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Comment by nradov | Hacker News Reader

If there was 100% enforcement of speed laws then everyone would simply stop speeding. We can argue about whether that's a good thing, but the reality is that people do react to deterrents.

Some UK highways have so many speed cameras now that enforcement is close to 100%. Drivers complain, but they mostly obey the limits.

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The law says you go over X you get a ticket. Your speedometer is not as accurate as triangulating your speed from multiple static locations as would happen with cameras everywhere. This would lead to a need for much more accurate cameras or a reduction in speed by the margin of error for the average speedometer. Those affects were not intended and aren't even enforced now when police visibly see you going at X speed limit +/- 5 mph.

This is just an example, but improving the accuracy and coverage of surveillance materially changes the situation that the laws we're created in, in the first place

Actually speedometers are required never to under-report the speed. They are allowed something like a 10% margin for over-reporting, but no under-reporting, to solve exactly the problem you describe.

Required != what happens in reality

100% compliance of laws in a population of millions increases costs astronomicaly.

Assuming you are involved in building software if you are in, imagine it this way. It the difference in cost between Google garunteeing they have a 99.5% uptime vs Google garunteeing they have 100% uptime on a service.

That small difference in uptime percentage would cost hundreds of millions of dollars, and Foogle is not even close to a national scale

It is very easy for speedometers not to under-report speed, given the 10% margin for over-reporting. It's not at all comparable to trying to maintain 100% uptime.

Most of them deliberately over-report by about 8%. You can check this by comparing your car's indicated speed to the speed shown on your satnav.

https://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/pedantic

As others have pointed out, your example doesn't hold water: other countries have speeding cameras already, and our speedometers are already sufficiently accurate.

Do you have a better example?

"others" is one person who is being incredibly pedantic. Red light cameras or speeding cameras on a few areas !== all encompassing surveillance that implements 100% compliance with the laws.

If you guys are going to harp on speeding cameras existing as well to invalidate the argument, how do you handle the fact that they have been shown to increase accident rates and many communities have pushed to get rid of them as a result?

You're confusing red light cameras at intersections with speeding cameras. There has been no research showing that speeding cameras increase accident rates.

"One" person is two, and they made valid points that you refused to acknowledge.

> Red light cameras or speeding cameras on a few areas !== all encompassing surveillance that implements 100% compliance with the laws.

Who said there would be all-encompassing surveillance, or that 100% compliance with the laws would be enforced? That's a straw man that you created.

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