Comments on: Electronic tickets: we skip the due process and pass the savings along to you

By: Links #187 | The Honest Courtesan

Links #187 | The Honest Courtesan — Sat, 01 Feb 2014 10:02:04 +0000

[…] Laws, like houses, lean on one another. […]

By: D

Wed, 29 Jan 2014 21:23:43 +0000

Indeed, DDuck, I think you are right. In fact, I have experience (twice) with helping a bully get a little edginess out of his system and bolster his flagging sense of superiority. I consider groveling and apologizing to the … servant of the people to be a public service.

To be fair, there was this one time when an officer looked disappointed that he had to give me a ticket because I ran a stop sign (rather egregiously, I admit). That is so backward; the one time I truly deserved it, the cop gave me a guilt trip rather than stroking his own ego, fie on his sensitive soul.

By: DensityDuck

DensityDuck — Wed, 29 Jan 2014 15:37:45 +0000

” have a chance to explain themselves”

um, I have never once, in my life or from the stories of others, seen “a chance to explain themselves” stop someone getting a ticket. When the officer says “sir what was the reason for that” he doesn’t actually care, he’s just playing out the script.

By: Gradivus

Gradivus — Wed, 29 Jan 2014 15:24:16 +0000

This is merely the way it used to be done, routinely. When my father got pulled over he would just slip the officer a fifty (or whatever the fine was) and he wouldn’t have to go to court or even receive a paper ticket. No muss, no fuss.

By: Safety First: Digital Citations Eliminate All Risk (and make moolah, too) | Simple Justice

Wed, 29 Jan 2014 12:35:21 +0000

[…] As regular readers here are painfully well aware, there is a broad swathe of early adopters for whom technology offers the solution to all that ails us. This particular proposal has the added virtue of providing safety for law enforcement, institutionalizing the First Rule, which is no laughing matter to legislators. And as it happens, it will be safer for cops, despite a problem or two: […]

By: JTW

JTW — Wed, 29 Jan 2014 10:18:54 +0000

“Ummm. How will they know who committed the infraction? Unlike a red light runner, where there is a camera pointing at the driver, police officers usually park behind those they pull over.”

Same way as in many countries where such things are common: they don’t care.
The vehicle owner is ticketed, and it’s up to him or her to try to get their money back from whomever was actually driving it.
Which leads to a lucrative market in “used” (read ‘stolen’) license plates.

By: Patrick

Patrick — Wed, 29 Jan 2014 09:18:49 +0000

There’s something to be said for making an officer’s job easier, but for my part I’m concerned that if this bill passes, we’ll see a precipitous drop in the number of pretextual drug searches.

And that would be a tragedy.

By: Bill Poser

Bill Poser — Tue, 28 Jan 2014 22:57:08 +0000

An additional disadvantage of this proposal is that it will likely reduce the deterrent effect. The deterrent effect of the fine will be unchanged, but the short term deterrent effect of being pulled over by the police will disappear. Furthermore, it won’t get people to fix equipment violations. Currently, if an officer spots someone with a burned out headlight or turn signal, he can alert the driver to the fact, of which the driver may be unaware, and motivate the driver to fix the problem. If the person whose vehicle is in disrepair merely receives a fine, after the fact, there will be a greater delay in making the repair, and perhaps less ability to do so because of the fine.

By: Ed

Ed — Tue, 28 Jan 2014 20:37:23 +0000

Can you prove where you were Jan 21st at 7:16 AM?
How about Jan 14th at 6:52 PM?

By: madanthony

madanthony — Tue, 28 Jan 2014 19:45:46 +0000

At least they are basically admitting that the point of tickets is to raise money and not to change behaviors… since I always find myself driving more carefully after I’m pulled over, which won’t happen if I don’t actually get pulled over.