[bengy5959]

Should someone get a ticket for going 66 mph in a 65 zone? I don't really think officer discretion is avoidable to a certain degree. Laws can never be written perfectly. There are always going to be ridiculous edge cases like this where a reasonable person would know the law shouldn't be applied. This is why so much legal precedent is based on what a reasonable person would do or what a reasonable person would assume given a certain situation.

I do agree that the neighbor should not be let off on this, nor am I trying to excuse their behavior. But there are always going to be Karens that call the cops for no reason and the system has to be able to deal with that.

[pdonis]

> Should someone get a ticket for going 66 mph in a 65 zone?

Speed limit laws should not even exist in the first place. They are a paradigmatic example of laws that are unreasonable and should not exist. The fact that it is impossible to enforce them as written, or even with light-years of as written, is one reason for that.

> I don't really think officer discretion is avoidable to a certain degree.

To a certain degree, yes. But it should be limited. In the system we have now, it's not; the scope of laws on the books is huge, to the point that all of us are probably technically violating multiple laws every day, and we are all relying on a huge amount of discretion on the part of law enforcement to allow us to go about our business without continually being interrupted. That's not good.

> there are always going to be Karens that call the cops for no reason and the system has to be able to deal with that.

Yes, and the way to deal with it is to have the law be reasonable. It is not to have lots of unreasonable laws on the books and then hope that law enforcement exercises discretion in practically all cases, only actually prosecuting the "really serious" ones. It's to not have unreasonable laws on the books at all, so when a Karen calls the cops for no reason, the cops can just say "Ma'am, that's not against the law, nothing for us to do."

[emodendroket]

So you think there’s nothing wrong with blowing through a school zone at 150mph? Speed limit laws are clearly flawed in many ways but there is a clear reason why they should exist.

[pdonis]

> So you think there’s nothing wrong with blowing through a school zone at 150mph?

I have said no such thing. Do you really believe that the law is the only thing that defines what's "wrong"?

> Speed limit laws are clearly flawed in many ways but there is a clear reason why they should exist.

No, what is clear is that the law should be written to penalize actual harm. Speed limit laws don't do that. They penalize people who have caused no harm, and because they can only be enforced arbitrarily--who gets stopped for speeding has nothing to do with actual risk reduction--they reduce people's respect for the law in general.

A properly written law for "rules of the road" for speed would be something like this: The posted "speed limit" on any public road is advisory; you cannot be stopped or ticketed simply for driving faster than the posted limit. However, if you are in an accident and it is found that you were exceeding the posted limit, you are presumed to be at fault. (You can still rebut the presumption, but that requires going to court and presenting evidence and having the judge rule in your favor based on that evidence.)

[emodendroket]

By this logic they should let you drive drunk until you hit someone too. I think doing things in your car that have substantial and easily preventable risk to other people should not be allowed.

[pdonis]

> By this logic they should let you drive drunk until you hit someone too.

I have said no such thing. The only implication of my position for drunk driving is that the law should not be able to punish you for it if you cause no harm. But that in no way means that, for example, a cop who sees you driving erratically can't pull you over, give you a breathalyzer test, find out that you're too drunk to drive, and lock your car, making sure that it's safely parked, and then ask you who to call to come pick you up and take you home. He just can't write you a ticket that forces you to either come to court or pay a fine.

It also in no way means that other people have to let you drive drunk. Bars don't have to sell you drinks if you're going to drive. Friends don't have to let you drive drunk. And in a sane society of responsible adults, those kinds of preventions work better than any law possibly can. The fact that our society has so many nanny state laws that micromanage all aspects of life is a sign that we don't live in a sane society of responsible adults.

> I think doing things in your car that have substantial and easily preventable risk to other people should not be allowed

I think you are way too ready to give power to the government, which will abuse it, and the costs of that abuse of power will far outweigh any possible benefit from such laws.

[emodendroket]

I am not sure why a cop pulling you over for driving erratically is any different in principle than a cop pulling you over for traveling at an unsafe speed (again, for the purposes of this example, imagine a truly unsafe speed, not 5 mph over).

[trinovantes]

Speed limits (in North America) are simply the 85th percentile speed of drivers on a specific type of road. The onus should be on the civil engineer who designed the road to make it physically impossible to go 150 in the first place - e.g. narrow/curved lanes, speed bumps, concrete bollards, trees on the sides, etc. If roads are actually designed properly, then speed limit laws are unnecessary because drivers will naturally slow down to avoid damaging their vehicle or themselves.

[emodendroket]

To some extent I agree with you but I think intentionally wild, reckless driving would still exist and need to be controlled even with smarter road design.