<story><title>Ford Exec: &apos;We Know Everyone Who Breaks the Law&apos; Thanks To Our GPS In Your Car</title><url>http://www.businessinsider.com/ford-exec-gps-2014-1</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>Sambdala</author><text>Edit: op added his second paragraph after I, and several others, replied. While the second paragraph is more reasonable on it&amp;#x27;s own, I still highly disagree with the implied reasoning of the first paragraph.&lt;p&gt;I disagree vehemently.&lt;p&gt;People drive a speed they feel comfortable driving. Full Stop.&lt;p&gt;The only time a speed limit sign changes behavior in the vast majority of drivers (in the US anyway) is when a cop is present.&lt;p&gt;The smarter way to reduce speed in the sections of road that actually are more dangerous is to make them look more dangerous, for example by painting lines on the road that make you think you&amp;#x27;re travelling faster than you are.&lt;p&gt;There are major roads where, except for rush hour, 100% of cars on the road are travelling well above the speed limit because it is set far too low for a modern vehicle driving on a multi-lane, fairly straight highway.&lt;p&gt;This causes a fairly similar attitude toward speed limits that a large percentage of the population has toward pot: you scaremonger about something that obviously isn&amp;#x27;t dangerous in 95% of cases (pot &amp;#x2F; 35 MPH, 6 lane roads), which makes the remaining 5% of cases that are actually dangerous (Heroin &amp;#x2F; sharp turn with low visibility) seem less dangerous because you spent so much effort to conflate the two.&lt;p&gt;Meanwhile, we&amp;#x27;re unable to have a sober conversation about the subject that results in speed limits and road laws that make sense because of &lt;i&gt;think of the children!&lt;/i&gt; scaremongering, e.g., &amp;quot;children on their way to school also lose the reverse lottery, but instead of a $300 fine, they die.&amp;quot;</text></item><item><author>jrockway</author><text>I think perfect enforcement of laws would be great.  Because traffic tickets are so random, nobody really changes their behavior to avoid them, and it becomes more of a reverse lottery than anything else.  Meanwhile, children on their way to school also lose the reverse lottery, but instead of a $300 fine, they die.&lt;p&gt;Perfect enforcement also puts pressure on lawmakers to make reasonable laws.  If it&amp;#x27;s just some guy that you don&amp;#x27;t relate to being burned by stupid laws, you&amp;#x27;re not going to care.  If it&amp;#x27;s everyone, you are going to care.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>greedo</author><text>So the idiot who drives 50mph on my street, which is 1&amp;#x2F;4 mile long, and has children under the age of 12 in all ten houses on this road should be allowed to drive whatever speed he feels comfortable? There&amp;#x27;s a lot of externalities to his behavior. My intuition tells me that in your world where people drive a speed they feel comfortable is why we have so many traffic accidents. I don&amp;#x27;t give a rats ass about how comfortable a driver is.</text></comment>
<story><title>Ford Exec: &apos;We Know Everyone Who Breaks the Law&apos; Thanks To Our GPS In Your Car</title><url>http://www.businessinsider.com/ford-exec-gps-2014-1</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>Sambdala</author><text>Edit: op added his second paragraph after I, and several others, replied. While the second paragraph is more reasonable on it&amp;#x27;s own, I still highly disagree with the implied reasoning of the first paragraph.&lt;p&gt;I disagree vehemently.&lt;p&gt;People drive a speed they feel comfortable driving. Full Stop.&lt;p&gt;The only time a speed limit sign changes behavior in the vast majority of drivers (in the US anyway) is when a cop is present.&lt;p&gt;The smarter way to reduce speed in the sections of road that actually are more dangerous is to make them look more dangerous, for example by painting lines on the road that make you think you&amp;#x27;re travelling faster than you are.&lt;p&gt;There are major roads where, except for rush hour, 100% of cars on the road are travelling well above the speed limit because it is set far too low for a modern vehicle driving on a multi-lane, fairly straight highway.&lt;p&gt;This causes a fairly similar attitude toward speed limits that a large percentage of the population has toward pot: you scaremonger about something that obviously isn&amp;#x27;t dangerous in 95% of cases (pot &amp;#x2F; 35 MPH, 6 lane roads), which makes the remaining 5% of cases that are actually dangerous (Heroin &amp;#x2F; sharp turn with low visibility) seem less dangerous because you spent so much effort to conflate the two.&lt;p&gt;Meanwhile, we&amp;#x27;re unable to have a sober conversation about the subject that results in speed limits and road laws that make sense because of &lt;i&gt;think of the children!&lt;/i&gt; scaremongering, e.g., &amp;quot;children on their way to school also lose the reverse lottery, but instead of a $300 fine, they die.&amp;quot;</text></item><item><author>jrockway</author><text>I think perfect enforcement of laws would be great.  Because traffic tickets are so random, nobody really changes their behavior to avoid them, and it becomes more of a reverse lottery than anything else.  Meanwhile, children on their way to school also lose the reverse lottery, but instead of a $300 fine, they die.&lt;p&gt;Perfect enforcement also puts pressure on lawmakers to make reasonable laws.  If it&amp;#x27;s just some guy that you don&amp;#x27;t relate to being burned by stupid laws, you&amp;#x27;re not going to care.  If it&amp;#x27;s everyone, you are going to care.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>Shinkei</author><text>The flaw in your argument is, &amp;quot;I trust myself driving, but I don&amp;#x27;t trust anyone else.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;I am a great driver and people had been present when I got myself out of &amp;#x27;sticky&amp;#x27; situations--avoided red-light runner t-bones, people merging into me, parking lot fender benders who don&amp;#x27;t check their rear, etc.&lt;p&gt;Problem is, there are plenty of bad drivers out there who would happily go 80-90 and drive recklessly in their parents&amp;#x27; BMW (Palm Beach teenagers, anyone?). The deaths due to traffic accidents are staggering and it&amp;#x27;s a huge public health issue. If speeding is not illegal, then it could be difficult to show wrecklessness or other mitigating circumstances should there be a manslaughter case. IMNAL, but I think it could have wider and unexpected implications.&lt;p&gt;I agree that many speed limits are somewhat arbitrary, but I disagree with &amp;#x27;smart&amp;#x27; means of reducing people&amp;#x27;s speed. People need to learn how to follow the rules or they don&amp;#x27;t belong in society... it&amp;#x27;s as simple as that.</text></comment>