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Comment by cortesoft | Hacker News Reader

I often think about this in regards to rules enforcement... as we get better and better at catching rule breakers because of increased surveillance, we run into an issue where the rules do not make sense anymore.

This is because our current rules were designed for a world with worse enforcement. Take, for example, the speed limit and ticket costs. Both the speed limit and price of a ticket for breaking the speed limit were set for a world of imperfect enforcement. We assume someone who is pulled over for speeding was probably speeding many times before they were pulled over, so we have the penalty set relatively high. The penalty was not designed to be given every time someone goes 2 MPH over the speed limit.

We really need to rethink the rules if we drastically change enforcement.

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I don't like this example.

It's a _limit_, not the speed at which you have to go. Just go 5 MPH under the limit and you'll be fine. Of course if you always are on the edge there will be moments when you go over the edge, but that's on you.

> Both the speed limit and price of a ticket for breaking the speed limit were set for a world of imperfect enforcement.

I don't have a strong argument against the price of a ticket being set higher because of all this, it does make some sense. But the speed limit isn't lower than it should because we didn't use to catch every fast driver.

It's low because, as drivers tend to forget, they are not alone around the roads and the security of pedestrian (and mostly _children_), cyclists etc. requires, among other things, low speed.

"But the speed limit isn't lower than it should because we didn't use to catch every fast driver."

That's actually how they set some limits. They know that people go over the limit by a specific amount when doing traffic studies and will adjust the speed limit below the safe speed they want. They just dropped a 50mph zone to 40mph because they had too many people doing 60mph in it, which was associated with more accidents at one intersection. Now everyone does 50mph in the 40mph zone. This area did not have pedestrian or cyclist safety incidents driving this change. Getting hit at 40mph vs 50mph isnt going to make much difference to them.

"It's a _limit_, not the speed at which you have to go. Just go 5 MPH under the limit and you'll be fine."

I agree, but the topic is about enforcement. This example is a perfect illustration of how lackadaisical enforcement can influence society's views on the subject and lead to perverse system design, compliance, and enforcement.

They are generally setting automatic tickets at a low cost and only for significant infractions. I think in MD it's like $20-25 per ticket and only when doing more than 10-15mph over.

That said, I agree with the sentiment that some penalties and rules do not make sense. Even the people who run the system know it. It's just that they get to use law enforcement or prosecutorial discretion to decide who to punish and who to let go. Which I believe fundamentally undermines the rule of law and leads to biased enforcement. I guess that's one good thing about the automated system - it treats everyone the same.

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