What's the deal with motor vehicle violations?

You're not getting this somehow. Meter maids cannot arrest you, and the proposal is that neither could traffic maids. Traffic maids would be as easy to avoid as meter maids - if you don't want to stop then don't stop - the traffic maid will not pursue. She'll call it in and the real police will stop you, and likely arrest you. Traffic maids wouldn't be looking for non-traffic violations. They'd be non-threatening. Like meter maids.I'm not sure what the problem is. I'm not saying traffic maids would be identical to meter maids. I'm saying they'd be similar to meter maids in that they're non-threatening. Let me quote you back to you:

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Currently, there is zero motivation for police not to shoot whenever they feel the least bit fearful. And apparently no way to get the city to take you seriously absent something like a large Rodney King style riot.

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Not much of a deterrent.--Percy

Yes, you provided an argument or two, that read like you hadn't read my post. This, too, looks like you haven't read my post. I wrote (and you quoted it), "If you don't want to stop then don't stop - the traffic maid will not pursue." So you *can* avoid a traffic maid. But why would you want to? Even if you had a bag of cocaine, a hand grenade and an underage hooker sitting in the passenger seat, all she can do is give you a ticket for a traffic violation. Her blindness to all non-traffic violations is for her protection and yours.The traffic maid idea is not intended to be a complete and finished solution. It's just an idea, a proposal to separate traffic and criminal enforcement responsibilities so that the lives of innocent civilians who have violated a traffic law aren't inadvertently placed in danger. I understand that some people will like the idea and some people won't, and I have no problem with that, but it's a simple idea that you seem to be going out of your way to misunderstand. Except that you're not proposing a change in policy. Laws already hold police responsible for their actions, and when cameras capture actual events so that we don't have to rely upon police accounts, then they already *are* held accountable. Cameras everywhere is just a different solution to the same problem that traffic maids were proposed to solve.--Percy

Most here probably never heard of James Blake. He's an American tennis player, now retired, who was once ranked as high as #4 in the world. The U.S. Open has been taking place in Flushing Meadow, Queens, NYC, these past two weeks (the men's final is later today). Earlier this week while waiting for his ride to the U.S. Open for appearances with corporate sponsors he was tackled, wrestled to the ground, handcuffed and arrested by an plain clothes policeman who never identified himself. Here's a recent article: James Blake Says Officer Who Arrested Him Should Be Fired, for a StartI mention this here because this thread has discussed the threat to personal safety at the hands of police officers conducting traffic stops, sometimes touching on the more general problem of driving while black. This James Blake incident, who is biracial, reminds us that the problem isn't confined to driving, and it can happen to anyone.With great power comes great responsibility. We grant our police great power, but for the most part they're just average joes like us and are not able to wield the power responsibly.--Percy

Michigan's legislature is considering speed limits as high as 80 mph on some rural freeways (80 mph speed limits could hit some Michigan highways under new House proposal). They're following an "85th percentile" guideline that says speed limits should be set "to reflect the average speed at which 85 percent of motorists are already traveling safely." They're also considering excluding "speeding violations of 5 mph or less from a motorist's official driving record."But then there was a comment about speed limits in a related article (The Physics of Going 5 Over: How Speed Impacts Car Crashes) that describes the increasing dangers associated with increasing speeds:

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Car crashes they can happen anywhere at any time.

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First Lieutenant Joseph Thomas of the Michigan State Police says driving at higher speeds is the biggest problem.

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In the State of Michigan, people often feel that they are allowed five or ten miles an hour over the speed limit, Lieutenant Thomas said. That’s not the case.

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Where I live almost no one drives the speed limit, and that includes police cruisers and driver's ed cars. I don't think I'm going out on a limb to say that this is true all across the United States and Canada. I think it is an almost universal assumption that despite what most police departments will say about going five or ten miles an hour over the limit there is little risk of a ticket when exceeding the limit by only that much.But this "85th percentile" rule seems problematic to me. If the speed limit is 70 mph then most drivers will travel at 75 to 80 mph, because it's only five to ten miles an hour above the limit and likely doesn't risk a ticket. If they raise the limit to 75 mph because of the "85th percentile" rule then drivers will begin traveling at 80 to 85 mph, again, because it likely doesn't risk a ticket. But the higher driving speeds should result in more and deadlier accidents and could easily violate the "85th percentile" rule, so they'd have to lower the limit again.So I think the "85th percentile" rule might not work well with the almost universal assumption that it is okay to travel five or ten miles and hour over the limit.As an aside, in the last couple years I've encountered slightly more cars traveling the back roads at pretty much the speed limit, and I think I may have an explanation. I recently learned that one of my wife's friends has a car that knows the speed limit for all the roads, and it will beep if she exceeds the speed limit. She could have turned the "beep when over the limit" option off, but she chose not to and instead just drives the speed limit everywhere she goes. I hope I'm never behind her, but I think such cars may explain the increased number of cars traveling at the speed limit.--Percy

Yeah, I guess I've observed the same thing. It seems as if the number of drivers exceeding the speed limit and the amount by which they exceed it decreases as the speed limit increases. Gee, imagine if they'd allocated 16 bits instead of 8 for that limit. Our street ends at a state highway that's actually just a rural back road, and it's unusual in that just north of here it has a 40 mph speed limit. You can safely travel at 40 mph in some places, but mostly not. It's one of the few roads I've been on where the posted limit seems too high.--Percy

When I was younger I relied upon my radar detector and drove as fast as any road could take. I would drive 60 mph on the straight past the cottages down by the lake where the limit is 30 mph. When instant-on radar became common I would make sure there were cars in front of me before going more than 10 mph over the limit. On highways in my 914 I never had to use my rear view mirror because traffic never approached from that direction. I look back on my younger self and think him crazy and dangerous. My only safe habit was an aversion to tailgating, also leaving extra distance to the car in the front of me when I was being tailgated.I'm a much more sedate driver now, ironic now that the kids are gone. My attitudes have changed. Getting there in as fast, interesting and fun a drive as possible used to be the goal. Now the goal is to make the probability of safely reaching my destination as high as possible. The amount of attention I pay to what the other guy might do has increased tenfold. I now drive +10 mph pretty much everywhere it's safe, or just keep up with the fastest traffic stream. The outliers traveling at high speed I just let go by. On our local highway where the speed limit is 60 mph there is always the occasional speeder exceeding 100 mph.I expect my driving habits will continue to evolve. In my 80's I'll probably be that little old guy driving 10 mph under the limit with a long line of cars behind him. If the guys behind me are lucky the cars will drive themselves by then and this won't happen, but in any case, he should still get a ticket for obstructing traffic.--Percy

Princeton University professor Dr. Imani Perry was pulled over by Princeton police on her way to work for traveling 67 mph in a 45 mph zone. A routine check revealed that her driver's license was suspended and a warrant had been issued for her arrest for a parking offense in 2013. Because of the warrant they had no choice but to arrest her. (Police Release Video of Traffic Stop of Princeton Professor)Towns are now criminalizing unpaid parking tickets?The state once sent me a bill for an unpaid parking ticket. They included a copy of the ticket, which had my license plate number, but the description was for a car of a different make and color, and the location was for a place I'd never been. I responded telling them this and never heard about it again. Presumably they looked up the registration and saw I was being honest about the mismatch.But what if this had happened in New Jersey? And what if the bill got lost in the mail or I moved and it didn't get forwarded, or whatever? So after a while they just issue a warrant for my arrest? Even if I was completely irresponsible and just ignored the bill, that makes issuing an arrest warrant okay?Last year I read a book about the criminalization of poverty in America, where just filling out a welfare application incorrectly can cause entrapment in a labyrinth of legalisms, indigence and jail. This year I find out you can land in jail for parking tickets. What kind of country is this becoming?--PercyEdited by Percy, : "traffic" => "parking" in 2nd para.

Loved these comments by Jeff Edelstein, a columnist for the Trentonian:

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Now having said that

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Perry should not have been arrested.

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Here’s the thing that I explained earlier this week, that I’m going to explain again, and was the cause of all the guff I got on Facebook: It should be horrifying to all of us that a parking ticket can lead to a court date, which can lead to a warrant, which can lead to handcuffs and an arrest.

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All because you failed to put a quarter in a parking meter.

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We are simply too quick to arrest people for nonsense. The stories are endless. I Googled for a minute and came up with a 12-year-old girl in New York handcuffed and arrested for doodling on her school desk the United States Supreme Court has ruled you can be arrested for minor criminal offenses, such as not wearing a seatbelt a New Mexico man was arrested for littering (he flicked a cigarette into the street) a man in Connecticut was given a 10-day jail sentence for uttering the word f**k in a public place

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And then there’s the 620,000 Americans arrested for marijuana possession last year, but you know, let’s stay on point here.

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It’s a point that got lost in the Perry story, a point I kept getting attacked on Facebook over, where everyone and their mother (and my mother) noted she deserved to get arrested! And yes, I agree. Based on the law, she did deserve to get arrested.

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But my point, my larger point, is that parking tickets and doodling, and not wearing a seatbelt, and littering, and cursing, and smoking weed, and countless other offenses should not be treated as criminal matters.

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And so yes, again, of course: Perry should’ve gotten arrested, because that’s the law, but the law is terrible.

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Yes, agreed, very terrible.--Percy

Typo. Should have been, "Towns are now criminalizing unpaid parking tickets?" I went back and fixed it in Message 234.--Percy