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Every police chase is a danger to innocent people’s lives. Some chases are necessary, but a broken taillight is not worth that risk.

  • aelwero@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    Let it go…

    What’s the premise of the ticket?

    The premise is that a broken tail light doesn’t indicate a turn or a stop to other drivers, who should be paying attention anyway… It’s safety, public safety…

    So to mitigate the risk of a collision because one of your three brake lights isn’t working, we gotta chase someone? Or in the case of going to their home, we’re gonna pay two cops an hours wage, reduce their ability to do anything else for anyone, and basically convict someone without any process whatsoever (unless they spend the time to contest it, and likely fail anyway just because cop says they did it) on circumstantial evidence?

    Apply that to speeding… Apply it to rolling a stop sign… Apply it to 90%+ of the shit that gets ticketed…

    The benefit to society for most traffic tickets is negligible at best. Let it go…

    • Crashumbc@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      The benefit to society for most traffic tickets is negligible at best. Let it go…

      This is an extremely naive view. While the cops enforcing the law are almost always corrupt and do it in a corrupt way

      The “benefit is negligible” is a mistake. The fact is driving around without brake lights IS a problem, driving without a seatbelt IS a problem, speeding IS a problem. That is why these laws came about in the first place. The facts and statistics are very clear about the increased accidents.

      • aelwero@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        You appear to be assuming that I’m suggesting citations be done away with entirely…

        I’m suggesting that a citation doesn’t warrant a pursuit.

        I’ll go a little further and say that a “no pursuit” policy isn’t appropriate either (and that sounds contradictory I’m sure, but if you publish it as a policy it becomes an incentive, not good), but a pursuit over a citation is negating, in a huge manner, the safety those citations provide…

        Someone fleeing the police is a ridiculously more dangerous condition than an occasional citation getting skipped… how many people flee? 1%? I doubt it’s even that… The statistical deterrence isn’t affected by that, and arguably, the citation won’t have a statistical impact on that fringe group anyway. The reduction in accidents happens in the 99% that pull over and simply pay the fines.

      • Doug Holland@lemmy.worldOP
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        11 months ago

        The facts and statistics would be, I’d guess, exponentially more clear about the increased accidents from police chases.