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Comment by andrewmcwatters | Hacker News Reader

I’m not an old person, but I know I’m going to sound like a curmudgeon saying this.

I think it’s just moral decay. I can’t think of any other meaningful reason.

In Phoenix, which I consider the national capitol of bad drivers, in the span of less than 10 years, I’ve noticed a staggering number of people in the metro area who just blatantly run red lights now. Sometimes seconds after they’ve turned.

It’s straight up ridiculous, and now I spend time actually checking both sides of the road before driving away from stoplights in an active intersection.

I wouldn’t have thought to do that before. People just obeyed the law here. Not consistently mind you: no soul drives the 55 speed limit on I-17, but it’s getting measurably worse.

What else do you attribute to that? I guess you could say less traffic enforcement, but I don’t think anything’s changed here in this part of the country.

People suck.

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I was taught to always assure that the drivers on the cross street are stopping, and its saved me a couple times, particularly in the rain when people think their car will continue to brake in 10' despite the roads now being covered with a mixture of oil, tire sludge and water which is almost as slick as ice.

But, yes I find myself not having a lot of respect for much of traffic control these days, when the cities can't be bothered to even make the lights flash at 3 AM, and instead are stopping me at every single light down a road for exactly zero cross traffic. Or when there is a light out, and a cop sitting in their car waiting for someone to not treat it like a 4 way stop instead of getting out and directing traffic.

So, while I don't live in a place with automated ticketing, I can see the allure of fake license plates. My brother in law's house just had a light added on the cross street he uses to leave the neighborhood. Whats the first thing its doing? Long light cycles with short interruptions and ticketing everyone who runs it. Again because while that intersection hasn't needed a light for the past 40 years, and the town he is in hasn't grown much it got one after some drunk teenager caused a big accident. So, now it backs up, and instead of just turning left after a 10 seconds or so with a gap, one can sit there for multiple minutes because there are a dozen cars backed up trying to get out. And of course the ticket is like $150 or something, most of which goes to the private corp that put the camera in.

> when the cities can't be bothered to even make the lights flash at 3 AM

I live in a rural area where, as you can expect, traffic is very light. It was an absolute godsend when all the turn arrows changed from red/green to red/green/yield on flashing yellow. The frustration of sitting at a red turn signal when you could see that there was no oncoming traffic for a mile down the road was palpable, but cops are very good at hiding.

>when the cities can't be bothered to even make the lights flash at 3 AM, and instead are stopping me at every single light down a road for exactly zero cross traffic.

On the east and west coast, I feel like car sensing traffic lights are the norm.

They're pretty common elsewhere, but many intersections have fixed cycles before they actually pay attention to the sensors - they're only polled when another cross-traffic cycle is about to come up.

But this is about the situation in which the main road should be flashing yellow at low-traffic times, and the cross streets flashing red. Or, all flashing red if it's a limited-visibilty intersection. There's one of the latter near me, and it really only needs full cycles during morning and evening rush. The rest of the time, it would be faster for all involved as a four-way stop.

I don't think that's a good explanation at all. People are murdering less than a few decades ago, beating their kids less, stealing fewer car stereos. There might indeed be moral decay, but that doesn't answer why fake license plates and not some other thing.

I suspect the reason for greater fake license plate use is the same reason for most products picking up: people are selling them, people are hearing about them, etc.

I suspect speeding has many causes, among them the fact that cars these days can accelerate easier and ride more gently at high speeds. People mostly drive however feels comfortable.

These are all acts of violence or crime directly against others, and not necessarily signs of moral decay.

I'm not sure moral decay is the term I'd use, perhaps?

I'd argue what's happening is that people seem to care less about other people, and more about themselves. It's more indifference, than outward anger or spite. "I'm not running the red light to hurt you, I just don't care that delays you, and I've got places to be" mindset.

At least, that's what I've concluded from my own observations.

I would say that violence against others is also important part of moral decay. As in, "I just do not care if it delayed you" is morally superior to "I best you to vent my own feelings or to control you".

>People are murdering less than a few decades ago

Check your stats, this is quickly becoming outdated. Murder rates are back up where they were in the 90's in many parts of the USA.

Yeah, source? There is very much political "out of control crime" narrative from certain players, but fairly often it has zero to do with reality.

But, the fear got some innocent door ringers killed already, so if the fear goes up, we might get there.

To be fair, the person you're replying to did specify "some parts" of the US. While you are correct the homicide is clearly down across the US, compared to the peaks in the 90s, there are also places where it is creeping back to 90s levels. Philadelphia and Chicago are two 'random' cities I just checked the statistics for and their murder rates are either at or close to the rates in 90s, and way up from the rates in the 2010s.

I'm guessing the rates are up in the cities, and down in the rural areas. And there's a good reason for this: there's fewer and fewer people in the rural areas and small towns, and the ones there are getting old. All the younger people are in the cities, and murders aren't normally committed by retired people.

I'm guessing the rates are up in the cities, and down in the rural areas.

It's more complicated than that. New York and Houston, for example, are way down from their peaks, and no one would consider those rural.

This source sorta confirms it: https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/USA/united-states/murd...

where's the post-2020 data?

for major cities it is here: https://counciloncj.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/CCJ%E2%80...

a personal anecdote on issues with crime data:

the old truck i've got got broken into and the ignition got punched out and someone tried to steal it, but even though it is a 2000 it has an immobilizer so they weren't successful. i didn't bother reporting it. it was way under my insurance deductible and the cops aren't going to do anything due to a few hundred bucks of property damage. that incident won't appear in any statistics.

declining levels of relatively minor crime may reflect growing awareness that reporting it to the police is just a waste of everyone's time.

Source?

You can use CDC WONDER[1] and the FBI's statistics[2] to check it. In terms of homicide, in raw numbers we are at 90s levels, but per-capita it's significantly down.

1) https://wonder.cdc.gov/Deaths-by-Underlying-Cause.html 2) https://cde.ucr.cjis.gov/LATEST/webapp/

I think this did actually happen but specifically starting in 2020 and I am only talking about traffic violations and not general crime. The article even mentions it and I have posted links to NHTSA statistics showing an increase in road traffic deaths per mile that started in 2020 and then continued to increase.

People blamed cars, pandemic stress, and decaying roads but I don't think it's any of those. I think the pullback in policing roads is a big part of it. Road rage incidents have increased in some regions too, I assume all regions, but these aren't necessarily counted nationwide.

I think it's possible that the empty roads in 2020 caused people to become accustomed to speeding and driving without other drivers on the road and caused people to degenerate as far as dealing with other people on the roads. I say this because speeding offenses increased since 2020 so maybe all these things are correlated. People became accustomed to not having to follow road traffic rules, and following sociable and safe driving, and get annoyed when they have to now. Police aren't enforcing it either. Just my thoughts.

Just want to say I agree with your entire interpretation

“Moral decay” doesn’t really offer much of an explanation though. That’s basically just saying “people are doing bad things more these days because people care less about doing good things these days.”

There’s absolutely a transition occurring from a country that is still mostly high trust to one that is low trust.

See: the sizable contingent in SF who believes that open air drug markets and rampant violent crime are simply the price one must pay to live in cities.

It doesn’t have to be this way.

SF has relatively low violent crime compared to other cities, while drug sales are to be expected where a significant amount of people think drugs should be decriminalized or legalized. I don’t think the city has much of anything to do with the point of vague “moral decay.”

I was beaten to near death in the Tenderloin near the KFC/Taco Bell on Eddy.

To this day (despite this occurring in December 2021) there have been no arrests made. The police have names, video, witnesses and audio of one participant bragging about the assault.

The former DA had zero interest in prosecuting and the current one is suffocating under the backlog left to them.

This is not how a well functioning city - let alone a high trust one - operates. And it’s not just about statistics - an assault in SF, where it is likely the culprit won’t be arrested and certainly won’t be sent to prison, is significantly more damaging than a similar assault in a properly policed and actually adjudicating municipality.

Perhaps depends on your definition of “violent crime“ or what you are including. Armed robbery, for example, is a violent crime, and SF is in the top 20 cities in the US for that crime.

Well if you put your SF hat on, that's not a violent crime, because no one is harmed but evil businesses, which is actually good.

Armed robbery includes the act of robbing somebody walking down the street.

It could be the "broken windows" theory. As more people do it, more people think it's acceptable or just how things are, and so do it themselves, further exacerbating the problem. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broken_windows_theory

Yeah, that’s fair. It’s also more likely that people are, of course, doing the same old thing.

Looking both ways even when the light is green has become a habit of mine.

Over forty years ago my lead foot saved my life. I was first off the line and I punched it when the light turned green. Just as I crossed the intersection I saw a car in my rear-view mirror whiz past through the red light at ~80MPH. If I had been slower, I would be dead.

You might be right but I wouldn't take it as certain. My uncle once told me it takes two people to cause an accident by which I mean it's at least possible the red light runner saw you - if you had been slower maybe they would have done 120MPH and gotten ahead of your or maybe 60MPH and still ended up behind you.

Who knows though - it's certainly true the road is filled with idiots. I almost got hit by a car a few weeks ago because I stopped in the middle of intersection two avoid a bunch of knuckleheads on dirt bikes running a red light.

Do you think there's a connection to this behaviour and the type of vehicle they drive? With SUVs becoming super huge, maybe people feel that they don't have to stop because they won't be coming off worse in an accident?

I think there’s a non-zero amount of that going on. I’ve had conversations with people who’ve said exactly this about their car choice!

> I think it’s just moral decay.

This is a cop out; a simple sounding excuse to just throw up your hands, say "kids these days" and then go back to your armchair.

The fact is, you have a lot of problems that you're not dealing with, from stroads [1] to an increase in the worst kind of "automated" driving systems that leave people less able to remain alert for road hazards, to an unhealthy increase in inequality that leads to antisocial behavior in the pissed off underclass... you got problems. Look to some of your European and Asian neighbors if you want help with solutions.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stroad

I don't think any of these things are primary reasons. My guess is it's more about selfish ("fiercely independent") behaviour and what you can get away with, and a lack of appreciation for rules/regulations that can (on the whole) make for a more reasonable society.

The idea that there are fake plates and minimal enforcement seems ridiculous to me.

(I'm Australian but have driven tens of thousands of miles in the USA.)

I've noticed the same shift.

Drivers are worse now than 10-15 years ago. Drivers are more aggressive (tailgating, rolling stops, speeding, ...), more sociopathic (tinted windows, louder pipes, larger vehicles, fake license plates,...), more negligent (bald tires, texting-and-driving, bumpers ripped off jagged metal sticking out, ...).

Another data point. Dashcams are on the rise, and they are truly the indicator technology of a low-trust society (remember the early car carnage internet videos, those were nearly always from russia or eastern europe, good times!). Wherever dashcams flourish, social contract is fraying.

It does not have to be like this. Many countries in Europe are making quite the opposite shift. Just recently was in London. Unreal! That place is so much more airy and welcoming than just 10-15 years ago. Covent Garden was positively quiet; so many electric cars and utility vehicles, much slower travel speeds, fewer streets, ... phenomenal. Once you experience it, and especially if you have a memory of the dark times, nobody in their right mind will want to turn back.

And wrt:

> People suck.

Do allow me a short digression and light hyperbole.

Maybe it's time to start pointing fingers, something americans, especially on the progressive-side, are too squeamish to do. In City of God, St Augustine blames the fall of Rome on the christians in the city ignoring the depravity of the pagans. Maybe we should take heed his advice, and it's time for the righteous to start calling out the wicked. Some people truly are crap, exhibit trash behaviors, and are making the world, quite simply, _worse_. We need to be confident in our judgements, and have the courage to clearly delineate right from wrong. As americans, live-and-let-live is ingrained in our DNA, but d*mn somethings gotta give here, drivers are really out of control.

>In City of God, St Augustine blames the fall of Rome on the christians in the city ignoring the depravity of the pagans.

Christians for centuries were the people that burned people at the stake for believing the wrong religion, or even the wrong version of Christianity. They're far from "righteous".

What did the pagans do wrong? They seemed to be pretty decent overall, by the standards of the time: they even had a holiday, Saturnalia (that the Christians co-opted), where the masters served the slaves and people shared gifts. Slaves could even save money and buy their freedom in Roman society. Under Christianity, slaves were brutally beaten and murdered on plantations and could never be free; Christians even happily fought a brutal war to keep slavery intact when the Europeans had long since banned the practice.

My comment was not about christians=good, pagans=bad. It's that St Augustine, somewhat counter-intuitively puts the blame of the collapse of the roman empire, not on the barbarian hordes, but on the upstanding romans being too timid to confront the moral decay amongst their neighbors.

Rome was at its peak during the pagan times; after they adopted Christianity things went downhill. Of course, correlation does not equal causation, but I don't see how Christians have any valid claim to moral righteousness. If any one thing could be pointed to for Rome's collapse, it's probably just corruption, which can happen to any society, and is not at all the same as "moral decay".

Why are tinted windows sign of sociopaths?

I’m not OP but I assume they’re talking about fully blacked out windows, not the kind that just blocks heat from the sun.

Yes, dark windows prevent eye contact and communication. People aren't walking with baclavas on, it's the same for blacked out windows.

It's because no one is enforcing these rules. I've driven drunk and ran red lights and sped until I got nailed for each of these. I still cut in line (or whatever the term is for cars) when I can because in 20 years of urban driving I saw a cop pull someone over for that ONCE. So why wait in line when every time 10 other cars cut the line.

I feel the same way about not putting your shopping cart back in the proper place after loading your car. It's the one test of whether someone is willing to do the right thing absent any reward or punishment, and so many people completely fail the test. I generally lean libertarian, but it's a demonstration on people's inability to govern themselves.

Reminds me of the cliché: personal morality is what you do when people aren't watching.

Ah yes, the shopping cart test.

During the BLM protests, and then when COVID hit, police "quiet quit" on traffic enforcement, despite little to no danger to them (and high availability of the vaccine, which many did not avail themselves of.)

Unfortunately, the result has been skyrocketing injuries and deaths.

Do you have evidence of that?

This sounds backwards to me- usually the argument I hear is people on the left arguing for banning traffic enforcement because it can be pretextual/is applied discriminatorily, and people on the right, pro police people, claiming it's necessary for policing to work.

> Phoenix, which I consider the national capitol of bad drivers

I would have agreed, but then I experienced El Paso.

> no soul drives the 55 speed limit on I-17, but it’s getting measurably worse.

True. Feels like combat.

FWIW, I put some Jesus themed bling on my car. It seemed to help in Texas. Phoenix, not so much.

An expressway near me has a speed limit of 100 km/h. Most times I drive it, the fastest driver I might see is < 105 km/h. Vast majority will be at 99-101 km/h.

In the US, a significant number of people blatantly go 10-30+ km/h over the highway limits. What causes this?

I think it is the other way around. From various accounts I've heard from people coming here, it's more that Australians drive slowly.

There are 2 factors IMO:

* Decades of 'speed kills' advertising without nuance, and automated systems to catch perpetrators. Just wait until a double demerit weekend here in NSW - there is no reason you need to drive 85 in a 100 zone to avoid a ticket, but plenty do it. They're actually scared of that limit and keep a healthy distance from it.

* Car speedometers lying to us - 10% plus 4 km/h is a significant legally allowed error rate, higher than many countries. To actually go 100, my new car reads 105. I tested this with Waze and cross-referenced against GPS dashcam videos. Most people won't. I end up passing a lot of people due to this.

The simplest answer I can give you is that it’s socially acceptable.

Growing up even my mother told me she tried to go 5-10 MPH over posted. Everyone does it. It’s endemic.

I try to drive the speed limit but it’s actually difficult sometimes because so many people are literally criminally speeding all the time (20+ MPH over posted).

It is “moral decay” almost by definition. But that’s pointless because it only shifts the question to what led to the “moral decay”.

Usually those crying out “moral decay” do so because they have certain pet theories, but there is no evidence for those pet theories, and more often than not there is enough evidence to disprove their pet theory.

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