It’s estimated that we are effectively subsidizing drivers by close to a trillion dollars annually by not requiring adequate insurance to cover the full cost to victims. Just pay your ticket and drive better before you make a mistake you’ll never recover from.

Seems to be more of an issue in the US.

The role of enforcing certain laws can be easily fulfilled with simple algorithms as the logic required is on early grade school level. In this case it's something like: if "stoplight is red" and "car doesn't stop", then "driver gets ticket." That's all the algorithm has to do, super easy to automate. Automation allows for enforcement where it would otherwise not be cost effective, like when it's 3am and no one else is around.

The judiciary, however, has to interpret all kinds of crazy edge cases that people come up with to try and get out of tickets for rolling stops or whatever legal case, for all laws, because every now and then someone has a valid case. That's a bit harder to do with a couple lines of code and some low cost hardware.

You violated a law and received a penalty. You're not disputing that you violated said law, but are instead trying to justify it with "barely didn't stop" and "it's 3am and there is no traffic".

Isn't the point that you got punished for doing something you would have gotten away with had no one been watching?

Nice twist to the premise at the end, but no, the point is that the person got punished for using sound and reasonable judgement in a situation where the regulation (not law) was ill thought out.

That still just seems like rationalization of bad behavior.

You're right that the basic premise of democracy is that citizens can be trusted as the source of the law, but it seems to me that this particular citizen can't actually be trusted? I mean, they're demonstrating a lack of integrity, are they not?

I think the issue is that you're taking as fact that "in order to be safe, you must come to a full stop at a red light before turning right", and that not doing so is, indisputably, "bad behavior". I dispute that. I think in many situations it is just as safe to nearly-but-not-completely come to a full stop before continuing, and it's entirely fine behavior.

The law has some difficulty encoding that. (Not that it's impossible, but it's difficult, and enforcement perhaps gets weirder if you try.)

Let's take a related example: jaywalking. In many places, you can get a ticket for crossing the street somewhere where there isn't a crosswalk, or crossing against a red light or a don't-walk sign. I was taught as a child how to look both ways and only cross when and where it's safe to do so. I don't need a sign or stripes on the road to tell me that (though I do appreciate those things as hints and suggestions). Hell, in some places (Manhattan comes to mind), if you don't jaywalk, everyone around you will look at you funny and get annoyed with you.

California, recognizing this, finally eliminated most jaywalking laws a year and half ago[0]. You can only get cited here if you've failed to do what your parents told you, and you're crossing when it's not safe to do so.

Stopping fully at a red light before turning right is, IMO, similar enough. For many (most?) intersections, you're only going to be a teeny tiny fraction of a percent safer coming to a full stop. So why bother?

[0] Let's also remember that jaywalking laws exist only because car manufacturers wanted them. Walking in the street!? How absurd! Streets are only for our beautifully-produced cars! Not you grubby plebeian pedestrians. Away with you!

I'm sure the multiple people that would have hit me if I hadn't jumped out of the way because they were looking the ither way to see if cars where coming thought the same.

> Let's take a related example: jaywalking.

When walking one is not impaired in one's vision of the surroundings, and you're not operating heavy machinery. The worst you can do is get yourself killed. With a car, the most likely scenario is to kill someone else.

I highly doubt this person would have rolled through the light if a cop were sitting at the intersection watching them, and they knew they were being observed.

To several other posters' points, the specific regulation in question exists for safety reasons. Those safety reasons don't go away just because you don't think they apply in the moment. I'm sure every person who has hit (or been hit by) another person when rolling through a right turn like that thought their judgement in the moment was reasonable, too. I'm also sure not every one of those would have been prevented by coming to a complete stop and looking at the turn, but certainly some of them would have, which is a net positive for everyone. This comes at a cost of a handful of seconds, which seems like the most trivial of inconveniences, and wholly worth paying every time.

I just don't believe violating the law is always wrong, always bad, or always unsafe. While I would agree that most people are bad at risk assessment, and most people are not good drivers, the law should be flexible enough to deal with cases where breaking it is absolutely fine to do.

As a perhaps weird and imperfect analogy, killing another person is illegal... except when it isn't. The law recognizes that sometimes, even if in rare cases, killing another person is justified. This is why we have different words: "homicide" is sometimes not "murder" or even "manslaughter"; sometimes it's "self-defense".

However, I don't think any violation is justified by what more or less amounts to laziness and the desire to save an inconsequential amount of time.

I agree with you, FWIW.