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topherPedersen | 10 months ago

Thank God. People on the roads are extremely reckless and we don't do anything about it. Our highways are lawless for the most part. People can drive however they feel like it. You literally have to kill someone AND be drunk before you actually get in trouble and are locked up. If you kill someone sober though, it's totally fine under our current system.

In my opinion, if you get caught driving recklessly, the punishment should be that you're banned from operating 4 wheel vehicles, and only allowed to operate light 2 wheel vehicles like scooters where you will only kill yourself and no one else.

discuss

order

Aurornis|10 months ago

> In my opinion, if you get caught driving recklessly, the punishment should be that you're banned from operating 4 wheel vehicles,

This sounds good if you imagine perfect enforcement, but reckless driving can be a very subjective charge depending on the location.

Driving scooters to work is impossible in many places due to distance or weather. Making everyone’s livelihood hinge upon one officer on a power trip giving them a reckless driving ticket is not a good idea.

DCH3416|10 months ago

>Driving scooters to work is impossible in many places due to distance or weather.

People do this all over the world. Maybe some folks need to take a moment to deal with a little discomfort. Or better yet, build out infrastructure so people have better options.

shkkmo|10 months ago

Tickets can be disputed and many people make a livelihood without a vehicle.

I think current penalties for reckless driving are far too lenient. Driving is not a right, but a privilege. If someone chooses to use that privilege irresponsibly, they should lose that privilege.

Personally, I would advocate for a license revocal process that happens much quicker than what we do now and provides a mechanism for regaining access to that privilege through a rigorous process of eduction and community service.

CalRobert|10 months ago

What's remarkable is that we already effectively banned kids from playing outside and drivers still kill many of the few that still try.

Aurornis|10 months ago

As a parent, these comments are always so weird to read. Kids play outside, including unsupervised still. Kids getting hit by drivers is statistically very rare (though no less tragic)

Suggesting that “many” of the kids who “try” to play outside get killed by cars is the kind of conclusion you can only arrive at by living life through hyperbolic headlines or the dramatic evening news.

jjulius|10 months ago

>... we already effectively banned kids from playing outside...

Do what now?

1970-01-01|10 months ago

>Our highways are lawless for the most part. People can drive however they feel like it. You literally have to kill someone AND be drunk before you actually get in trouble and are locked up.

You don't know what you are saying. Virginia already has the strongest speeding laws in the entire United States. Doing 20 over is a criminal act, and entire law practices exist due to Virginia' speed laws.

https://law.lis.virginia.gov/vacode/title46.2/chapter8/secti...

WarOnPrivacy|10 months ago

> Virginia already has the strongest speeding laws in the entire United States. Doing 20 over is a criminal act, and entire law practices exist due to Virginia' speed laws.

Absolutely. Grew up in VA a few generations ago and it was just as strict then. Compared to everywhere else I've lived - Virginia is Police Everywhere, All The Time.

austin-cheney|10 months ago

This sounds like high anxiety nonsense to mommy the rest of us.

Our highways are not lawless. They are among the most regulated areas of daily human life in the US after accounting for both criminal and civil penalties. Whether people abide by those regulations is a different matter, but to say its lawless is a wild fantasy of people who probably shouldn't be on the roads in the first place.

akaru|10 months ago

We speak of the Wild West as “lawless”. I assure you there were very much laws against murder and theft then. They just had sporadic enforcement. Much as roads and highways are in many parts of the country. In California I see racing, 100mph driving, weaving like mad. In the ride home from the airport I watched teenagers race and crash. Drunk driving all over wine country. Never once saw anyone like this pulled over.

kube-system|10 months ago

Traffic law enforcement is a highly localized issue in the US. While there are places that will pull people over for going 5mph over and traffic is calm and orderly, there are also places where traffic laws are rarely enforced. In major cities it is not hard to find roads where severe traffic violations are routine (speeding 20mph+ over, driving on the shoulder, running red lights, etc).

eftychis|10 months ago

I think allowing 2 wheel is not a good idea in those cases. In fact you should be even better to be allowed for 2 by I digress. You can still kill pedestrians and passers by.

The other issue is that in a lot of countries speed limits are arbitrary: either too low or too high for the area. Speed limits are not dynamic and usually are actually set so that a percentage of traffic violates them. Or are set once and never adjusted.

States in the US are culprits of all above issues. Plus the lack of alternative transportation. So this whole topic is a Pandora's box that doesn't take easy solutions.

AngryData|10 months ago

Thats really only true for people with money. The problem isn't that current laws are insufficient, it is that the US justice system is largely based on profit motives, and people with money can make prosecutions against them unprofitable to push. You can bet your butt that if you went in to those same cases without the money to draw everything out for years that they would hammer you with fines and fees and programs and jail time.