Topic: So I got pulled over for speeding... - page 5. (Read 6713 times)

WTF?  I'm having a difficult time finding any meaning in your last "sentence".  I think you are saying that the act of creating a law against the actions of the shooter is the crime, but I'm really not certain. Lets try this one more time.  Simple question, requesting simple yes/no answer:

There are many children playing in a public park designed for children. A shooter sets up targets at one side of the park, then proceeds to the opposite side of the park and begins shooting his high powered rifle through the park at the targets.  Up until the moment where he accidentally shoots a child, in your personal opinion, is this shooter committing a crime?

A crime must have a victim.  You can't say "society" is a victim - prove it!  The burden of proof must always rest on the accuser.  I can easily produce ten people who would say "I was not harmed in any way by this gentleman's speeding" just as easily as you could produce ten that say "society has been hurt by this fellow who didn't actually hurt any individual human being!".  What do you have to go on at that point?  Consensus?  Where does that lead?

The moral hazard exists in the fact that I have a gun pointed at my face that says I must pay for these things whether I use them or not, and then another gun pointed at my face saying that, if I do decide to use them, I must use them in this specific way, even though nobody actually owns them, and that if I don't conform my behavior to these things over which I have no say, and nobody has a demonstrable moral right to attempt to impose in the first place, it is a "crime".

You aren't answering the question, and your new example has nothing to do with the discussion at hand.  The discussion involves an individual choosing to exceed a publicly determined speed limit on a public road.  If you build a private road you can do whatever you want with it as far as I'm concerned.  Speed limit 1 mph, speed limit 250 mph.  Death penalty to those that exceed your speed limit.  As long as the rules, consequences, and costs are clearly known ahead of time by anyone choosing to use your road, I really don't care.

But you are stating that a speeder on a public road is not commiting a crime, since there is no victim.  I'm asking you to defend your position.  You state that the shooter example is a moral hazard.  That may be true, but do you consider this a crime?

Well, then you are dealing with moral hazard before anything else.

Let me put my position another way.  If I build a road and people have the choice of whether or not to pay me to use it, if I decide to impose a speed limit of 90mph on it, am I right to do this?  What if I decide to impose no speed limit?  Am I also right to do this?

What part of "refer to my previous post" confuses you?


I assumed that when I stated "into a public park" that it would be clear that I meant that the park is public property?

Is the park public property or private property?

You state that there must be a victim to be an actual crime.  I'm asking your opinion.  If a shooter is shooting through a park full of children, but not hitting any of them either:

A) There is no victim, therefore you do not consider this a crime.

or

B) This is a crime, and you can identify a victim in this action.

This is the same, how?

Please refer to my previous post regarding a shooter shooting through a park full of children, but not hitting any of them.  You would not consider this a crime?

What's an actual crime? Crimes that have a single victim? You can't think of a few things that you're not allowed to do because it's bad for the general public?

The figure indicates that your crash risk is minimized when you are going slightly faster than the average speed of the highway. According to the figure, more than 10 mph over the average speed and your crash risk increases above that of maintaining the average speed. Furthermore, the figure does not take into consideration the increase in damage, injury, or fatality at the higher speed when a collision does occur. Beyond that the figure also doesn't adjust for the fact that impaired drivers tend to drive slower, meaning that the figure is skewed since impaired drivers while slower are significantly more likely to be involved in a collision.  If the graph were adjusted for this bias, it is likely that the minimized risk would be at the average speed.

All crimes require a victim to be an actual crime.  Find me one, in this instance.

I would choose not to reside in such a community.  There are a variety of communities with a variety of speed limits.  Find a community with a speed limit you can accept and live there, or work within your community to change the local speed limit law.  But if you choose to live in the community, you choose to be held to the laws that community has put in place.  Additionally, forcing me to commit such an act does not protect others from harm, and arguable could be considered as causing harm to me.  This would be the opposite of the laws being discussed where forcing a me to drive at a safe speed decreases the risk of harm to others and myself. Nobody said anything about shooting speeders.

True, but failing to follow orders has consequences as well.  You can choose to refuse orders, but in doing so you choose to have those consequences imposed upon you.

Heinlein was a fiction writer.  He said a lot of stuff, most of it fictional. That doesn't make him someone whose words I would choose to live by.

We as a society have defined an acceptable level of risk that he decided to go above, so he should be fined. Yes.

Good quote. I like that. Morally responsible. And willing to take the consequences for breaking the rules I assume.

Why can that be reasonably assumed? Hitting a kid that is? Because it would be hard to defend your "risk != harm" position otherwise?

Who's to say they're not being compensated, by enforcement officers that try to protect them from harm, just to give an example.

Even the NHTSA agrees that the average driver on a highway is driving over the speed limit and that your crash risk increases if you driver slower than other vehicles.

http://casr.adelaide.edu.au/speed/vol-1.html
This study suggests that your crash risk is minimized when you are going faster even than the average vehicle on the highway. (See figure 2.2) And this is all *before* you correct for higher speeds meaning less time on the road.

The newer studies are even more dramatic (because vehicles got safer), but I can't seem to find them online.

2) And if the shooter was aiming at targets that he set up on the opposite side of the park and successfully hitting the targets, then it becomes acceptable?  Since it can no longer be assumed that the shooter is trying to hit a kid?

3) Perhaps.  Perhaps not.  It doesn't change the fact that the fine is intended to be a deterrent against the causing of cause harm.

So, all this boils down to "he disobeyed words on paper, so he should be fined"

If I wrote down words on paper that you had to give fellatio to anyone who demanded, would you do it? What if I got all your neighbors to agree that you should give fellatio to anyone who demanded it? What if I got all your neighbors to agree that you should give fellatio to anyone who demanded, or be shot?

Following rules because they are the rules is no different from following orders because they are orders.

"I am free, no matter what rules surround me. If I find them tolerable, I tolerate them; if I find them too obnoxious, I break them. I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do."
Robert A. Heinlein


2) No, because it can be reasonably assumed that you are trying to hit a kid. In fact, it would be silly to assume otherwise. However, it cannot be assumed that a speeder is trying to have an accident by speeding. If he wanted to have an accident, it's trivial to twitch the wheel and plow into oncoming traffic, or veer the other direction and start mowing down pedestrians.

3) Well, if he's harmed people by forcing them to breathe air that is more polluted, then they should receive the compensation for that, shouldn't they? The state, in collecting the fine, is stealing from the victims, in that case.

I'm not certain that I agree that overall risk decreases with an increase in speed.  Can you point me to an analysis that demonstrates this? I suspect you are mistaken on this point.


But society has already determined the balance they want.  They elected representatives who chose a speed limit that society feels is fast enough to provide the necessary benefit, while slow enough to keep risk and pollution acceptable.

While I may not support a 45 mile per hour limit, I may also not support a 55 mile an hour limit.  As such I can choose my representatives based on their stand on this issue.  If enough of society is willing to accept a 45 mile an hour limit for those benefits, then the law will change, and I'll be held to the new rules regardless of personal preference for speed limits.  They don't need to be scientifically optimal, they simply need to be acceptable by society.

Nobody does. But this was about speeding, not driving recklessly. If police observe people driving recklessly, they should charge them with that too.

Well 79 in a 55 is fucking fast. I'ts not like driving 60 in 55.

If I would se you driving I would think that you are a douche speeding that much.

No mean to insult. But I don't like people driving recklessly.