Dragaera

the pitfalls of judgemental law enforcement

Fri Jan 9 12:47:55 PST 2004

<<The problem with this argument is, if I saw a sign warning of a speed
<<trap, I'd slow down, not speed up.  So in actuality, he was simply
<<preventing the police from having anyone to ticket, by encouraging
<<people to follow the law.  And he's arrested for this?

The problem with this is that the sign only deters the speeder for a short
time, really only until he passes the police officer, at which time he will
speed up again.  It's like Moonshiners having a snitch at the police station
who'd tip them off against raids.  The snitch could be seen as "helping"
because he's encouraging people to follow the law for that brief period
during which the police will raid the moonshiners.  Generally the intent is
not to encourage people to obey the law, but to prevent people from having
their illegal activity discovered by the authorities.  A general warning
that speed will be tracked in an area, is a better method of speed control,
since the motorist must be careful through the entire area since he doesn't
know where the police have concealed themselves, if they are present at all.

-Akodo Bob
the man without a funny sig.