[chank]

> Enforcing traffic laws is good, actually. Automated enforcement is even better so that we don't need to use armed police and can enforce consistently.

We don't use armed police to enforce traffic laws. Police mainly monitor traffic as a revenue device. It's already been proven that monitoring traffic and automating fines in fact promotes reckless driving and causes more accidents than it stops.

[spankalee]

> We don't use armed police to enforce traffic laws.

In what world? In the US "manual" traffic enforcement is almost exclusively done by armed police and sheriffs. Unarmed civilian traffic enforcement is only done in Berkeley, CA, and a town in Minnesota, afaik.

> It's already been proven that monitoring traffic and automating fines in fact promotes reckless driving and causes more accidents than it stops.

Do you have a citation for that? There are numerous studies that show significant drops in accident rates in areas with red light cameras. On the order of 10-23%!

- https://tti.tamu.edu/researcher/tti-study-underscores-safety... - https://information.auditor.ca.gov/pdfs/reports/2001-125.pdf

[jimmaswell]

They are all armed in the US at least.

[chank]

Do they really stop you at gun-point to get you to pull over? Didn't think so. Of course police are armed. You're taking the comment to literally.