El Cid

It seems like most discussions on safety have one thing in common: The rules don't work because they aren't being enforced.

So I did a google search and found some numbers. In 2012, about 10 000 people were murdered in the U.S. There were about 30 000 traffic fatalities in the same year. I fully expected Canada to follow the same trend, but we actually had 500 murders and 300 traffic deaths.

I've always said that gangs are dangerous, but the real killer is the ordinary bad driver, racing home on the freeway. Maybe I was half right.

I say you should take the entire DEA and put them on traffic duty.

achoo

The rules do work for the most part, but they can't be effectively enforced.

Outside of speed and traffic light cameras, I don't see any way to enforce most traffic laws that would make getting caught likely enough to deter breaking the law.

Even if you double or triple the number of police officers on traffic duty, that means instead of seeing two cops per week for a total of 30 seconds during your weekly drive time, you see four for a total of a minute.

How many time do you see cars speeding or running stop signs? How many times do you see cars stopped for doing that. Now, double the number of cars you see stopped. Think that will make a difference? Instead of having a 99.98% chance of getting away with running that stop sign, it'd be 99.96%. Do you think that's even going to register on the average driver?

Dave Cutter

I would think "law enforcement" would be a PO post.

ModeratedUser150120149

A multi-billion, multi-year effort to enforce drug laws has not been effective. In fact, quite the contrary. Other examples can easily be cited. So, by what stretch of logic do you think that more stringent enforcement of traffic laws would be effective?

We had a period a few years ago when the national (US) speed limit was lowered to 55. I was spending a lot of time in Canada then and seem to remember theirs being similar. A resounding failure that resulted in changing the limits to what we have today.

Fact is external enforcement of laws that don't make sense to individuals is doomed to failure, often with dire social consequences. On the other hand people will docilely exercise self-discipline and conform to those that make sense.

The problem is not law enforcement. It is lack of citizen self-responsibility and courtesy. Work on that and you will have achieved something worthwhile.

Saving Hawaii

The drug war is not an analog to our war on cars. It targets a different, more susceptible segment of society. It's much easier to ask a soccer mom to drive 25 rather than 30 because it reduces fatalities amongst the kids she'll be running over than it is to ask a troubled youth not to experiment with marijuana or meth. You experience fewer messaging problems given that traffic fatalities are a truly massive issue unlike some of the eccentricities of the drug war (see reefer madness). Traffic offenses are also easy to catch and punish lightly and frequently. The threat of being caught is already very real to most drivers and their behavior has already changed accordingly. Drug offenses are much harder to catch and the subjects of the war on drugs, many not being particularly bright in the first place, typically view themselves as more clever than average. This is the "I drive better drunk than you do sober" crowd in action. The punishments against careless drivers are more effective at inducing a change in behavior. They whack a largely middle class audience where it hurts. In the drug war you're largely targeting lower class individuals with rare and ridiculous penalties that simply don't register mentally. Most people think they'll never get caught on drug offenses. Drivers expect to. You also have a situation where social engineering has been fairly ineffective, whereas traffic engineering can be remarkably effective at taming drivers if your engineers aren't committed to design speeds 20mph above the posted limit.

tl;dr: Traffic enforcement is very different than drug enforcement and the specifics mean that it's easier to change behavior. Drug users don't expect to be caught. Speeding motorists write it off as a cost of doing business. Making business more expensive reduces offenses.

mconlonx

All class of people use and abuse drugs, in approximately the same proportion. Just that more lower class citizens get caught doing it more.

Soccer mom late for precious child's soccer practice is not doing the speed limit... And since cops don't enforce +5mph over the limit, the majority of traffic is doing 30 in a 25.

The threat of being caught rarely figures into motorist mentality until and unless they see a cop by the side of the road. Punishments against careless drivers? What are you talking about? They don't really exist and certainly don't practically figure into the consciousness of most who I see texting or on a cell phone. Drivers do not expect to get caught, which is why so many of them flaunt laws so regularly.

Drug users don't think they'll get caught, so they use drugs; motorists who regularly flaunt laws don't think they'll get caught so they break driving laws. Totally analogous.

unterhausen

you occasionally see announcements where police departments announce that they are going after aggressive drivers, but that's really hard if there is a police cruiser involved. They probably need to get more unmarked cars that aren't identifiably police cars without the markings. I don't see speeding in and of itself being a problem, it's the people that are out of the norm that are the problem. And the drivers that continue to go nuts even when everyone else is slowing

kingston 

The rules don't work because we have too many stupid rules that don't do anything to keep anyone safe. Just this morning I blew a 4-way stop on my bike without even slowing down right in front of a parked police cruiser. It was 5 AM on a very quiet residential street, and the only car in sight was the parked cruiser. Does anyone think that I would have been any safer or made anyone else any safer if I would have come to a complete stop before proceeding? Apparently the cop didn't because he didn't chase me down.

genec

The problem is that it is prohibitively expensive to enforce traffic laws in perpetuity. Rather than expect to pay for someone to sit and watch traffic on a daily basis, change the roadways so they discourage excessive speeds... the easiest way is to make roads and lanes narrower. This is a one time investment, with regular repairs that will be less expensive then funding a cop every few miles in perpetuity to enforce the laws.

Re configuring the streets could also result in room for quality bike paths.

But of course none of this will happen.... roads will get little more than paint, laws won't be enforced, and drivers will speed... and the beat goes on.

Booger1

Sending DEA to do traffic is a GREAT idea....They could actually make a difference.

It's not a war on drugs,it's a war on us....How to legally pick our pockets....

You want get rid of the bad elements in drugs,make it legal....Sure could use a case of bathtub gin....Know anybody selling?

Chris516

That is why flying is safer than driving.

CliffordK

Keep in mind that the US population is about 316 million, Canada is about 35 million.
So, one would expect the numbers to be about 10 times higher in the USA.

That doesn't account for the entire difference, but some of it. I'm not sure about the rest of the difference. In the US, lower population density may be associated with higher fatalities. NYC may be an anomaly because of the high number of people using public transportation.

On some charts, Oregon is showing up with lower than expected traffic fatality rates.

I wonder if there is an element of extending courtesy to driving. So, in Oregon one has a tendency to leave holes for cars to merge, and etc.

I can remember in Missouri, one instance where the person behind me honked at me for waiting for a firetruck to pass, and another instance when a traffic light backed up traffic for more than a block, so I naturally stopped leaving the next interchange clear. 2 or 3 cars pulled into the center turn lane to get around me and clog up the interchange.

How does the winter affect Canadian driving? Perhaps half the year, Canadians drive much less.

Anyway, traffic safety has a lot more than handing out more tickets for stuff that probably would never make any difference for safety one way or another.

El Cid

Ok ok, point taken. The DEA comment was just a bit of over the top sarcasm, but I do think that traffic enforcement is treated like the poor stepchild of policing, not getting the resources it deserves. Look at how many people complain that they were either hit or had a near-miss, only to get a reaction of "Meh, stuff happens," from the police. There's even a running joke that the way to murder someone is to do it with your car.

Backlash against "stupid" laws is also something that is understandable, but then we're getting into pretty subjective territory. Some people think it's stupid that they aren't allowed to text and drive, some think it's stupid that a bicycle would even be allowed on the road.

Things like bike lanes or separate infrastructure are good things. But if you want to advocate for something that really helps, call for basic traffic enforcement. Everybody wants bad drivers off the road.

B. Carfree

I lived in a place at a time where traffic laws were seriously enforced. I think this policy was easier to sell to the patrol cops because all of them lived in that small city. It worked. It didn't take them long to demonstrate to everyone that if you get in the habit of speeding or rolling stop signs, you will get caught regularly enough to put your license in jeopardy. Besides, who wanted to spend time and money dealing with the annoyance of being pulled over when it was just as easy to obey the law. Pretty much the only people violating traffic laws were thieves who thought they could get away from the site of their crimes by speeding, only to find themselves being easily caught out by this behavior.

Oh, there was this other small effect. The cycling modal share, while never formally documented (it was the late '70s and early '80s) was through the roof. Bikes vastly outnumbered cars on the road in spite of the fact that those same police departments also had bike cops that had a zero-tolerance policy for traffic violations by cyclists. (I'm just now getting comfortable running stop signs on my bike three decades later.) Car parking lots stood largely unused while bike parking was always overflowing.

Of course, all good things must end. Real estate got so overpriced that cops couldn't afford to live in the same city they worked in. Gas got cheap. The city became less self-contained so that more residents worked in other cities and many people who worked in that city lived elsewhere. Eventually, the cops stopped enforcing the traffic laws and the bikes all but disappeared from the landscape (small comeback lately, though).

Those few years of living with "oppressive" traffic law enforcement sold me on its benefits. People who cry "revenue" and "hands in our wallets" are just lousy drivers who are blinded by their desire to continue their bad habits.

Rollfast

We are not at war with cars. If you are, you have missed the whole point.

We are here to promote the safer co-existence between all vehicles on the road together, and in general, bicycles being in harmony with auto traffic.

There is no Cyclista army. Us And Them a mere Pink Floyd song.

Robert C

Disagreement, we don't need more "secret police." We need consistent police. I am not going to dive too far into behavioral theory here, the science is there. Studies have shown that if a person contemplating a cim sees a police officer within 12 minutes, they are highly likely to forgo the criminal act. In traffic there is a calming affect of well marked police cars. Secret police would not have this affect and would, while possibly writing more tickets, have less impact on traffic behavior.

rydabent

The biggest danger to cyclist like everyone else is the drunk driver. The penalties need to be far more harsh. If a drunk driver causes a crash, he or she needs to be fined $5000 for the first offense, and doubled each time after. Also their car should be impounded for six months the first time, and impounded and sold each time after. Harsh--------yes, but there is absolutely no reason to drive drunk and hurt or kill people.

Rollfast

The biggest danger to the cyclist....

is the cyclist themself.

The same as for drivers. Pay attention to everything you can.

There is no way to eliminate accidents entirely, even with a hive mind.

The goal is to REDUCE the number of incidents through education and increased awareness.

Those who believe in zero harm are living in a Thomas More book. Utopia was Todd Rundgren's band.

Chris516

I disagree with both. Yes drunk drivers are dangerous, and so are drivers that don't pay attention.

But I think the 'me first' drivers are worse. Because, Drunk drivers while drunk, don't have a 'drunks first' attitude, just ignorance. Although the 'ignorant' drivers do seem to be in close competition with the 'me first' drivers'. Because the 'me first' drivers, don't give a darn who is on the road. They are the first ones' to commit road rage. Drunks don't commit road rage with premeditated intention, and 'ignorant' drivers' just aren't paying attention. But 'me first' drivers are BOTH.......selfish and ignorant

Rollfast

Stay out of their way then.

What is so hard about that?

You fail to understand one thing...

If you were to tell me you are smarter than a locomotive I would have to tell you that the train doesn't care and won't come to a stop until it's a mile from your bugsplatter.

Apples and oranges. Never take a knife to a gunfight. Don't argue with anything that can easily kill you.

It's not a matter of your CIVIL RIGHTS. You only live once.

Keep pointing it out and work to get it prosecuted but don't assume you are going to stop it by your lone self.

Life isn't a mandatory arbitration. Things will suck and may never stop sucking. Work on that.

kickstart

You could include some cyclists in that statement.....

But to the real point, it seems disregard for the law is increasing, it would be an epic battle to crack down on it, and most police departments are already spread out pretty thin.

I think one of the most effective things that could be done is make it a requirement to pay fines in person at the issuing jurisdictions courthouse, and make it a long, drawn out, miserable process.

El Cid

No argument; police are spread thin. But in a world of limited resources, traffic enforcement should get a bigger share.

Another effective measure would be to make the penalties bigger. There is a thread on this forum about someone in Farmer's Branch, Texas getting a large ticket for running a stop sign. Some thought the fine was obscene, but I bet he hasn't done it since.

I would charge at least a $1000 fine for absolutely all moving violations. In my opinion, there is no such thing as a minor infraction. Breaking the law is always serious.

kickstart

For that to be equitable, the fines would need to be based on the recipients income, and that opens a big can of worms.

B. Carfree

There is the real possibility that this is of their own doing. According to the "Broken Window" model of law enforcement, by refusing to enforce traffic law police have allowed for the idea that "low-level" crimes will not be prosecuted to flourish. As I recall, when I lived where police did traffic law enforcement, they generally solved burglaries before the crimes were reported during a traffic stop.

B. Carfree

Isn't there a Northern European country that does just that? I seem to recall some rock star facing a speeding fine of hundreds of thousands of dollars.