd you would want to stop them, and make it a crime to do that BEFORE someone is harmed. Not have to wait till there is someone hit for it to be a crime.

Speeding down a busy road with lots of traffic should be against the law. Speeding down an empty road where you can see a long ways around you should not. You should be able to go through a red light if there are no other cars around that you can see. Where you should get a ticket if you drive through a red light if you don't slow down, or there are other cars around.

 

[Cerpin Taxt]

Logics |= Ethics

/thread

 

[woolfe9999]

Negligence isn't victimless. Speed limits deter negligence.

 

[MomentsofSanity]

Speeding is victimless? The other day a friend of mine was driving down a highway. She signaled and prepared to turn left into a driveway. Behind her some jack off was driving about twice the posted speed limit when he came over the crest of the little hill and she was right there beginning her turn. Now there was a sign warning of hidden driveways so motorists would take caution approaching the area as cars may be stopped to turn.

Both cars were destroyed and my friend will be lucky to live a normal life again because the victimless speeding meant there was no time for this asshat to stop.

 

[woolfe9999]

Speeding is victimless? The other day a friend of mine was driving down a highway. She signaled and prepared to turn left into a driveway. Behind her some jack off was driving about twice the posted speed limit when he came over the crest of the little hill and she was right there beginning her turn. Now there was a sign warning of hidden driveways so motorists would take caution approaching the area as cars may be stopped to turn.

Both cars were destroyed and my friend will be lucky to live a normal life again because the victimless speeding meant there was no time for this asshat to stop.

Lives and health are irrelevant. People should be free to do whatever they want even if it *does* hurt other people.

On a serious note, I'm sorry to hear your friend was badly hurt.

- wolf

 

[MomentsofSanity]

And what reason is that?

Speed limits are not just arbitrary numbers that get slapped on a stretch of road. Traffic engineers make calculated educated decision on what is an appropriate speed for safe travel on a stretch of road. I don't know how many times I've been on a winding stretch of road and some moron drifts out into the oncoming lane in front of me because he was ignoring the posted speeds for that stretch and couldn't safely navigate the change in road condition.

To say speeding weakly correlates with increase risk of harm is asinine. it is one of the top contributing factors to traffic accidents. Your reaction time decreases and your ability to safely control your vehicle can be severely impacted on stretch of road.

I don't want you to follow the speed limits to save yourself. I don't want you to kill my wife and children because you can't be bothered to follow the law.

 

[fskimospy]

So in other words just like the OP stated. Criminalizing something based on a possible harmful outcome. Instead of an actual harmful outcome.

It causes actual harm to society. If you knew that no one obeyed red lights it would not only make you less likely to travel by car at all (most likely), but it would also cause you to treat intersections far differently and far less efficiently. Everyone would crawl through them because nobody would want to get T-boned by someone ignoring a red light on the other road.

There are plenty of countries that don't use traffic signals or have people that simply ignore them. Their traffic is a complete clusterfuck. Enforcing rules to make people drive responsibly makes our roadways safer and more efficient, and fining people is the way we do it.

 

[Cerpin Taxt]

We need to deregulate the traffic market. Let the invisible hand of the Free Market take care of things. It's the best way.

 

[her209]

OK, let's assume you're only ticketed if you get into an accident. What punishment should you get when you kill someone? 2nd degree murder?

 

[GoPackGo]

As far as speed goes, when you hit someone the only difference is what you get to see at the funeral.

 

[Infohawk]

Logics |= Ethics

/thread

Ethics is moral philosophy. Logic is certainly a tool used to study ethics.

We need to deregulate the traffic market. Let the invisible hand of the Free Market take care of things. It's the best way.

(I guess you didn't think that was really the end of the thread.) But you're sarcasm is well-directed. Yeah a most basic function of government is to tell people which side of the road to drive on. It would be absurd to let everyone choose their own side.

What I do think is unfair lately is the actual price of speeding ticket. (It can be nearly $500 with traffic school.) This is quite a burden to poor and middle class people. It seems designed mostly to fund government than to deter since the point system is already a good deterrent not to get multiple speeding tickets.

 

[Genx87]

It causes actual harm to society. If you knew that no one obeyed red lights it would not only make you less likely to travel by car at all (most likely), but it would also cause you to treat intersections far differently and far less efficiently. Everyone would crawl through them because nobody would want to get T-boned by someone ignoring a red light on the other road.

There are plenty of countries that don't use traffic signals or have people that simply ignore them. Their traffic is a complete clusterfuck. Enforcing rules to make people drive responsibly makes our roadways safer and more efficient, and fining people is the way we do it.

But we arent discussing traffic lights. Which serve a purpose of traffic flow control. We are discussing a speed limit which criminalizes going above an arbitary limit.

For the record I am not against speed limits. However it is an interesting academic discussion on criminalizing behavior based on a "potential" act.

 

[Genx87]

Speed limits are not just arbitrary numbers that get slapped on a stretch of road. Traffic engineers make calculated educated decision on what is an appropriate speed for safe travel on a stretch of road. I don't know how many times I've been on a winding stretch of road and some moron drifts out into the oncoming lane in front of me because he was ignoring the posted speeds for that stretch and couldn't safely navigate the change in road condition.

To say speeding weakly correlates with increase risk of harm is asinine. it is one of the top contributing factors to traffic accidents. Your reaction time decreases and your ability to safely control your vehicle can be severely impacted on stretch of road.

I don't want you to follow the speed limits to save yourself. I don't want you to kill my wife and children because you can't be bothered to follow the law.

They are arbritary though. The same stretch of highway can have its limit raised or lowered. Or if you cross state lines it changes. Why? It is the same stretch of road.

That said, clearly reckless driving is reckless driving regardless of a speed limit law. In both of your examples people were driving too fast and reckless. And guess what? A speed limit did nothing to stop them either.

 

[fskimospy]

But we arent discussing traffic lights. Which serve a purpose of traffic flow control. We are discussing a speed limit which criminalizes going above an arbitary limit.

For the record I am not against speed limits. However it is an interesting academic discussion on criminalizing behavior based on a "potential" act.

Other people mentioned traffic lights which is why I brought them up. Traffic fines aren't crimes, btw though. They are civil infractions. We do this pretty often in all aspects of life. Loitering can be fined, vagrancy, etc. Even with cars we can fine you for not having your car maintained properly, even though those are also mostly for the potential troubles it could cause other people.

While I certainly admit that the concept of a pre-emptive punishment is something that should be employed judiciously due to the obvious potential for abuse, it most certainly has a place.

 

[Infohawk]

They are arbritary though. The same stretch of highway can have its limit raised or lowered.

Maybe the EXACT speed is arbitrary, but so what? That doesn't make the principle arbitrary. For example, the age of adulthood of 18 is arbitrary. One could make it 17 or 19. There's nothing universal that happens to people at 18. So maybe some people think 17 could be the age of adulthood but nobody would say 10 should be.

 

[MomentsofSanity]

They are arbritary though. The same stretch of highway can have its limit raised or lowered. Or if you cross state lines it changes. Why? It is the same stretch of road.

That said, clearly reckless driving is reckless driving regardless of a speed limit law. In both of your examples people were driving too fast and reckless. And guess what? A speed limit did nothing to stop them either.

They most certain hare not arbitrary and continual saying so doesn't make it fact.

As for your second comment. Show me any single law that is never broken. Fnd me one example. Just one in existence. They are a deterrent, not an absolute for prevention. That deterrent works by enforcingthe law which, in this case, carries a financial penalty. Hve a look at some countries in europe. Speeding will get you a find based on your income. Some in the tens to hundreds of thousands That's a pretty weak argument to make. By that logic people still kill other people so why do we have murder laws?

And one other thing. The argument that we arrest or charge people o nwhat we believe they are going to do. So are you people in favor of not arresting potential terrorists for simply planning out an attack?

 

[CycloWizard]

Speed limits are not just arbitrary numbers that get slapped on a stretch of road. Traffic engineers make calculated educated decision on what is an appropriate speed for safe travel on a stretch of road. I don't know how many times I've been on a winding stretch of road and some moron drifts out into the oncoming lane in front of me because he was ignoring the posted speeds for that stretch and couldn't safely navigate the change in road condition.

To say speeding weakly correlates with increase risk of harm is asinine. it is one of the top contributing factors to traffic accidents. Your reaction time decreases and your ability to safely control your vehicle can be severely impacted on stretch of road.

I don't want you to follow the speed limits to save yourself. I don't want you to kill my wife and children because you can't be bothered to follow the law.

Traffic engineers virtually never set speed limits anymore. This used to be the case, but now they generally set a maximum safe speed for the road, then some bureaucrat chooses an arbitrary limit lower than that. The fact that speed limits exist, yet speeding is still a major contributor to accidents is simply proof that the current speed limit laws are useless, except to generate revenue for the states. Drive the interstates in rural Illinois some time and tell me why the speed limits there are 65, but in Indiana on an equivalent road it's 70. The reason is simple: Illinois needs the cash, so they keep the speed limits low and their officers line up to hand out tickets.

 

[lord_emperor]

But we arent discussing traffic lights. Which serve a purpose of traffic flow control. We are discussing a speed limit which criminalizes going above an arbitary limit.

For the record I am not against speed limits. However it is an interesting academic discussion on criminalizing behavior based on a "potential" act.

The speed limit isn't arbitrary, research goes into it to determine a safe limit based on road conditions, neighbourhood and things like that. You're not allowed to go 90Km/h in a city because people may be turning into traffic, pedestrians crossing the street etc.

Edit: Beaten by several posters while typing.