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spamizbad | 2 months ago

Yeah I feel like the United States could dramatically improve its road safety if it kept maybe 1-3% of its drivers off the road permanently.

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cultofmetatron|2 months ago

the problem is that our urban planning is so F@#$ed that taking away someone's ability to drive is tantamount to sentencing someone to poverty. In most of the country, you are completely dependent on a car to hold down a job, get groceries and pretty much anything else. In most other countries, not having a car is a mild to moderate inconvenience you can work around.

dns_snek|2 months ago

That's not a good reason. Other forms of criminality and reckless behavior don't get this kind of extreme leniency.

People shouldn't have their license taken away over 1 speeding ticket but there need to be escalating punishments that include license suspension, community service, jail time. If someone works their way through all of these and still ends up speeding then they can't be trusted to drive a vehicle on public roads.

estimator7292|2 months ago

Why do we care about this type of sentencing to poverty and not every other way we condemn our citizens to poverty, homelessness, starvation, and death?

Maybe that shouldn't be the only alternative in our society

BobaFloutist|2 months ago

>the problem is that our urban planning is so F@#$ed that taking away someone's ability to drive is tantamount to sentencing someone to poverty.

We're talking about NYC, they'll be fine without cars.

SubmarineClub|2 months ago

Sounds like a good reason not to commit traffic crimes then.

Start punishing these people severely so that they might serve as an example to the rest

spamizbad|2 months ago

If my choice is jail or relocate and find a new job and home in a city with passable public transit (even if its just the bus) I know which one I'd pick.

littlestymaar|2 months ago

The problem is how do you enforce that though.

The modern world is so cat centric people would rather drive without a license than accept to live without a car. And until you can reliably catch and jail license-less drivers, the bet is worth it for them.

randerson|2 months ago

If they were to catch and jail just 1% of license-less drivers, in a visible way, it would be a deterrent to the other 99%. But the rate of being caught & punished is negligible (at least in the states I've lived in) so people know they'll get away with it.

I previously lived in a country where the cops set up random roadblocks to check everyone's license & registration and look for signs of intoxication. When there's a real risk of waking up in a jail cell you're less likely to order that third beer. But in the US when renewing my tabs I feel like the joke's on me because half the cars here seem to have expired tabs or illegal plates and nobody ever checks.

buildbot|2 months ago

> "The modern world is so cat centric"

If only