Police in this tiny Alabama town suck drivers into legal ‘black hole’
al.com
al.com
I could fight the ticket, but that would mean driving back to Vermont for the court date (a 3-4 hour drive and whole day away from work). I just ended up paying it (it was over $100). Only later did I find out that stretch of road was notorious for this and the cops preyed on out of towners who had no idea they needed to slam on their brakes before the poorly indicated 25 MPH zone (locals knew to do this).
The traffic stop served absolutely no purpose other than revenue.
And world class surgeons are everywhere, you just don't pay world class prices everywhere. I don't need or want a famous surgeon, I want someone that makes sure I'm well and that I don't need to pay off for the rest of my life.
Anecdote: When he was three my son needed a rare emergency surgery. He had an ambulance transfer to a specialist pediatric hospital from another hospital where he was first admitted. They brought a specialist in just for that surgery. My son then stayed three weeks in the children's hospital and I slept next to him on a bed. I paid nothing for any of this except my own sandwiches, and was by his side the whole time. This was the summer holiday period and fell into our annual three weeks of summer vacation. I sent my work my medical certificate and they registered this (as required by law) as sick days and I was able to move my vacation days to right after the hospital stay, meaning I lost not even a single vacation day. Of course i also got full pay for those days with my son sleeping in the hospital, so I was neither working (except for some minimum email forwarding and answering simple queries) nor did I lose any salary, benefits, sick days, leave days, ... And I knew that there was no risk whatsoever that i wouldn't lose my job or insurance.
Honestly I would not give any of this up for twice or thrice the money. ~40-50% of everyone's gross salary goes to all these services and we pay close to 20% VAT, but this buys us comfort and security. No one dies because they can't afford treatment - even the homeless or irregular migrants can go to the ER and get care (but likely far less than we are lucky yo receive).
FTFY
Also, is Canadian culture really that different from the U.S.? I'm genuinely curious about that.
But let's not pretend it's a US trait. I hear more criticism about democratic leaders from democrats than republicans. Less vitriol, but more criticism.
If the leaders of your party are (or hold themselves to be) above criticism, that’s a sign that something is deeply unhealthy (as we’ve seen recently).
I wasn't lamenting that there wasn't more politician worship, I was saying that it is confined to the Republican party.
Arguably because the democratic establishment is closer to the republican establishment than the democratic base.
This is healthy, isn't it? Politics should be an environment where everybody can and does critique everybody, right?
And, yes, it's not just a US thing. But it's one of many bellwethers that differ between US and Canada. Despite the notional monarchy.
I love the US for its beauty and many parts of its culture, but I would never want to live there.
In western europe it is normal for people to go to preventive care, or hospitals and NOT fear to be bankrupt.
Its normal to have four weeks of paid vacation a year.
Its normal to have a safety net when you fall on hard times, e.g. when you lose your job or family or mind.
Its normal to think of police as a positive, not as something to be regularly scared of.
Its normal to live walking or cycling distance to work.
Its normal to study at university and not be saddled with debt.
Its normal to be fine with life as it is, without an ambition for being rich or powerful or whatever.
America seems to me always like a place for ambitious and hungry people that want to work and fight all their lives to prove themselves. But it doesn't seem like a place for people that want to be happy and live a good life.
America is a force for creativity and creation but also for the misery of many. I just can't believe how many people 'stick it out', how many people simply accept that dental pain is normal if they can't pay to fix it, or that they might die because they pay $100+ for insulin that they need to live, when in any other first world country this is free. Your employer can let you go with basically no warning or reason and you lose everything - how insane is that!
America has more prisoners than China (>4x its size). America has one of the highest child and maternal mortality rate in the world. America has an abysmal school system that fails the majority of people. America has crime and murder rates through the roof.
I just don't understand how Americans have learned to accept all that with no inkling to either leave or fight for actual change.
And, as to the "regular walking or cycling distance" the US simply has less population density.
That said, I think mandatory vacation and universal healthcare would be nice.
It's a politically charged issue, because many people consider it to be the loss of a child, and no doctor wants to tell them the child was never born. Since 2001, France has more than doubled the number of stillbirths, because of new standards that moved what were once miscarriages to the stillbirth category (some driven locally, some in response to new WHO standards based on the ability to care for premature infants.)
It's also politically charged because many groups have a vested interest in downplaying any results that make their country look bad. I'm not going to claim it's entirely a statistical artifact - the US lacks comprehensive neonatal care and that's an issue.
Because of population density.
People making 6 figures were/are living out of their cars.
You have to balance cost of living, culture, politics, weather, climate, appropriate proximity to friends & family, and so on.
I always think of it in terms of CERN and people who work at the LHC. The weather and local environment isn't ideal, but they're in a high quality situation otherwise doing work that is about as meaningful as work can be.
That seems like a good model of "work" to operate with.
I've seen so many of these games since coming to the US. It's setup for whomever can suffer the most will get a good price, the customer service, or other kinds of "privileges" considered just normal decency in other countries.
The only solution I've found is to interact and depend as little as possible on others. They're pretty unlikely to come through for you if needed.
They'll cajole me to hang up, say that I'll get a call back, etc, but I insist that they can keep me on hold while we wait for whoever to finish their lunch break or get back from their meeting.
Often the issue gets resolved in 10 minutes this way.
And surprisingly: it stays resolved with no worse success rate than playing call back tag.
If it's actually taking a long time (which doesn't happen often), then I hang up and try a new rep or a new support channel.
https://www.orlandosentinel.com/business/os-waldo-speed-trap...
There was an old Rockford Files episode called Pastoria Prime Pick, where a small Calforinia town was growing economically by mixing small real and manufacturing/setting-up people with big crimes in order to either solicit bribes for lower crimes and take in huge fines.
So is Boutte, but only between the Walmart and Dominoes on Highway 90... that'd be the blackest section of the local community, which is essentially the color of every person you'll ever see pulled over in that area, despite it being a busy part of the highway.
https://www.annistonstar.com/the_daily_home/state-supreme-co...
Basically for the cost of a city attorney whose job literally rests on loose interpretations of state statutes, you can collect monies from all sorts of people outside of your official city limits.
Think safety codes and enforcement and then make the easy jump to Dollar General business licenses which are a percentage of turnover.
Policing I22 in Brookside is the tip of the iceberg
So that was the most productive one? After salary, health care and operating costs, The roi does not sound all that good.
---- > Ferguson has allowed its focus on revenue generation to fundamentally compromise the role of Ferguson’s municipal court. The municipal court does not act as a neutral arbiter of the law or a check on unlawful police conduct. Instead, the court primarily uses its judicial authority as the means to compel the payment of fines and fees that advance the City’s financial interests. This has led to court practices that violate the Fourteenth Amendment’s due process and equal protection requirements. The court’s practices also impose unnecessary harm, overwhelmingly on African-American individuals, and run counter to public safety. Most strikingly, the court issues municipal arrest warrants not on the basis of public safety needs, but rather as a routine response to missed court appearances and required fine payments. In 2013 alone, the court issued over 9,000 warrants on cases stemming in large part from minor violations such as parking infractions, traffic tickets, or housing code violations. Jail time would be considered far too harsh a penalty for the great majority of these code violations, yet Ferguson’s municipal court routinely issues warrants for people to be arrested and incarcerated for failing to timely pay related fines and fees. Under state law, a failure to appear in municipal court on a traffic charge involving a moving violation also results in a license suspension. Ferguson has made this penalty even more onerous by only allowing the suspension to be lifted after payment of an owed fine is made in full. Further, until recently, Ferguson also added charges, fines, and fees for each missed appearance and payment. Many pending cases still include such charges that were imposed before the court recently eliminated them, making it as difficult as before for people to resolve these cases. ---
The full report is with reading.
Also add asset forfeiture to the equation (usually targeted at poor and minority populations who cannot find it) and you have a toxic cycle of racism that feeds into more traffic stops of certain populations which then feeds into stats about that same population, rinse and repeat.
But asset forfeiture can cast an even wider death. The murder of millionaire Donald Scott by LA county police was motivated by the fact that they hoped to seize his ranch through asset forfeiture if they found any wrongdoing/illegal activities there (there were none) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting_of_Donald_Scott