[makewavesnotwar]

Sure and while you're at it why not implement cameras all over every roadway to automatically ticket you every time you break the speed limit. Or better yet, why not devise a real time geolocation device to be embedded in cars and then lobby for it to be nationally adopted so people literally can't speed?

The reality is that very few people want to live in that world and even if we do fully adopt technologies like this, it doesn't necessarily make us any safer. A car traveling 30 mph is absolutely as lethal as a car traveling 10 mph faster than that. And I'm much more likely to be killed by a random traffic accident (only time I've been hit on my bike was by a white women driving a Ford) or domestic terrorist/psychopath than an immigrant.

So you're pitching huge lifestyle and diplomatic costs without any obvious benefit... Please count me as a no.

[durkie]

This was something that came up shortly after the Snowden documents were released. I don't remember who made the point (maybe Moxie Marlinspike), but they pointed out how important it is to be able to break the law. That breaking the law is an vital means of effecting change in the US: kids smoke pot illegally and grow up to be adults that push to legalize it. Gay people are more and more open and successfully push for gay marriage. Etc.

So if you take away people's means of breaking the law (such as auto speed-limited cars), it's actually striking at something really fundamental in the ability of the citizens to push for change or to protest. Almost like we want to have just the right amount of law breaking, although I can't imagine anyone associated with public policy ever adopting this stance.

[mc32]

That does not work in states like the PRC or Russia. Indeed, in order to live and go on day-to-day, you must break the law. And people do. But, then when the state wants you, they will selectively enforce the law. That's how it works. Let people break the law, who cares, but when we need to arrest them, lo and behold, look, they've broken several laws!

[Fnoord]

"Qu'on me donne six lignes écrites de la main du plus honnête homme, j'y trouverai de quoi le faire pendre." (If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him.) [1] Attributed to Cardinal Richelieu though authenticity is disputed.

Anyway, dystopian films containing mass surveillance (such as Fahrenheit 451) also cover the very same practice.

[1] https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Cardinal_Richelieu

[rexpop]

Is there a word for this specific legal entrapment?

[therein]

It's called selective enforcement.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selective_enforcement

[rexpop]

I am so grateful for this link! I have been searching for this term on-and-off for years!

[ionised]

Injustice?

[passwd]

Future.

[ff_]

Indeed it was Moxie: https://moxie.org/blog/we-should-all-have-something-to-hide/

[Vinnl]

Right; it's based on the assumption (which I share) that laws aren't perfect, and that the prime way of finding out whether they are is by people breaking them.

The other requirement is the ability to change laws, otherwise this would indeed only enable selective (i.e. seemingly random) enforcement.

[dgzl]

I believe the idea goes "law is created by man, and man is imperfect", or something like that.

[pytyper2]

Civil disobedience is a real thing, the first example that comes to mind is ignoring laws that require a front license plate, specifically because it reduces the likelihood that your vehicle tag will be caught on camera, those automated ticket system might move on to the next plate if they don't get a scan. I totally agree with you.

[empath75]

That’s not civil disobedience. In civil disobedience you blatantly and publicly violate an unjust law with the intention of being punished so that the public will be repulsed by the injustice of it. I don’t think anyone is going to cry for you if you get a ticket for not having a front plate. You’re doing it to avoid the consequences of a separate illegal act.

[pytyper2]

I mostly didn't want to drill holes in the bumper.

[snarfybarfy]

And what kind of right would breaking the speed limit push that citizens could possible want to have changed?

I am all for hardcoded speed limits. Why sell cars that can go faster than $MaxSpeedInYourCountry ???

Other than that I think you made a good point.

[falcolas]

A recent example of where even breaking the speed limit is how laws (or speed limits) are changed:

Recently, our county measured the speed on an 8 mile long rural road. Their conclusion was that there was no need to bump the existing speed limit of 45 up to 55 or 60 (to match similar roads) because people weren't going faster than 45 on it.

Why weren't people going faster than 45 on an empty, rural road? Because the sheriff's department enforced that 45mph speed limit very rigorously, with an average of one speed trap and one roving vehicle.

[tertius]

I'm personally for speed limits and adherence to them, but not capping speeds at the speed limits (and I'm not talking about 150 MPH caps that you find in UK/EU) has edge cases that could be argued like overtaking.

[notahacker]

Exceeding $MaxSpeedInYourCountry on an empty highway isn't where the majority of speeding related accidents occur, so a basic top speed limiter wouldn't do very much anyway. Not to mention that (at least in Europe) people are likely to take their vehicles to a neighbouring country where different speed legislation applies.

[michaelt]

  Why sell cars that can go faster
  than $MaxSpeedInYourCountry ???

Politicians today have three choices:

(1) Set and enforce low speed limits, large numbers of drivers make low-impact complaints.

(2) Set and enforce high speed limits, small numbers of parents of dead children make high-impact complaints.

(3) Set low speed limits but don't enforce them. Anti-speed campaigners and road users are both satisfied.

In my country, politicians tend to go for (3). A switch to (1) would not be without its costs.

[leereeves]

In response to aggressive use of traffic cameras, people in a number of cities and states have passed propositions banning their use.

A switch to (1) might have similar effects, motivating the people to force a switch to (2).

[JoeAltmaier]

Any use of traffic cameras is seen as 'aggressive'. It inevitably results in hundreds of tickets that otherwise wouldn't be written, affecting hundreds of citizens in a way they see as intrusive and 'unfair'. For better or worse.

[HillaryBriss]

not disagreeing with the first part of your statement, but, for the second part, a reasonable remedy would be to simply lower the cost of each violation.

e.g. if almost everyone got speeding tickets, but they only cost $15 and didn't involve any points against the driver's record or insurance premium hikes, people would simply pay up and probably speed less often. complaints about the injustice of speeding tickets would probably remain at current levels.

[JoeAltmaier]

Anarchy! I remember my first time through Chicago at 7PM years ago, merging onto an 11 lane highway with a 45mph speed limit and finding everybody, absolutely everybody, going 80.

Some enforcement has to be done or it gets out of hand ever so quickly

[bsenftner]

Yeah, Los Angeles has no speed limit at all, anywhere. It's basically "don't be a dick, or you'll get pulled over" as your cruising 70 mph next to a cop in a school zone.

[rawoke083600]

Man thats a cool insight !! Never thought about the mechanism like that !

[golergka]

Gay marriage and drug abuse don't kill people. (At least other people, if we jump from weed to opioids). Car speeding does.

[Strongerpass]

I agree in general but I think "A car traveling 30 mph is absolutely as lethal as a car traveling 10 mph faster than that." is a bit weak.

The speed of cars matter, obviously. If you are hit by a car driving 50km/h you will die 8 out of 10 times. If the car is only driving in 30 km/h you will only die 1 out of the 10 times. In other words, it's not a linear scale and the idea that you can drive a bit faster without making yourself substantially more dangerous is incorrect.

[poulsbohemian]

You might be factually correct, but you are misunderstanding the point of the parent poster. What makewavesnotwar is saying is simply that making exaggerated arguments for this technology in the name of making us safer is not a sufficient reason to introduce the technology. Perhaps if they had used larger numbers like 50 MPH relative to 60MPH that point would have been made clearer.

[Strongerpass]

I understood the point well and I agreed with the poster. But in my view, if you are going to argue that we don't need more automated monitoring in traffic then claiming that speed has little impact on fatalities seems quite weird.

[noobermin]

As a pedestrian and cycling advocate, more regulation of cars seems like a good idea for me. That said, the analogy is just that, an analogy so I don't think it's fair to nitpick it.

[Strongerpass]

> A car traveling 30 mph is absolutely as lethal as a car traveling 10 mph faster than that.

What was this an analogy for? I missed it.

[noobermin]

As in makewavesnotwar point about surveillance of the general population and not just immigrants.

[MarkMc]

Plus your chance of being hit at all is much lower at 30km/h because the driver has more time to react.

[karakot]

if you're on a highway, then a car driving 30mph is much more dangerous than one which is 10mph over speed limit.

[Strongerpass]

That's kind of moot, at least where I live. Less than 3% of deaths were caused by this so its not really significant. Pedestrians killed were many times higher for example.

[karakot]

It really depends. In the US pedestrians account ~10% of total number of traffic related deaths.

[monort]

Do you have a statistic confirming that? Most highway deaths are due to speed, not due to driving slow. Driving slow can provoke people behind to do dangerous things, but it's on them, not on a slow driver.

[tertius]

Actually the real problem is differential in speed.

So a car going 80 in a 60 hitting a car going 30 in a 60 is worse than a car going 80 in a 60 hitting a car going 60.

Now I'd rather everyone stay within a narrow limit and not go over the 'limit'.

Differential kills.

[zuminator]

Do you have any support for this argument at all? It seems to overlook the reality of the situation. When one car is in a collision with another, regardless of their relative velocities, when they collide, in a serious accident they will both rapidly decelerate to a speed of zero. That's what the danger is. Their absolute speed has dangers above and beyond their relative velocities -- less control of the vehicle and greater kinetic energy wrt the environment.So, a car traveling at 25 hitting a car moving at 5 may have a 20 kph/mph differential, but the danger is minimal compared to a car traveling at 95 hitting a car at 85, where both vehicles quickly go down to zero, rolling and smashing into barriers and other vehicles along the way.

[tertius]

I'm not saying that differential is all that matters. A car doing zero and one doing 20 in an accident is much better than the 80 vs. 70 example.

What I'm saying is apples to apples.

Speed limit is 60, car doing 50 + car doing 80 is a lot more dangerous than two cars doing 60. In both an accident and in actually causing one to begin with.

I agree with most of what you're saying.

[JoeAltmaier]

Right - a head-on collision between objects of equal mass and velocity is equivalent to one hitting a brick wall (or immovable object) - it loses all its kinetic energy on the spot, turning it into heat and mechanical work (e.g. crushing the car and driver). Objects of slightly different mass or velocity means the work done on each is shifted, the heavier or faster one 'winning' a bit but still. The absolute values of the velocities are hugely important.

[petraeus]

Prime example

Quebec woman who stopped on highway for ducks, causing fatal crash, loses appeal

[adrianN]

Maybe most accidents are due to speed because a lot fewer people drive too slowly.

[rwoodley]

Of course on a web-site for nerds, commentaters are going to focus on an irrelevant technical detail and miss the larger point.

[Strongerpass]

Of course on a web site for nerds, commentators are going to claim that a massive loss of life due to what they consider to be some irrelevant factor is just a technical detail which can be ignored.

[MarkMc]

I don't see how it's an irrelevant detail. If enforcing the speed limit does indeed save lives then I'm more inclined to accept some loss of privacy.

[pjc50]

> why not devise a real time geolocation device to be embedded in cars and then lobby for it to be nationally adopted so people literally can't speed

The insurance companies are absolutely working on this. https://www.moneysupermarket.com/car-insurance/telematics/

In re immigration, the desire for more enforcement will inevitably lead to a national ID system, even if it's a "shadow" one like shadow Facebook profiles. The UK already has requirements for "proof of migration status" if you want to rent somewhere to live or have a bank account, and they keep trying to bring it into healthcare and schools.

In a country where illegal voter purges are a big problem, this will make the situation worse. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/oct/19/georgia-gove...

[hkjayakumar]

> Sure and while you're at it why not implement cameras all over every roadway to automatically ticket you every time you break the speed limit.

This actually exists in many cities around the world like Dubai. Probably not every roadway, but almost all major ones.

[fyfy18]

The traffic cameras used in the UAE are pretty tame compared to other countries. The police there are quite open about what new technologies they adopt (it's a form of propaganda to make it look like they are on par with Western countries) so maybe that's why you think it's something new.

London has had ANPR throughout the city for 15 years, and shortly after it went live in London, the system started being rolled out across the country. Now most police cars have real time ANPR systems, and all police forces have access to track cars in real time across the country. [0]

Recently the police have been 'trialing' facial recognition devices in public locations, however given people are more concerned about privacy than they were 10 years ago, I wouldn't be surprised if they have a much more active system than they make out. [1]

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_number_plate_recog...

[1] https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/facial-recog...

[crististm]

The point being that Dubai is a model for the rest of us? Or, if not them, the UK (London)?

[slededit]

Canada's largest province Ontario tried to implement it, but it was so unpopular the next government reversed the decision. News stations used to call out the location of hidden photo radar vans in an act of mass civil disobedience.

[jobigoud]

In France they are testing radars in vans owned by private companies. Imagine what happens when the incentive is openly about making money.

[sureaboutthis]

And Chicago and all over Illinois highways where road construction is underway (though I doubt they actually use them on the highways).

[diminoten]

Yeah, I never got that particular argument. Speeding isn't like, my favorite hobby or anything, and it's accounted for when setting the speeding limits, so if the police suddenly became extreme sticklers, they'd also likely raise the limits.

Even if they didn't, it'd probably save lives. Fatalities are so much more common at higher speeds, we could all stand to slow down a bit on the road.

[ElBarto]

> Sure and while you're at it why not implement cameras all over every roadway to automatically ticket you every time you break the speed limit.

This is a common and interesting sarcasm.

It is interesting because the law is indeed that drivers should get a ticket every time they break the speed limit (or for any other driving offence).

These technologies enable the law to be applied absolutely for the first time. The law is no longer subject to the major caveat "if caught". You break the speed limit you are fined, you litter you are fined, etc. 100% of the time.

Many people seems uncomfortable with that, which is interesting.

Perhaps the discussion should be about the rule of law, punishment, and leeway rather than technology.

[king07828]

Frustration comes from laws and punishments that are optimized for less than 100% enforcement (i.e., harsh punishments for those who actually get caught) being enforced 100% of the time. Laws and punishments should be updated to account for the likelihood of enforcement.

[LeftTurnSignal]

>> Many people seems uncomfortable with that, which is interesting.

The part I'm uncomfortable with is how do we know that the cameras are setup correctly? What third party company is actually receiving the tickets before sending them out? How much are they getting from each ticket, etc?

Without transparency there's no way to trust them. If there was a way to trust them I'm sure things would be a little different.

[lambdadmitry]

I would also add that that particular sarcasm is deeply American. I've never seen it in the UK (yet) where these cameras are deployed and people generally obey the speed limit.

[snarfybarfy]

While I agree with your general point, I have to take objection to your car analogy.

Whether a car is travelling at 30 or 40mph makes a huge difference.

Kinetic energy is the square of the velocity and it also affects reaction time:

Total stopping distance (reaction time + braking distance):

@30mph = 44 feet + 43 feet = 87 feet

@40mph = 59 feet + 76 feet = 135 feet

Which means that chances are fairly good if you hit something 60 feet away going 30mph, but pretty grim going 40mph (basically full speed impact).

http://www.forensicdynamics.com/stopping-braking-distance-ca...

[dsfyu404ed]

This is wrong. Kinetic energy is not what kills you. Force is not what kills you (the human body can handle triple digit G forces for a short time). Hitting things in the cabin is what kills you. The only way kinetic energy is related is that it also happens to increase with speed.

Using kinetic energy to imply that lethality goes up exponentially with speed is misleading at best.

[snarfybarfy]

Are you by any chance one of those people that still believe seat belts are for sissies?

Because you can just hold tight to the steering wheel?

And yes the kinetic energy per se does not kill you. It's when the kinetic energy gets converted to elastic/inelastic transformation of your head that you die. There is a clear correlation of speed and survivability.

See: http://www.humantransport.org/sidewalks/SpeedKills.htm

5% chance of dying @ 20mph

85% chance of dying @ 40mph

[dsfyu404ed]

>And yes the kinetic energy per se does not kill you. It's when the kinetic energy gets converted to elastic/inelastic transformation of your head that you die. There is a clear correlation of speed and survivability.

Kinetic energy does nothing. NOTHING!

It's all about acceleration (which is roughly interchangeable with force since the mass of the person is constant). The human body can deal with triple digit G forces for a short time (on the order of how long a car crash takes) so long as it's mostly in the forward direction and you have a good harness. They figured this out decades ago when designing escape systems for fighter jets (no point ejecting at Mach 1 if you're gonna get killed when you hit the outside air at that speed).

Of course speed kills when you're talking about hitting pedestrians. When you have several thousand pounds of mass vs a couple hundred the acceleration (and therefore force, because mass is fixes) on the few hundred will depend almost wholly on the speed of the several thousand pounds of mass. It still has exactly nothing to do with kinetic energy. For limited access highways, rural roads and other places pedestrians are not a meaningful concern this is irrelevant.

>Are you by any chance one of those people that still believe seat belts are for sissies?

The people who use straw-men of this caliber in online arguments is a subset of people who should avoid seatbelts if you catch my drift.

[snarfybarfy]

There is the same correlation in regards to vehicle occupants. At some point the kinetic energy becomes so great that the body of the car is unable to absorb it sufficently and then the remaining energy kills you.

No straw men anywhere in my line of argument. Just a cheap dig. Sorry for that.

[dgzl]

> ticket you every time you break the speed limit.

Generally I'm against government spying and tracking, but I really don't think cities could afford the traffic situation of every driver obeying the speed limit. Think about how many commuters exceed the speed limit every single day, and imagine if every person were forced to actually drive the limit at all times. I would expect at least a 10% increase in on-road-traffic at a given time, and that's being conservative. Some places might not be able to support the additional stress on traffic.

Is it time to rethink our speed laws?

[sornaensis]

Perhaps if the speed limits were enforced with nearly 100% efficiency, they might be changed. Until then speeding fines are pretty much state sponsored highway robbery.

[dgzl]

Agreed. I'm convinced that some laws are kept only so they can be used as leverage for police officers to legally interfere with your life/collect revenue. Artificially low speed limits are one I would consider.

[amanaplanacanal]

I believe slower speeds increase the carrying capacity of any stretch of road. But I could be wrong.

[tertius]

"Imagine" isn't data. I wouldn't be so sure.

Rubber necking causes a lot more traffic...

Side note: Stop speeding please. You're endangering other people.

[dgzl]

It's not difficult to work the logic out.

If ##% of commuters exceed the limit to get to work, and they are forced to cease, then the time and highway space they save speeding would instead be added to the overall stress of traffic. That would have ripple effects against people who drive the limit, and would cause everyone to need more commute time. The question comes whether the added stress would be debilitating for other commuters.

Edit: I'm a _very_ conscious and aware driver, and agree that driving fast is dangerous for many people. It's an unfortunate situation we're in, where the busted family wagon must defend against the drunk loony in the sports car. Sometimes however, the drunk loony in the sports car has to defend against the family that's fighting inside the wagon.

[tertius]

I follow the logic, but it's not supported by data.

> and agree that driving fast is dangerous for many people

For all.

[pbourke]

> The reality is that very few people want to live in that world

I suppose I'm in the minority, but I would love to live in a world with fewer impaired drivers and senseless motor vehicle accidents.

[adminu]

Thought further this might lead to a prohibition of manually driven cars and a use of only self-driving cars (talking about the future here).

As allways it boils down to freedom vs. security.

I think, as long as we all live under the same jurisdiction the only way is to find a balance between the more risk averse and the more risk taking people.

We wont find a compromise everyone is happy with, but one that does kind of work for everyone. Not enforcing laws as strictly might calm the moods a little bit where the law goes to far for some.

[dsfyu404ed]

>As always it boils down to freedom vs. security.

No it doesn't. Often you give up 10 freedoms for .01 of anything else.

[buboard]

speed limits and impaired drivers are orthogonal concepts

[crististm]

What I hear is an intentionally cheesy argument against a set of cherry-picked claims that are not even in the original comment.

[kilotaras]

Car traveling 10mph faster carries 77% more kinetic energy that will be transferred into human/other car in case of impact.

It is by no means as lethal.

[tertius]

To a pedestrian?

[jperras]

I believe kilotaras is implying that it is more lethal.

[ukyrgf]

Red light cameras are all over, and apps I can voluntarily install like Waze let me know if I'm going over the speed limit.

[crispyambulance]

There's a sentiment which I see on HN regularly which seems to relish the idea of automated judgement where laws are strict and "objective" and violations are 100% caught, preferably by machine. The argument is that if the law is unfair, it can later be adjusted.

This was most visible in discussion of "smart contracts" where people love the idea of "code-as-law". Unfortunately, it seems to creep into much more personal stuff now, such as using machines to look at everyone's face and know who they are and where they are, all the time.

Whether you agree with automated enforcement or not, the outrageous level of power-imbalance that works against individuals here is disturbing.

[buboard]

But have you thought about the children? you can always pile on more legislation if talk about the children, u can even regulate the games they play and the porn they see. I don't think that barrel has a bottom.

[tertius]

And guess what, children in cars around you don't stop people from speeding and increasing the differential between them and people around them.

Thinking about the children isn't something that people generally do... So parents have to take responsibility and be a lot more cautious on the roads.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3jFqhjaGh30

(I do get your comment on law-creep...) Speeding kills.

[collyw]

>why not implement cameras all over every roadway to automatically ticket you every time you break the speed limit

That already happens in high risk areas. Would it be fair to do it with high risk immigrants (however you define that)?

[naveen99]

The cops would revolt as their revenue would disappear or the voters would revolt as taxes would have to be raised to make up for lost ticket revenue.

Besides eventually they will track everyone, not just immigrants...

[sureaboutthis]

Police departments do not rely on ticket revenue. Cities do. In many cases, a step up in traffic violations is done by a request by a town councilman who may have been pressured by constituents complaining and not revenue.

Source: business contacts with police and relative who is an officer.

[HillaryBriss]

interestingly, in California a large chunk of the revenues from moving violations go to the state.

http://www.allgov.com/usa/ca/news/where-is-the-money-going/w...

[lambdadmitry]

Re: cars: that's a very interesting and deeply American viewpoint. It also smells of rationalization, because the talk of "extra 10mph don't matter" is clearly nonsense and I expect most people here realize that V squared in kinetic energy formula makes 10mph a big deal. So the question becomes — what exactly are you trying to rationalize? Because lower speeds most definitely make people safer.

Not only that, but lowered (and observed) speed limit also helps the environment and public health by encouraging people to cycle. Strictly controlled 20mph speed limit in London is probably the most important reason I like cycling here.

[tertius]

As a non-speeder, cyclists here in the U.S. almost never obey the rules of the road.

[gideonparanoid]

Your experience does not necessarily reflect the reality of it [0].

[0] https://usa.streetsblog.org/2018/01/03/study-cyclists-dont-b...

[tertius]

Ah, cyclists who were monitored break the law only 13% of the time.

[Chico75]

A big reason for that being that they weren't made for them.

[dsfyu404ed]

Well, if that's your excuse then the level of compliance would indicate that they weren't made for cars either.

[0x8BADF00D]

> The reality is that very few people want to live in that world and even if we do fully adopt technologies like this, it doesn't necessarily make us any safer.

Yet they will still freely give you information, their most intimate details, on social media. The sad and bitter truth is that the future will be heavily monitored and totalitarian. And there is nothing that can be done to stop this inevitable course of events.

[fipple]

Count you as a yes, because you don’t have any choice in the matter.

[gwbas1c]

Would be interesting if all cars are robotic.

[ben_w]

Whenever I talk about self driving cars, there is often somebody in the room who feels they represent a loss of freedom.

I’ve never been able to comprehend their position — Is this what they’re talking about?

[illiac_1962]

Yeah. The most perilous stretch I have on my bike is through a neighborhood of million dollar homes with asshole clueless Porsche SUV drivers buzzing around.

[NegativeLatency]

It’s the Audi SUV drivers that give me those most problems on a bike

[leesalminen]

As an Audi driver, I couldn’t agree with you more. Almost all of them are super aggressive, because “the car can handle it”. Sigh.

[killjoywashere]

> it doesn't necessarily make us any safer.

As the Nazis demonstrated, a government so inclined could use this information deluge to make segments of the population infinitely less safe.

[r00fus]

This comment Rings like a bell.

[pytyper2]

"And I'm much more likely to be killed by a random traffic accident (only time I've been hit on my bike was by a white women driving a Ford) or domestic terrorist/psychopath than an immigrant."

Are you using your experience with the Ford to support that claim?

[forapurpose]

> why not implement cameras all over every roadway to automatically ticket you every time you break the speed limit

The recent front-page story about the new bridge connecting to Hong Kong said that, based on camera footage, software identifies people who have yawned three times (or something similar to that) and alerts authorities.