Estonia has a new way to stop speeding motorists
economist.com
economist.com
The main cost of a traffic ticket today isn't the ticket; it's the (much larger) uptick in insurance costs afterwards. If you could just pay $80-120 on the off chance you occasionally got a ticket, without impacting insurance premiums, I'd speed a lot more often.
It's a social anti-credit system.
Innocent until proven guilty, not Innocent until some grainy youtube footage that kinda maybe looks like you were speeding. Police equipment is calibrated and the evidence stored appropriately for a reason.
That said, at least the in the UK, the police do use video footage from the public to a certain degree. I believe this is often used to go and "have a quiet word" with the driver in question, i.e.: <unexpected knock knock on the front door> "Was this you sir/madam? <shows video on smartphone of sir/madam driving dangerously>" and then give them a warning if they own up to it (...and this sort of intervention is probably enough to on its own without having to go any further, i.e. having a police officer standing on your doorstep with video footage of you driving like a prick and being able to "get away with" just a warning/telling off), but I do not believe that the footage on its own is enough evidence on its own since it is so easy to fake.
That's quite general problem around deepfakes - how to generate video that's guaranteed real. Some form of DRM or blackchain is probably needed, not to anyones liking.
Typically happens with family members.
Is this ever a real concern with CCTV footage?
But sure, a dashcam won't necessarily ID the driver, just the car.
But one can dream :) A good thought technology for reducing anger towards reckless drivers is to assume the crazy BMW driver just had a bad case of diarrhea and needed to get to a bathroom very fast.
Thing is, doing this will get you in a shit storm so that might be the simple reason no insurtech has tried it yet. Perhaps some smaller insurers are doing it and keeping their mouth shut. No problem if nobody knows where the license plates on the exclusion list are based upon.
Even if it is stolen it works, as you would obviously file a police report for the theft and so that would indemnify you of any crimes committed from when it was stolen.
The only issue is what happens if your bookkeeper gets drunk, borrows your car (because they know where you keep the keys) and then commits a crime?
I think this pilot is giving people a choice, but any actual implementation would not.
I would be curious to see how/if it brings down speeding if they don't get a choice at all but just have to wait. It's not very practical but I do think it would work in principle.
For the average person, this info is probably stored in a basement near a beware of the leopard sign but insurance companies will go through the trouble to get it.
https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/03/finland...
> Estonians have praised the idea for being more egalitarian—monetary fines are not adjusted according to income, as in neighbouring Finland, but everyone has the same number of hours in the day
Back when I worked in food service, being an hour late probably meant today was your last day. Now, I'm not sure anyone would actually notice. Higher up, if you're late, people will wait for you.
If a 1-hour timeout creates a split between "so I lost my job" and "so I finished an hour later", it's still punishing the poor more.
Punishing with micro-timeouts like this is much more interesting imo.
also known as, a strawman.
Also I've recently bought new car and collected 3 fines within first 2 weeks. They weren't quick enough to arrive to change my behaviour and this would've bitten me way too hard than it should.
Just make fines progressive.
https://www.npr.org/2019/10/18/771371881/episode-945-the-lib...
The limit is not high (BrAC 0.15 mg/L -equivalent to 0.03%) to start with. The good thing about this policy (as a disincentive to drunk-driving) is it is designed to socialise responsibility and blame: while a passenger can reasonably claim not to know how drunk the driver was, it makes no difference to the fine.
One could extend this idea to speed limits, perhaps. Or maybe: multiply the driver's fine relative to the number of passengers aboard, so as to diminish the guy-showing-off-to-his-mates/ girlfriend effect. If you're risking lives other than your own, pay more.
If someone working two $8/h jobs to pay for rent and food has to pay $450 that has serious repercussions. If someone who owns a rental property for example is to experience an incentive of a similar size, then the incentive ought to be proportional maybe to 2-3% of the value of the property?
If we’re OK with poor people’s lives being ruined by a speeding ticket then maybe we could be OK with a millionaire having to sell some shares or even property to cover a similar offense.
And, the police would get their funding quotas faster ;)
Of course legislation like this is unlikely to cross the Gilens/Page threshold.
here’s a summary of their Princeton study finding that US “democracy” works only when serving the oligarchy:
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/princeton-experts-say...
You don’t have a choice to not let a driver speed up when you are already in a car.
https://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/news/arizona-based-redflex-p... https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/redflex-traffic-systems-enter...
It usually resulted in a butt chewing for the service member. The military spouses tended to be less impressed by this. So for spouses we always took a lot of time filling out the paperwork.
For the spouses who proclaimed how "important" their husband was, I liked to be especially obsequious and insist that they talk to my supervisor, and make them wait by the side of the road until said supervisor could make it to the scene (or have better things to do and tell me to quit screwing around).
Young me was a jerk sometimes.
In some circumstances, sometimes not, even more so if you have to miss any work to attend the course.
A friend of mine did one after being caught at 33mph in a 30mph zone.
ACPO guidelines mean they wouldn't be pinged until 10% +2mph over. So 35mph in a 30. That's also the minimum speed to be offered a speed awareness course.
Every motorcyclist who gets pulled over by a cop is morally obligated to keep that traffic cop occupied in conversation for as long as possible. My record was over an hour. Every second they spend 'supervising" you beside the road is a second they aren't handing a ticket to someone else. So I am all for this plan. Make all the cops stand beside the road for an hour every time they ticket a speeding motorcyclist. That will certainly stop all the inane tickets being handed to sportbikes doing 55 in a 50 as schoolbusses rush by at 70.
Also: 55, just like 70, is also more than 50 so if 50 is the limit set, then even though one is worse than the other, both are wrong so it's a bit silly to complain about it imo. And yes I've been caught speeding myself already, also for rather small violations. Fair? That's a bit besides the point: thing is, if the sign says 50, and I willingly go over that, I'll deal with the consequences. Not complain about people enforcing them. If anything, I could complain about the limit. But that's about it.
In practice the cops probably need to be able to handle teens "playing" and on purpose getting wait fines some way. It wouldn't be unmanageble.
Consider also that any three strike system will impact people who drive more miles more often. So a population of more reckless but lower mileage drivers will be impacted similarly to high mileage drivers going speed limit +/- noise.
Anyway, I suggest looking at three-strike drug possession laws as a good example of how dysfunctional this kind of hard-on-crime legislation is in practice.
(Disclaimer: I don't speed)
Germany has one of the better/higher quality roads and highest speed limits in Europe, though.
We did often drive on weekdays (but used public transportation in the three aforementioned cities P/B/H).
They are way better than the awful concrete motorway that you can still find in germany
Do you think something dangerous has happened if you drive 70 on 60 when that's the speed everyone else is going and the city hasn't bothered to changed the speeds to match reality?
Stuff like this only works if the police is not terribly corrupt of course. But if the police force is corrupt (or, like in the US, continuously afraid of their lives + racially biased), then I'd wager there are bigger dangers to society than the ability to make someone stand by the highway for a while.
For example in the some highways in the some countries, the speed average is calculated between two tolls and people resets their odometer in the first toll and if they above the limit, they pull over and wait until the average goes below the limit. So I am in doubt if it decreases or increases driving in high speeds in the long term.
Or to not pass out out of boredom (most my friends state this as reason as well). Modern cars, especially the slightly better class ones, make hardly or no sound and do the max speed (120-130km/h in EU depending on the country) without noticing it at all if you don't stare at the instruments. I personally do not enjoy driving at all (and never have), so I want to go from a->b, not 'enjoy the experience'; I find it a boring and wasteful chore (which is why I prefer the train or mtr, but that's not available or possible or affordable everywhere, like in where I live, the only transport is hiking (which I prefer, but not always practical) or by car...). Unfortunately my place will one of the last places where self driving cars will become available (bad, erratically winding roads with many unexpected obstacles after it rains).
The other thing I notice around here is that the roads are constantly getting better: wider, better lighting, better marking, curves get straightened out, foliage & trees on the side are cut to improve visibility, etcetra.
All this never seems to lead to an increase in speed limits.
So you can be on a curvy shady narrow road in the dark and rain. Max 100 kph, or 80 at winter. Wide road, good surface, good visibility, no traffic -- max 100 kph, or 80 at winter.
I can't bring myself to understand by which logic both of these speed limits can be right. One must be horribly unsafe, or the other must be horribly slow for the conditions.
Likewise, the danger posed by a bit of speeding is completely different on those segments..
Speed on a long stretch between boots, go to the gas station. Average speed is ok, still quicker at the destination.
Can't particularly recommend it, but it does happen. Pro-tip: bring enough cash to pay the fine, because the police will drive you (slowly) to an ATM if you don't have enough to pay the fine.
Honestly I'm completely in favour of both speed cameras and moving average zones, the stuff I see on a week to week basis is shocking, same with red light cameras, I wish every major to minor junction had them.
And often not even that. I find a sick amount of satisfaction when I get to coast up to one of these maniacs who sped into traffic and just sit right on their bumper.
Although it makes for top of hackernews, there is very little pragmatic, especially since the amount of road police is extremely limited.
This approach costs more (cops babysit speeders) and the state doesn't get paid. Doesn't seem practical from a policy standpoint.
It costs a lot of money to scrape people off the road and put them back together. And more if the person cannot be reassembled. Whether the state pays or insurers do (or both), it all makes for cost that gets spread across society to some degree. I don't know the exact amount a life is worth, but
https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2017-value-of-life/
Secondly, a rough metric like speed is exactly how one should interpret safety. Given a wide distribution of skills (mutually interacting driver competencies), and a wide distribution of vehicle capabilities and parameters (stopping distances, tyre pressures, safety features) and an even wider distribution of actual road-types & weather conditions it makes 'obey the damn speed limit: everybody, always' the simplest possible thing for drivers to understand, and for the cops to enforce.
This approach seems pretty cool. I assume the Estonians will publish the results either way.
This avoids the trick drivers use to avoid a single speeding camera. The fines system is more traditional, however.
The system works because the toll roads in Italy have exclusively guarded entrances and exits.
edit: someone suggested a nap too
I regularly see dangerous driving: near misses; aggressive tactics that work because other drivers compensate to make safe; too close to cyclists; etcetera.
It would also be nice if we could have a way to carrot or stick "discourteous" driving.
(Yes: without speed limits I think we would all choose to drive faster all the time and be dangerous. Also driving in Australia on open road is comfortable because the speed limit is strictly enforced so there is no overtaking).
It is just not safe to drive 80mph in the city center, for instance. And should be just avoided.
A different story is 190mph on the highway. It can be ok under certain circumstances: low traffic, good weather, good car, your age, new tires, just an odd example.
So no, some speed limits should be enforced at all costs.
... and since most adults experienced this form of punishment during their formative years, it's bound to be super effective.
Brilliant!
No decent policing of the roads - as there are hardly any police doing it - focusing entirely on speeding instead of unsafe or poor driving.
The thing is, before any discussion of stricter enforcement of speed laws, we need to fix the speed limits to match the roads (or vice versa, as may be desirable in some scenarios).
Anywhere that has a "speeding problem" doesn't actually have a problem with people violating the law, it has a problem with the law being wrong. Most major traffic engineering guidebooks suggest that limits be set based on the 85th percentile speed or something similar to that.
In free-flowing traffic conditions and without strict speed enforcement, every combination of road, driver, and vehicle has a natural speed they'll settle in to. The general principle is that the speed limit should be high enough that the vast majority of drivers are not speeding, If the 85th percentile natural speed of a road is higher than desired for whatever reason, the correct answer is to redesign the road to reduce its natural speed, not to strictly enforce an artificially low limit.
Unfortunately at least in the US while these principles are in our traffic engineering guidelines they are overridden by statutory limits. Certain classes of road are never allowed to have a speed limit above a certain level. When combined with the fact that we tend to build roads to be as wide, flat, and straight as we can get away with, the natural speeds on a huge number of roads exceed the statutory limits.
I've driven a significant portion of the American Interstate system as well as a small part of Canada's highway network. I still have yet to see a single controlled-access highway where the majority of free flowing traffic wasn't traveling above the posted speed limit. Seriously, get on the highway anywhere in the US outside of rush hour, get in the right lane, and set your cruise control to the posted limit. Roughly everyone will pass you. There are a few outliers, but on the average free-flowing highway I'd be willing to bet the 85th percentile rule actually applies backwards, over 85% of traffic is ignoring the limit because it's stupidly low.
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Eliminate all statutory limits, require all limits be set by the 85th percentile rule, and maybe learn from the Germans' demonstration that flat, straight, highly visible stretches of high quality highway don't really need limits at all. Then and only then should we talk about stricter enforcement.
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What we really need is stricter driver training and stricter enforcement against those who are actually bad at driving. We basically hand out licenses in a Cracker Jack box and have no meaningful classifications for personal use. The license I got on my 16th birthday by driving a compact sedan through a half-ass not even parallel parking thing and then going around the block in a small town also allows me to pilot a literal semi truck pulling a 53' trailer around most of North America as long as it's not for commercial purposes. In most states those retirees driving massive RVs have no additional training or testing.
Unfortunately given that outside of a few major cities it's pretty much impossible to live a fully functional life without being able to drive or be driven it's really hard to change that. Taking away someone's ability to drive is literally taking away their freedom in a large part of the US.