Absolutely they would. Similarly, an even greater majority of American drivers will disobey road safety laws (most commonly the speed limit) which are statistically shown to mitigate traffic fatalities. In other words, they will buy a ticket to a lottery of potentially killing other human beings solely to increase the perception that they're getting to their destination faster. And why? Mostly, because it's easy and there's rarely consequences.
And then, after they do that, they will spend countless hours writing message board posts on fora all over the Internet about how their speeding tickets are elaborate scams set by the government to raise revenue. Their justifications are almost as elaborate and refined as those of music pirates.
(I'm not on a high-horse here; I speed too.)
"Everyone does it, so it shouldn't be illegal" is --- and this is so obvious I don't even have to provide the most vivid examples --- historically a very dumb argument.
> an even greater majority of American drivers will disobey road safety laws (most commonly the speed limit) which are statistically shown to mitigate traffic fatalities.
And that's far from obvious, actually, especially when it comes to speed limits which you single out. See for example this analysis from the Cato Institute:
> Despite the fact that 33 states raised their speed limits immediately after the repeal of the mandatory federal speed limit, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reported last October that "the traffic death rate dropped to a record low level in 1997." Moreover, the average fatality rate even fell in the states that raised their speed limits.
"Everyone does it" is an important consideration, if only because making regular people into criminals erodes general respect for the rule of law. "Everyone does it" won't outweigh every harm, but it surely outweighs some.
That's what people who speed (ie: most people) say. "This is evidence we should raise the speed limit". And so we do, and state after state runs studies showing that the result of doing that is traffic fatalities.
Similarly, an even greater majority of American drivers will disobey road safety laws (most commonly the speed limit) which are statistically shown to mitigate traffic fatalities. In other words, they will buy a ticket to a lottery of potentially killing other human beings solely to increase the perception that they're getting to their destination faster. And why? Mostly, because it's easy and there's rarely consequences.
But stealing a car always has consequences: someone has one car less. Saying that people would steal cars if the stolen cars didn't disappear from their owners is illogical.
On the other hand, disobeying road safety laws doesn't in fact have consequences most of the time: people rarely get hurt. And it has been demonstrated that people are terrible at evaluating odds. So the situation is far from analogous.
"Everyone does it, so it shouldn't be illegal" is --- and this is so obvious I don't even have to provide the most vivid examples --- historically a very dumb argument.
It's not my argument. I was just questioning parent's claim about stealing cars.
This is just a matter of it being hard for us to weigh the relative values of probabilities. I mean, just getting in a car creates a measurable likelihood that you'll kill someone, but it doesn't bring it to a level that most people would consider worryingly high. Ditto for, say, ironing clothes — you increase the chance that somebody around you will die (e.g. from a fire), but not by enough to ping anyone's conscience. Most people view speeding the same way.
This is not at all the same thing as being willing to steal somebody else's car just because you know you won't get caught. In that case, you know that you are creating immediate harm to that person. People weigh that differently from a vague chance of killing an abstract person.
And then, after they do that, they will spend countless hours writing message board posts on fora all over the Internet about how their speeding tickets are elaborate scams set by the government to raise revenue. Their justifications are almost as elaborate and refined as those of music pirates.
(I'm not on a high-horse here; I speed too.)
"Everyone does it, so it shouldn't be illegal" is --- and this is so obvious I don't even have to provide the most vivid examples --- historically a very dumb argument.