Land of The Free (1 Viewer)

[drobbins]

Well put.
I spent 5 weeks in Holland in the mid 90s. At first I thought it was just me, but then the others traveling with me noticed - where are the cops? There were so few that, while driving around we actually were trying to find one. We were in Amsterdam at 2:00am Saturday night and saw young ladies riding their bikes by themselves down allies that I wouldn't consider going down in a US city. I compared that to south street in Philly where there is a cop on every corner.

 

[cafink]

Mary was 15 years old when she was conceived?

 

[Eric_L]

This ought to interest you;
YouTube - "55 Saves Lives" Ad Council Dept. of Transportation 1977
Speed Doesn’t Kill The Repeal of the 55-MPH Speed Limit


oh, and the point isn't that speed somehow saves lives - that would be ludicrous. The point is that ridiculous low speed limits do little, if anything, to save lives. If A is false B is not necessarily true. That is why you will not find a 'corresponding' increase in traffic fatalities when speed limits were reduced in the 70s.

 

[Lew Crippen]

My point was that reducing the speed limit was done to reduce energy consumption. That lives were saved or not saved was beside the point (even if stats were used as a furtherance to the argument).

Therefore when you cite the continued decrease in traffic fatalities (after the repeal of the law) as an example of why the reduced speed limit failed (in that it had no—or little effect on saving lives), you are using faulty logic. Put another way:

Major Premise: The 1974, 55 MPH speed limit was put in place to save lives.

Minor Premise: When the law was repealed, traffic deaths continued to decline.

Conclusion: Therefore the law was ineffective.

Is actually:

Major Premise: The 1974, 55 MPH speed limit was put in place to reduce energy consumption.

Minor Premise: When the law was repealed, traffic deaths continued to decline.

Conclusion: Therefore the law was ineffective.

If you wish to argue that the 55 MPH law is an example of bureaucracy run amok, do some research on energy consumption due to automobile use before, during and after the law was in effect.

 

[Eric_L]

I see your point. I agree in principal, however I very much doubt that traffic enforcement was executed with a primary consideration of fuel efficiency. I also am quite certain that it was not fuel efficiency which motivated the people who opposed repealing the federally mandated speed limits.
In retrospect - it is questionable if the reduced speed was an effective way to reduce fuel consumption (or, more specific the cost of fuel consumption) when measured against the other costs of the lower speed.

 

[Lew Crippen]

I'd need to see more data that has been carefully considered before being able to comment. I've seen nothing of any rigor yet.

 

[drobbins]

I remember the reasoning that 55 would save lives also. Even though I was 11 at the time, I thought - lower it to 45 and save more lives - lower it to 25 and save even more lives. Heck even if people were not allowed to drive anymore, someone would still manage to get himself killed by a car. :rolleyes

 

[Eric_L]

I don't feel like it now, but all one would have to do is measure the estimates of how much the economy was improved annually by eliminating the limit vs how much fuel was actually conserved. After adjustments for inflation and fuel costs the answer would be apparent.

Bah - too much work. Maybe someone else has time for it.


oh, and BTW - here is yet another example of puritanical influences/prohibitionists creating laws which have the primary concenquence of turning more innocent people into law breakers, expanding police and government powers, and generally babysitting the 'foolish masses.'
Utah fine-tunes complicated liquor laws - Yahoo! News

 

[KurtEP]

Here's an example of a typical call for more regulation:

Study: Traffic crashes cost billions - Yahoo! News

I wonder if the study considers that for every dollar of medical cost, someone is providing one dollar of medical service and so on. Of course, lives lost, injuries time lost and lost work don't come back, but if you look only on one side of the equation, you skew the community impact. Then, you end up arguing that a person making $20k per year in Arkansas is losing approximately 20% of their income somehow to auto accidents.

 

[Matt Stryker]

Also don't forget that in all but the most developed countries, money = get out of jail free, pass go, and continue doing whatever you were doing before in all but the most open and shut cases. While I would never be so naive to say there is no corruption in the US legal/penal system, it is extremely transparent compared to others around the world.

 

[Joe S.]

The problem Garrett is that drug and DUI arrests usually have mandated sentences that disallow the possibility of early parole. Sometimes these are called "Zero tolerance" or "3 strikes, you're out" or whatever the snappy catch phrase is this cycle. But when you take away a judge's ability to well, judge, and sentence criminals you really screw up the system.

Let's say someone gets picked up for smoking a reefer 3 times in a mandatory sentencing state. So the judge has no choice but to give the person say, 15 years with no possibility for parole. This sentence is mandated by law for 3 time drug offenders. Right after that, he has a murder trial and gives the guy 30 years for killing someone in cold blood.

Now we get to the jail. Both people go in at the same time but the prison is overcrowded. Not enough beds for all the prisoners, so eventually some must go. Since the reefer smoker CANNOT get parole before 15 years served, when they need the space which one gets paroled? If you guessed the murderer after say 10 years served you win a prize. Obviously, the # of years and such that I've used are made up, but you get the point.

This is why the prison population is 70% drug related. Not because there is suddenly so much more drug use in America, but because of the "no tolerance" laws we keep passing. So someone that drops a tab of LSD or gets caught with a 1/4 ounce of weed HAS to serve a full sentence mandated by law; murderers, rapists, car thieves, etc do not face this same limitation. So in effect, by choosing to incarcerate the drug offenses with mandated sentencing and due to limited prison space, we end up not being able to properly hold those violent offenders. Plus, of course, our taxes pay for all of this.

So you see, it does affect us all. Next time you hear a politician running as "tough on crime" be sure and read the fine print for what that means.

 

[drobbins]

Here is some interesting information from the US Dept of Justice. As usual it is not current while they gather info for last year.

 

[Chris Lockwood]

Maybe the US has a higher incarceration rate partly because US prosecutors are more skilled at winning their cases... just a theory.

 

[JeremyErwin]

source

I'm sure it's worth £30 to someone, just not to me.

 

[KurtEP]

Interesting idea. I don't think it's the driving force, though. Prosecutors are limited in a lot of ways in the United States, both by the constitution and ethical considerations. Many of these are not in place in other societies. You'd think the incarceration rate would be a lot higher in a place like Japan, where the police/prosecutors are generally thought to railroad people they think are guilty, but it isn't.

I'm guessing that the problem largely revolves around three factors. First, drug policy. Second, the fact that we aren't as socialist as many of the European countries that have very low crime (maybe less poor/desperate types). Third: The prevailing attitude in the United States that if a policy fails, we need to work harder at it (more jail time, more enforcement) instead of understanding why it failed and perhaps trying from some other angle.

Of course, I'll probably change my mind again tomorrow, and I could be completely wrong in any event.

 

[JeremyErwin]

No, no, you mustn't do that. It would be unamerican.

 

[Eric_L]

edit: (finishes diner, takes more time to read post, blushes a bit)

Interesting study. I agree - not worth $50 or so to read it. Being a student of psychology I have many questions about their methodology - both what they used and what they didn't use. What was the conversation topic? How was it controlled for consistency? How much was the driving impaired? Why didn't they use standard measures such as used in alcohol studies (response time, stopping distance) Why did they use simulators and not real automobiles. Were the subject blind to the nature of the study? What exactly does 'complex but consistent' mean in this study?

edit 2: Did some more digging. For the most part the jury is our whether or not a cell phone conversation is more. less or equally distracting to an in-car conversation or other distractions. Wikipedia has some interesting info on this. I've not found a study which subjects speaking drivers to the same measures as drinking drivers. I also am inclined to believe that it is important for the participants to be blind to the nature of the study. Ahhh, if only I were back in college again.... This would have made for a fascinating senior project.

 

[Lew Crippen]

Yes--too much work.

 

[JeremyErwin]

OK Fine. As long as your cell phone conversational partner can see the road, feel free to talk.

 

[Eric_L]

?