I disagree strongly with your example, which also ruins your point for me. I think you should find a different example than one based in motornormativity, saying some laws are fine to break as long as it's behind a wheel.
I was not saying there is anything special about being behind the wheel that makes it ok to break a law. I used that example because it fits with the 'low enforcement rate but a high penalty to make up for the low enforcement rate' combo.
How about an example like playing poker for money with friends? Illegal in most places where gambling is illegal, but people do it all the time. The laws might make sense if we think casinos are bad for society and want to prevent them, but think occasional gambling amongst friends is fine.
The current laws don't carve out home poker games because there was never a need to; there was no way to enforce the law against small friend groups gambling. If there suddenly became a way, we would need to re-write the laws to permit home games.
Yes, I like those examples better. Speeding and the danger cars impress on society is something many of us want to be handled stricter.
One other example for me could be something like drinking alcohol in a public place. It's never enforced if people are just enjoying a beer quietly during a picnic and bother no one. However if sound equipment mounted in trees could detect the opening of a can and write a ticket, I would feel the law obviously would need to be amended.
If we start pervasive automated enforcement of speed limits everywhere, it is most likely to hit poorer Americans as a regressive tax.
We haven't redesigned our cities to be non-car centric, with good public transportation and street design that favors lower speeds. But we've got a bunch of people running around wanting to severely punish anyone breaking the speed limits (because "fuck cars" means holding individual people responsible for being born in a car-centric society). The result will be that one morning they'll wake up and have to deal with how much they've punitively hurt the working poor in this country. I guess that'll be okay though because that "in this house" rainbow flag in their window means that they care.
The poorest often don't own a car. Yet another way a car-centric society punishes them, as you often need a car to do normal functions. I don't get why car-proponents often push other groups in front of them to argue their case. Also see it all the time with parking. "You can't remove parking, think of HC parking!", "We will actually double the amount of HC parking and make the area more accessible when we remove other on-street parking", "oh".
But not breaking the law when driving is something people are in full control of themselves. I don't buy the premise that it's a regressive tax. Yes, some laws disproportionately hit certain demographics, but not speeding is not one of those.
> I guess that'll be okay though because that "in this house" rainbow flag in their window means that they care
I'm not sure what you mean by that? Are you conflating lgbt stuff into a comment about cars and technological advancements in enforcement, or am I misunderstanding what you mean?
The poorest may not, but the working poor are likely to be highly dependent on some cheap, old vehicle.
> Yes, some laws disproportionately hit certain demographics, but not speeding is not one of those.
WFH software developers are probably going to be hit a lot less than someone who needs to drive from where the cheap rents are to the job site every day.
And that was a comment on performative liberalism.
And the "if the penalty for a crime is a fine, then that law only exists for the lower class" aphorism applies.
> And the "if the penalty for a crime is a fine, then that law only exists for the lower class" aphorism applies.
This is the kind of thing that's only repeated by slumming upper-class children, the same ones who live in Brooklyn, have leftist podcasts, and think it's actively good when you see someone smoking crack on the subway because it's "cool".
Actual working class people don't like it when other working class people speed near them or commit crimes!
(It's also a very American statement, because in other countries the upper class is not the people with the most money, it's the people with the most tradition and social status. Or they own a lot of land but are cash poor.)
> Actual working class people don't like it when other working class people speed near them
Survey 100 working class Americans and ask if they think another working class American should receive a ticket for driving 65 in a 55 on an Interstate.
I’d be shocked if even 5% of them wanted that outcome.
50 in a 25? Sure. 100 in a 55? Sure. But I doubt they want perfect enforcement, which is the topic being discussed here.
I have no problem with strict enforcement of current speed limits in residential areas. But speed limits on controlled access highways in many states are set ridiculously low. When government officials try to claim that a 65mph limit on a flat, straight freeway is necessary for "safety" it's obvious that they're being disingenuous and this is just a revenue grab. It breeds contempt for the law among the driving public and is ultimately counterproductive.
The emissions and efficiency difference between 55, 60, 65, and 70mph are significant and cannot be understated. It makes such a real difference for air quality that TEXAS (the state that hates regulation and built the monstrosity called the Katy freeway) has a reduced speed limit in some metro areas for air quality reasons.
In fact, the reason most national highways have a speedlimit of 50mph, even out in the boonies in Kansas where everything is flat and straight, is because of the fuel crisis of the 70s.
When I was a child, I was curious why highways were 50mph but the interstates had a speedlimit of 65-70mph, so I went and found out instead of assuming it was a disingenous revenue grab.
Most interstates were generally built after the fuel crisis, and they modified the national speed limit in 1988, setting the speed to 65mph, again for efficiency reasons. It was repealed in 1995. Perhaps 65mph is what was considered safe for the road and vehicular technology at the time, and no one has had the political or municipal capital to do a new study ever since.
You want that speed limit changed, contact your reps, I guess.
You typically don’t want different limits for different vehicles on the same highway. Although where I live trucks have a lower limit than passenger vehicles.
