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Comment by thaumasiotes | Hacker News Reader

The primary reason we call them "trivial violations" is that enforcing them causes more harm than it prevents.

A point of view I can imagine on these infractions is this: it is necessary that there be a clear line between what is legal and what is not, and that all the law be enforced. Failing either of those, officers have the opportunity to selectively enforce the law in a way that is biased, brings them profit, or intimidates people for reasons outside the law. For that reason, every infraction, no matter how minor, must be enforced, and if it's unfair, law will have to change to exclude those edge cases. Otherwise you have unjust chaos.

I'm not sure I agree with that, but I think it's not irrational.

It is irrational in the context of the US legal system, in which almost all infractions go unenforced simply because there are so many infractions. The point of view you espouse here is literally impossible to achieve.

What kind of things do you have in mind?

My first thought was traffic things like prohibited turns. UK is seeing more automated enforcement around this and the purpose is to improve traffic flow, or to increase fine revenue if you're more cynical.

Take it a step further where you have cops who are forced to meet a certain quota in ticketing violations (with those quota targets being directly driven by budgets). What happens when a cop can't meet their target for a week? A hint: they don't pat themselves on the back for upholding a safe community.

Isn’t “Jay Walking” the classic trivial ‘crime’?

Most countries are happy to let you cross a road at any convenient place provided at that particular moment it doesn’t cause vehicles to slow down (ie there’s a safe gap in traffic). In the US, and often in a oddly ‘ethno-sensitive’ way, that’s an offence.

My country can't recruit enough police officers to go after anything. Even rapes lmao.

As many people as I have seen run through the street in the middle of the night when they're barely visible, I'm less inclined to think of that as 'harmless' and more inclined to think that some of them are nearly suicidal.

Wearing all black at night and sprinting in front of cars on fast, busy roads is not something people should be doing, yet I see it constantly.

You can't litter vs beating you up

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