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Comment by lnxg33k1 | Hacker News Reader

What if someone has to go to hospital or run from the police?

I don't think many people will argue that running from the police is something we want to legitimize. It is also is never going to end well. The police have orders of magnitude more resources and will eventually catch you. (And meanwhile, you've probably put hundreds of innocent lives at risk while speeding through traffic.) The correct venue there is to argue your case in court.

As for the hospital... that's a nuanced one. There's certainly an argument for that, especially in rural areas where ambulances are not readily available. There's also the argument that without lights and sirens, you're putting everyone else around you at risk. There's a reason the law doesn't carve out an exception for private individuals speeding in medical emergencies.

If this law/tech had been in place in the 1940s and 50s NASCAR would have never been created. By imposing it, who knows what possibilities of creative expression we're artificially pruning from our cultural trajectory.

We make tradeoffs like this all the time. Who knows how many amazing adventurous frontier literature we're missing out on, as we've moved on from gun slingers regularly robbing banks and having duels with bounty hunters at high noon.

(I'm not arguing for / against the auto-enforced speed limit)

What about all the entertainment we gave up since gladiators fights were outlawed? ;o

Driving vehicles will never be creative expression.

I didn't like the Mad Max movie either, but isn't that a bit much?

> I don't think many people will argue that running from the police is something we want to legitimize. It is also is never going to end well.

In some jurisdictions, the official policy is to not chase fleeing offenders, which both validates your point that this is dangerous, and also makes it somewhat more likely that it could actually end well for a fleeing criminal.

Seems like one of those circumstances could justify an exception. The other, not as much. OJ wouldn’t mind though, given the speed at which he preferred to flee the LAPD.

Individual circumstances are never considered in a socialist state

Or, any state with power. Look at Indiana and pregnant preteens.

Except that in case of California they are willing to give up even money from speeding fines for a perceived public safery, might be short sighted a bit too much but at least the heart is in the right place, in the other case is just a way to limit people freedom, destruction of careers and potential appeasement of some imaginary friend in the sky

I referenced Michaal Dukakis elsewhere, but what REALLY ground everyone's geara was that the speed enforcement was to raise fines issued. He was campaigning on the Massachusetts Miracle, with a healthy budget, and shortfalls were appearing that needed to be filled.

The effect that everyone hated was the enforcement. That it was to harvest their money for his ambition definitely increased the hate.

Tough.

I think this has a snowball's chance but it could move the Overton window.

Look for CA population decline if it passes.

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