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Comment by hemloc_io | Hacker News Reader

I think people know the rules of the road, but driving is a social activity with it's own norms like any other. That's why drivers from different parts of the country drive differently. (I'd also argue if you want to fix this you need to make police enforce traffic stuff only instead of using it as a pretext for other kinds of enforcement.)

If we want to make driving tests much harder then we need to not make driving required for day to day life.

I'd argue that there are true "accidents", they're just not all collisions.

In our laws we have even have different levels of fault, accident -> negligence -> recklessness -> premeditation, and criminal vs civil.

You're right thou all of humans don't adequately understand + calculate risk.

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I agree that enforcement needs to change. We should be trying for universal/consistent enforcement. Ticketing 1 person our of 100 violators can easily lead to bias in application of the law.

We can call them collisions and then wait for an investigation (ha ha ha) to categorize it. Of course they only perform investigations for fatal accidents most of the time. You can't even get police to write an accident report in some major cities, like Philly.

Most do, of course, but there is a significant portion of drivers who have no idea of the rules or blatantly go against them. It's obvious to anyone paying attention.

It's even worse if you include things like being courteous to others or anticipating and mitigating potential risks on the road as part of "following the rules".

It is curious that traffic-specific law enforcement is rare outside of the major cities.

It's very common on many highways. For example, police watch I-95 in VA like a hawk, and mostly outside the big cities.

Right, but they're general police (eg, they also handle non-traffic enforcement such as drugs), right?

I believe GP's point was not about "specific enforcement of traffic laws by police" but "law enforcement agencies who are specifically charged with traffic".

True, they are full law enforcement but assigned traffic duty.

"law enforcement agencies who are specifically charged with traffic"

Are there really any that are? I didn't think that was common, even in cities. In fact, many cities are issuing guidance to not enforce basic traffic violations to prevent pretextual stops.

Hah yeah knew some racers and they had a rule which was never speed in Virginia it's no joke.

As soon as you drive into the state there's signs telling you they will get you.

Traffic enforcement is rare even in major cities. You have a very small chance of getting caught doing something illegal, unless there are automated traffic cameras enforcing the rules.

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