One of the biggest problems with the war on drugs and with traffic fines is that they create perverse incentives for law enforcement and for local governments, because revenue generation then becomes coupled to the way laws are written and enforced. Everybody knows how this works with traffic "offenses", local governments use red light cameras, speed traps, and speeding ticket quotas as a source of income. This then converts a significant portion of the resources that should be used for keeping people safe into effective tax collection.
The same thing happens with the war on drugs due to asset forfeiture laws. On the one hand you have a police officer tasked with the hard and often thankless job of enforcing the law, investigating unsolved crimes, meticulously sorting through evidence, walking a beat, etc, etc. On the other hand you have a police officer tasked with the comparatively simple jobs of, say, pulling over "suspicious" looking drivers on the highway and looking for pot in their car, or executing exciting no-knock raids on, in the average case, un-armed drug dealer's houses. In the process generating enough revenue through the seizure and auction of vehicles and houses to pay for raises, more officers, new guns, helicopters, swat teams, armored personnel carriers, etc. The natural equilibrium is going to be that as many officers as possible spend as much time as possible in those typically easier and more glamorous and exciting jobs that generate revenue. This is hardly hypothetical, as over the course of the war on drugs we've seen a dramatic shift in the amount of effort the legal system puts forth in enforcing drug laws and prosecuting drug crimes and we've also seen a dramatic increase in the militarization of even small-town police departments. Assault rifles are more common. No-knock raids are more common. SWAT teams are more common. Use of APCs is more common. And this despite no significant increase in drug dealers becoming more heavily armed or more violent over that time period (except in Mexico which is in a drug-gang induced civil war).
The law should be pragmatic not dogmatic. The law should be molded to aid society not to mold society into some perfect, moral vision. Whenever the law tries to overstep those boundaries the result has always been strife and disaster.
Combating drugs is not just about a perfect moral vision of society. Getting rid of meth, for example, would be a big aid to society. (As best I understand it)
If there is a problem with drug laws and enforcement, I would hazard that it is with classification of certain drugs and the incentives for pursuing different classifications. For example, as best I understand, marijuanna does not have nearly the negative social consequences of meth, yet marijuanna was schedule I for a time and meth is schedule II.
Getting everyone to learn algebra would be a big aid to society, should we throw everyone who fails algebra in prison until they start passing?
In the US alone there are over 70,000 alcohol related deaths per year. That's nearly a million people a decade, dead because of alcohol. And that doesn't even begin to account for the vastly greater incidence of lesser problems such as abusive, absent, or non-supportive husbands, fathers, mothers; or families in financial ruin due to having to support the expenses and consequences of a severe alcohol habit, etc.
Some people see an activity that causes problems and they think "I know how to solve this, I'll make that activity illegal", now they have two problems. We tried alcohol prohibition, it was far, far worse. We are currently living through the misery of prohibition of some drugs, and it's almost certainly not helping.
You can't get rid of meth by making it illegal, that should be obvious to anybody. And by making it, and so many other drugs, illegal you bring on a whole host of other problems. You weaken the criminal justice system by adding a huge burden to it. You increase corruption of law enforcement officials. You create an easy source of funding for the most ruthless criminals. You degrade respect in the rule of law by outlawing behaviors that a significant fraction of citizens don't believe should be illegal. You put a huge fraction of citizens outside the law by making them criminals, and thus less willing and able to cooperate with law enforcement (to report other crimes, for example). You degrade the justice system by creating these perverse incentives for law enforcement (e.g. due to asset forfeiture).
From a pragmatic standpoint prohibition of drugs makes no sense, it is not a big aid to society it is a huge, huge loss verging on a catastrophe. The problem is that there are a great many people who believe that a good use of the law is to prevent people from doing bad things to themselves. Whether or not that ideology is seated in the firmament of organized religion it works out to just another form of puritanism. And we've seen the problems that law founded in puritan values brings: repression, subjugation, corruption, abuse of power, witch trials, etc. We're already there today but it's harder to make out the shape of things because we are so thoroughly immersed in it.
Perhaps there is the notion that as a society you want to marginalize drug consumption - whatever the cost. You might want to send the message that doing drugs for entertainment purposes isn't a "normal" activity and you prefer to have citizens that look for something else than "having fun".
But there's more to the story...
It's over simplification to say that puritanism is behind entertainment drugs prohibition.
Endemic and widespread drug usage is a real possibility and generally results in a society coming to a halt. A contemporary example is Djibouti and its widespread Khat consumption problem. France, early XXth century had a major issue with Absinthe as well. Older example is China and Opium.
Most of the drugs that are illegal were legal at some point. In the early XXth century you could purchase heroin at the apothecary. This is no longer the case, and that's not just because "doing drugs is bad m'k".
Having drugs illegal makes sure it cannot go beyond a certain point, with counterproductive effects, that's true. But even if it were legal you would have a black market for cheaper/stronger drugs.
> Endemic and widespread drug usage is a real possibility and generally results in a society coming to a halt.
Lots of things can cause society to come to a halt.
However, the relevant question is what to do about those things. As has been pointed out, some "solutions" to the drug problem cost far more than the savings. (No, you don't get to count the size of the problem. You only get to count the difference that you make.)
> But even if it were legal you would have a black market for cheaper/stronger drugs.
Yup, look at those stronger cigarettes and stronger alcohol. What? They don't exist?
Note that price does matter - legal but very expensive is effectively illegal. (Which reminds me, at least some of the "illegal drugs" are legal if you pay the very expensive taxes. These taxes often take the form of a "stamp", which frustrates collectors who would like to have all US stamps issued in 2011.)
Should I wait for your next post where you will address any of my major points (such as those in the 2nd to last paragraph especially) or is this it?
As to your points above I have a quite suitable counter-argument in the form of the existence proof of modern, productive, civil societies that have legalized or decriminalized drug use and have not seen the catastrophic problems that people such as yourself have predicted, namely: The Netherlands and Portugal.
When observation differs from the predictions of a model it's time to abandon that model. The predictions of the model "prohibition is almost invariably worse than legalization/decriminalization" so far have a rather incredibly high batting average.
In Portugal you are brought in front of a judge where you will be offered help with addictions. You're still arrested for having and/or using drugs. People holding more than small amounts or producing are still jailed.
In the Netherlands they have such a problem of narco-tourism that they had to harden laws regarding drugs and I would not be surprised that more hardening will come. Additionally, not all drugs were made legal.
You seem to believe that penalizing drugs usage is wrong and counter-productive. My point of view is that it's normal for a state to regulate substances that are potentially harmful.
At some point we leave the domain of objective arguments for the domain of personal beliefs.
I'm not saying I believe that you can. I was attempting to address the assertion that drugs are illegal because of moral puritanisim, not whether banning drugs is effective.
"Combating drugs is not just about a perfect moral vision of society. Getting rid of meth, for example, would be a big aid to society. (As best I understand it)."
I don't mean to undermine your knowledge but that would be impossible, useless, and actually harmful.
And here's why: http://www.rxlist.com/desoxyn-drug.htm -- this is methamphetamine in a legal form that's prescribed to people all over the country. They are using it to help people lose weight. Yeah, I know, right? Meth. Seriously.
Now let's think about "Meth: Not even once." and how that applies to a case where doctor prescribes you methamphetamine for your ADHD (which everyone seems to have nowadays). So what is it now -- "Meth: Not even once, unless prescribed by a doctor"? Nah, doesn't have that nice ring to it.
Drugs are like weapons; that's the reason they're illegal. Imagine not feeling ANY pain, having a sharp powerful intellect, being able to not sleep for days in a row and feel great. You can get stabbed and not even feel it, your hand can be blown off and you won't care. Certainly not concerned with things like having to eat or sleep.
Now I'm sure you would use that power for positive or neutral activities like writing posts online, coding, drawing, studying for exams, or nodding off on a couch, but can you imagine a gang that robs grocery stores on meth? It would be kinda easier to police sober people or people without guns, right?
I don't think drugs should be completely legal or illegal. I think using drugs should be a privilege like driving a car or owning a handgun, a privilege that can be easily earned by perhaps passing tests and lacking history of violent crimes. Like a 'drug user's license' that can be taken away temporarily or permanently for violations of public safety.
I would certainly not want criminals who can harm me owning guns, driving cars, or using drugs. That's my point and this is where I partially agree with prohibition.
I don't mean scrubbing meth from the earth. Meth in perscription form can still exist. Its biggest problems are social; caused by private production of the drug, and the social side-effects of a large number of broke addicts.
I'm a daily MR reader, so I like them, but this is classic Libertarian exercise in manipulative framing. Gasoline consumption does, in fact, increase non-linearly with speed at highway speeds. Police departments do have to pay their officers salaries. He could just as easily have written it this way:
- the real cost of gasoline is about $10/G. when you count pollution, military expenditures to protect supply, etc.
- Big Government and lying politicians bring that down to $4 to curry favor with voters
- that means voters drive bigger cars faster than they otherwise would
- that leads to an ethos of unlimited speed
- all of the above leads to highway casualties
- drivers who try to drive responsibly risk being run over by maniacs driving 4K lb behemoths at 80 mph.
Note that the above does not represent my views, but it fits the evidence as well as Tabarrok's take.
Police departments do have to pay their officers salaries
Yes, but it isn't ethical or good for society to do so by making a law just so that people will break it and get fined. Tying police pay to enforcement actions at any level will result in overzealous enforcement instead of the objectivity we should want from our police.
You're also implying that raising the speed limit in the case being discussed would lead to a higher rate of crashes or injuries but you haven't provided any evidence for that claim. The author did provide evidence showing the opposite.
My biggest problem isn't with paying the fine (for example, associated with speeding), it's with the other penalties that come with it. If it was just a fine, I would pay it and be done. I fight every ticket I've gotten because of the increase of the cost of insurance that is associated with it. I got a ticket for 75 in a 70 on the freeway, ticket was $137 (the judge upheld the ticket...), no points but I still got an increase of $30/mo on my insurance for the next 2 years. That's much more than the cost of the ticket.
As for the other point you make, in my state (Michigan), the courts ruled that jurisdictions need to provide a good case for having the speed limit lower than the standard. As soon as that ruling went into effect, most all the streets in town raised their limit to 45mph.
It seems to me that jurisdictions should be able to provide a good reason for having the speed limit at all. "It's the 85th percentile speed" is a good reason but simply being "standard" doesn't seem like one to me.
I agree, money from ticketing should go to some other use than directly to the police in the locality where the ticket was given. Hell it should go to education or something useful like that. Or to a general fund that is redistributed based on size to all police forces in a state. (obviously that isn't perfect either, that could lead to over hiring)
> Police departments do have to pay their officers salaries.
When discussing traffic, why is this even brought up? It's like the point of the law goes from protecting you to finding ways to screw you. I'm not saying abolish speed limits, I'm asking why the police even have a say against traffic engineers on a matter like this. Their inability to turn revenue should be their problem to solve...not everyone else's.
>Gasoline consumption does, in fact, increase non-linearly with speed at highway speeds. Police departments do have to pay their officers salaries.
Neither of these constitute even a slight approach to a justification for lowering the speed limit to give people more tickets. If someone wants to spend their money on gasoline, that's their prerogative.
Well, in the 70s, it wasn't just their prerogative -- gasoline was in limited supply, so if some jackass burned a gallon extra getting from point A to point B, that's a gallon that someone else couldn't have.
Not that inelastic. The problem was that in the 70s Nixon instituted price controls, so there really wasn't any reduction in gas use as gas became more rare. And there were the sort of huge lines outside gas stations that we're used to thinking only occurred outside Soviet markets.
Nowadays, when the supply of gas goes down a bit the price goes up and people carpool a bit more, don't drive to far away stores when there's a nearby store that's almost as good, and drive a bit more slowley. And it does really bring supply and demand into equilibrium - we didn't see huge lines outside our gas stations when Libya had its civil war.
Demand for gas is indeed fairly inelastic, but that just means that the price swings much farther due to a change in supply than, say, the price of a diamond ring does. It would have to be perfectly inelastic for no adjustment to occur.
None of which justifies (or even relates to) paying the police (or anyone else, really) for intentionally endangering people's lives.
The only question of merit here is whether or not keeping the speed limit artificially low is, in fact, dangerous or inefficient. The author contends to have presented evidence that this it is, so the reasonable response is a discussion of the engineering factors or the reliability of his sources.
Thanks for all the replies. My common rejoinder is that Libertarians, including A.T., support the political choices that create the current situation (untaxed gas externalities, police budgets funded by fines, highways for private cars over public transit, etc.), and while supporting rational policies in theory (high gas taxes etc.), when forced to choose, choose the small-screwed-up-government party that believes in subsidized SUVs killing people over the big-inefficient-government party that wants higher gas taxes and better train service. We live in this country, with this political landscape. Small yet incredibly efficient government is not a choice (though both the Clinton and Obama administrations have worked hard on effectiveness). Own the choice you are making instead of playing purity games, guys.
Don't bash the Libertarians for choosing a party. You might want to bash them for other things that you don't agree with. If I was living in the US, I'd probably vote mostly Republican, too. Gotta choose the smaller evil.
But honestly, a binary choice is just no way to express political opinion: Why should my views on abortion correlated with my views on free trade?
At least getting a multi-party system would be worth a try.
> If I was living in the US, I'd probably vote mostly Republican, too.
Scanning your comment history, it looks like you're German?
I think you may have a rather badly skewed (or outdated) view of American politics. Unless you're considered quite far right by European standards, the current US Republican party's views are probably far removed from your own. Your comment about "internalizing the externalities" by raising gas taxes alone would get you skinned alive at Republican gatherings in most states. And if you view Democrats as "left", all I can say is they often make your center-right parties look like socialists.
You're missing the point by coercing the argument into a linear left and right scale. Abortion alone (very much on the agenda in US, almost not at all in Europe) screws that up. And there are plenty more issues.
eru is clearly not a single-issue voter (nor do I classify single-issue voters as left or right, regardless of the issue in question, I simply classify them as irredeemably irrational).
eru's statement was "If I was living in the US, I'd probably vote mostly Republican". In the context of the discussion, I interpret that, quite reasonably I think, as broad agreement with what he perceived to be Republican policies.
My response was intended simply to point out to him that it is highly unlikely he truly has such broad agreement with Republicans, particularly in the context of other statements, and in the (hidden) context of other Europeans I've encountered who thought they would be Republicans in the US, and were quite surprised when they learned the modern state of the Republican party, which is far outside mainstream European politics.
He very explicitly says "lesser of two evils". It's really not that difficulty to find a portfolio of issues that would concern a European liberal (in the European meaning of the word) where the Republican party broadly scores better than the Democratic party.
My pet peeve is the inverse: it seems that police regularly ticket on the freeway where high speeds are safe, but rarely ticket in the city core where speeding is much more dangerous. The difference between a 25mph and a 35mph collision with a pedestrian is that the former probably isn't fatal and the latter probably is.
I totally agree. We have the opposite problem as well where I live - around schools there are zones that are 40km/h (25mph) at certain times in the day, and you see cops around there all the time, nabbing people going 45km/h at 2:02pm, an hour before any school kids will be in the area... If the periods were more sensible (say, spanning the 30 or 45 minutes when kids are being set down and picked up, not two hours on either side) it would make it a lot better, but as it is, it feels more like revenue raising than anything else.
The saddest part about school zone enforcement is that the police almost never enforce the speed limit during pick-up and drop-off times because it'd cause traffic tie-ups.
Do not underestimate the police like that. They know very well what they are doing. They control most of the time outside pick up time to not bother you and just some times to times at pick up time. The goal is mostly to condition you to think that you could be controlled. This is just the goal, putting in your brain that you could be controlled. Just that will make you go a bit slower, even during pick up time.
Oh, and this I got it from a German policeman because I asked him why they were not controlling during pick up time.
Hmmm, I would think that 2:02pm is one of the best times to start ticketing.
1. Kids are out and about during this period. There aren't as many of them, so that's the time when drivers are more likely to miss them.
2. Drivers tend to drive the speed of prevailing traffic. By slowing down traffic at 2PM, you're slowing down the traffic, and that effect will persist for a little while at least.
"The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What's there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced or objectively interpreted – and you create a nation of law-breakers – and then you cash in on guilt." --Ayn Rand
>you create a nation of law-breakers – and then you cash in on guilt.
actual modern implementations aren't about guilt, they are more practical - by selectively enforcing these laws government can target anybody at any moment. There is a saying in Russia - "Given a man, it is always possible to find a law [he's broken]." ("Byl by chelovek, a statya naydettsya" :)
Another great example of money trumping public safety is red light cameras, it's well known that the best way to reduce intersection fatalities is to increase the time length of the amber light. However if you take the average amber length of a red light camera intersection it is below the average length of non-red light camera intersections.
The only studies that show that an increased amber length decrease fatalities have a study period of less than 10 years. Other studies have shown that the effect dissipates after 10 years as drivers adjust to the longer yellow by driving through them.
I hate long yellows, and even worse is the "all red" period some cities have added between the yellow and the next light turning green. It makes traffic inefficient for people who follow the law (which says you must stop at yellow lights) and it vastly increases the number of people who blow late yellows and even reds.
Yellow lights (and all-red periods) are useful because drivers need a transition time between "go" and "stop" to allow them to react safely. Demanding that all drivers always stop at all yellow lights effectively turns the yellow light into a red light, and drivers are forced to switch instantaneously between "go the speed limit" and "stop."
All-red periods are also useful at intersections where traffic backs up and blocks the intersection for a few seconds, not because drivers entered the intersection when traffic was stopped, but because events down the street or at an adjacent light may cause traffic to stop suddenly with drivers already in the intersection.
Demanding that all drivers always stop at all yellow lights effectively turns the yellow light into a red light, and drivers are forced to switch instantaneously between "go the speed limit" and "stop."
I don't know about where you are, but here amber lights mean "Stop if it's safe to do so", i.e. if the choices are go through the junction or slam on the breaks, you should go through the junction. If the choices are to stop smoothly and safely or go through the junction, you should stop.
From what I understand, this is true in most states in the U.S. -- you're considered to have run the red light if you haven't exited the intersection by the time it turns red.
There seems to be some confusion about this. Most people I've talked to think that if you make it past the intersection entrance line before the light turns red, you're fine.
Yellow lights are useful, for the reasons you mentioned. My beef is with long yellow lights.
And I disagree with your justification for all-red periods. If you're stopped in the middle of an intersection because of a blockage, it usually takes a lot longer than 1-2 seconds to clear the intersection.
I'd be hesitant to imply causality like that. Red light cameras could be very well placed at high accident intersections as an attempt to reduce accidents.
(I'm not claiming their effective at it, but that could be one of many reasons they're placed there.)
I'm too tired to find the cite now, but Car and Driver has done numerous articles on this subject. In fact, the contractors who run red-light camera systems have sometimes prevailed on authorities to reduce yellow-light durations on camera-equipped intersections to increase the violation rate.
These systems are usually run by contractors, who include a guaranteed-revenue clause in their operating agreements. If the cameras are actually effective in stopping people from running red lights, then the operators will go back to the local government to demand that they make up the shortfall.
All in all, a dirty business that's clearly not safety-driven.
I'm behind this. I'm one of those people that believe an unjust law should be ignored. Its clear that in this instance there is a legitimate reason to ignore this law and a (bad) reason to enforce it (money). However, what baffles me is when there doesn't even seem to be any benefit, and in fact is major liabilities to keeping an unjust law for no real reason other than principle, the example i'm referring to being the "war on drugs".
Sadly, civil disobedience doesn't work any more, remember, if you break the law, hell even if you just disagree with it, you're not a patriot, you're a traitor.
My biggest beef with poor speed limits is that we end up teaching our children that "breaking the law is OK." I will eventually teach my children that, but only when they're older and can understand the nuances. I DO NOT want to teach it to a six year old, but that's about the time that they notice that Daddy always breaks the law by driving above the speed limit.
Ticket revenue does not, in general, go to the police department, it goes to the municipality (although the police department is a good chunk of the municipal budget).
There was one case a few years back where a police department stopped writing tickets because the town didn't approve their pay increase. When the town sued they said, "Nobody's speeding!"
I've thought the same thing before. I get the feeling cops don't like traffic ticket writing, so having money going to the department ensures that their managers make sure they write tickets. This makes me think the tradeoff is between very few tickets being written for the cases where it is dangerous vs. writing tickets when safety isn't a factor because it generates revenue.
There was a brouhaha in the last couple of years ago at some municipality where the state passed a law saying that all the money that the police seized was to go to the local school, but some police departments were refusing to hand the money over. I seem to recall that the police managed to win the dispute.
EDIT: Found the original source. Apparently I misremembered several things, but the point is intact in that the police found a way to avoid turning over the money as the law required.
http://kcsweb.kcstar.com/projects/drugforfeit/forfeit.htm
Yes. I've always thought the proper way to enforce penalties like traffic fines would be to literally destroy the offender's money. Then no specific entity benefits from the punishment; the gain is widely spread out by making everyone else's dollars very slightly more valuable.
I've argued for a long time now that, regardless of the posted speed limit, driving at a speed lower than the rate at which traffic is flowing — particularly in an "inside lane" — should be a primary offense (that is, behavior that's probable cause for an officer to pull you over). While you may think you're making traffic "safer" by observing the posted speed limit, you're actually increasing the risk to yourself and everyone around you by causing eddies in the flow of traffic as people merge into normally slower-traveling lanes to pass you on the "wrong" side. Those local instabilities in traffic flow significantly increase the likelihood of an accident because they engender unpredictable (or at least less predictable) behavior in your fellow drivers. Yes, traffic probably would be safer if everyone drove at the posted limit, but so long as a significant enough number of people aren't, behavior that complicates traffic flow increases risk for everyone.
(Then again, some of the worst offenders in that regard tend to be the police, themselves, in my experience. I can't count the number of times I've been caught in some huge knot of traffic pacing a cop who's driving two or three MPH under the posted limit, as if he's daring people to pass him...)
Of course, I've also argued for just as long if not longer that one should have to pass a university-level course in fluid dynamics in order to get a driver's license, and I don't see that happening any time soon, either.
> regardless of the posted speed limit, driving at a speed lower than the rate at which traffic is flowing should be a primary offense
One gets tailgated often enough for driving "only" 10 mph over the speed limit. I can only begin to imagine the extremes to which such a short-sighted rule would lead.
If you have more car-lengths of empty lane in front of you than you do cars backed up behind you, you're impeding the flow of traffic.
Bad rule. You're actually smoothing traffic by creating anti-traffic in front of you to absorb minor slowdowns. Drivers who keep distance in front of them are essential to dissolving traffic jams. See http://trafficwaves.org/trafexp.html for more details.
Thanks for that link - besides potential mass transit solutions, waves are all I think about when stuck in traffic. One thing to note, though, the linked page is wrong on the point that outflow can't be changed from a jam - if everyone in the jam accelerated as quickly as possible with almost no lag between each other, the entire jam point could move and eventually disperse. This would probably take coordination from networked robot drivers to pull off, though :-) since one slow driver could ruin the whole thing.
This is interesting to me. I'm probably one of those "dangerous drivers" you're referring to. I almost uniformly drive at 5km/h under the limit (I do restrict myself to the "outside lane" however).
My rationale is simple - I've been driving 9 years with 0 traffic fines. I'm in no great hurry to get from A to B, so when other drivers tailgate me I just smile and wave.
Would it be systemically safer for me to drive at the same speed as everyone else? Probably. Do I want to blow 90% of my disposable income on traffic fines? Not really!
Even a minor fender-bender will probably cost you more then all traffic fines you can collect before losing your license. So, you're increasing the chance of blowing well over 100% of your disposable income on dealing with an accident (not to mention other risks).
Germany has such an offense, and drivers there are very strict about lane discipline. It does improve traffic flow under certain conditions.
Germany also has sections of highway with no speed limit that rather suddenly run in to sections with a fairly low speed limit. The result can be a standing wave in traffic, often leading to complete stoppages on the autobahnen. The fact that many of their highways don't have enough lanes for the volume of traffic doesn't help either.
Germany is not a good example, the highways are saturated, always under construction, speed limits are not respected and when you do not have speed limits, you have crazy people driving 190km/h+ thinking they can control their car and are driving safely.
Really, cars and speed limits are very particular in Germany, if Germans are normally very rational in the way they manage their life, they keep all their irrationality for their behaviour with respect to their cars.
Germany is a good example of a place with the offense rosser described. It is not a good example of how to design an efficient highway system. I think the main problem is the number of lanes. If there's a tiny crack in the pavement, they'll put up a sign saying strassen schaden (road damage) and rebuild the road for 1km in either direction, but it's rare to see an extra lane added. I don't really understand what they're thinking.
I've driven in Germany quite a bit. I've never seen an accident on one of the unlimited speed sections; all the highway crashes I've seen were near towns, usually with a 100km/h speed limit.
> I can't count the number of times I've been caught in some huge knot of traffic pacing a cop who's driving two or three MPH under the posted limit, as if he's daring people to pass him...
I saw that all the time on my way into work (internship) this past summer. I just passed the cop. What annoyed me was other people who refused to pass the cop.
I also saw, in equal amount to cops going too slow, was cops going too fast, oh well.
As I understand it (I haven't learned to drive myself), when overtaking, you generally want a fairly large acceleration / speed differential to minimise the time you're actually passing the other car. Exceptionally so on 2-lane roads where you're effectively driving into oncoming traffic.
I don't know what constitutes a 'reasonable' differential though.
The same thing happens with the war on drugs due to asset forfeiture laws. On the one hand you have a police officer tasked with the hard and often thankless job of enforcing the law, investigating unsolved crimes, meticulously sorting through evidence, walking a beat, etc, etc. On the other hand you have a police officer tasked with the comparatively simple jobs of, say, pulling over "suspicious" looking drivers on the highway and looking for pot in their car, or executing exciting no-knock raids on, in the average case, un-armed drug dealer's houses. In the process generating enough revenue through the seizure and auction of vehicles and houses to pay for raises, more officers, new guns, helicopters, swat teams, armored personnel carriers, etc. The natural equilibrium is going to be that as many officers as possible spend as much time as possible in those typically easier and more glamorous and exciting jobs that generate revenue. This is hardly hypothetical, as over the course of the war on drugs we've seen a dramatic shift in the amount of effort the legal system puts forth in enforcing drug laws and prosecuting drug crimes and we've also seen a dramatic increase in the militarization of even small-town police departments. Assault rifles are more common. No-knock raids are more common. SWAT teams are more common. Use of APCs is more common. And this despite no significant increase in drug dealers becoming more heavily armed or more violent over that time period (except in Mexico which is in a drug-gang induced civil war).
The law should be pragmatic not dogmatic. The law should be molded to aid society not to mold society into some perfect, moral vision. Whenever the law tries to overstep those boundaries the result has always been strife and disaster.