NMA..."Respect is a 2 way street" letter misses mark

[jeffandnicole]

Recently got an email from the NMA regarding a letter the president of the group sent to an unnamed states' law enforcement agency. Basically, it says that there are too many interactions between the police and the public that become dangerous, and to reduce that speed limits should be set to the 85th percentile.

https://www.motorists.org/alerts/respect-two-way-street-nma-e-newsletter-392/

I'm pretty sure the NMA went off the deep end with this one. While many here wouldn't argue about the proper way to set speed limits, claiming there's a correlation between low speed limits and dangerous or deadly traffic stops is far-fetched.  And the letter went to the wrong organization...in most areas, cops don't set speed limits. They may have some say in what a speed limit should be, but ultimately there's other people that are responsible for setting those speed limits.  Heck, even the traffic engineers that he says should be responsible for setting the limits properly are often the ones setting them improperly!

No doubt something should be done to reduce instances of improperly set speed limits, and violence, but the two together really isn't the problem here.

[NE2]

Fuck the police. But not because they pull over motorists with sticks in their asses.

[Duke87]

While it's true that cops don't set speed limits, I do nonetheless think he has a point. For a lot of the general public, being pulled over for speeding is the circumstance under which they are most likely to end up interacting with a police officer. Or, even if there isn't a direct interaction, there is still the fear of having one that motivates people to compulsively obey low speed limits through small towns.
This can certainly contribute to a perception of police being more enemy than friend.

[Otto Yamamoto]

Recently got an email from the NMA regarding a letter the president of the group sent to an unnamed states' law enforcement agency. Basically, it says that there are too many interactions between the police and the public that become dangerous, and to reduce that speed limits should be set to the 85th percentile.

https://www.motorists.org/alerts/respect-two-way-street-nma-e-newsletter-392/

I'm pretty sure the NMA went off the deep end with this one. While many here wouldn't argue about the proper way to set speed limits, claiming there's a correlation between low speed limits and dangerous or deadly traffic stops is far-fetched.  And the letter went to the wrong organization...in most areas, cops don't set speed limits. They may have some say in what a speed limit should be, but ultimately there's other people that are responsible for setting those speed limits.  Heck, even the traffic engineers that he says should be responsible for setting the limits properly are often the ones setting them improperly!

No doubt something should be done to reduce instances of improperly set speed limits, and violence, but the two together really isn't the problem here.

Given the current state of affairs, NMA may be on point, even by accident. Police are not well loved. The situation in Baton Rouge was police being lured into an ambush. I expect this may happen in future. One way to get coppers to come after you is by speeding, which is an easy dime for them.

XT1585

[vdeane]

Even if law enforcement doesn't directly set the speed limit, they do influence it, either through the elected officials (who will be loathe to raise the limit if the police say not to), or through the DOT higher ups (as happened in Nevada... the state police didn't want the limit to rise to 80, so NDOT refused to post the new signs when the law changed).  Michigan is about the only place where law enforcement isn't a force of opposition to speed limit changes.

[kalvado]

Other thing is ticket quota and enforcement in spots/times where speed limit is lower than it should be.
And no, begging for respect means even less respect is actually given. 

[jeffandnicole]

Honestly, the police are damned as they do; damned as they don't.  If the town/county/state sets a limit that's too low on the road, the police are expected to enforce it.  If they do, the driving public gets mad at them because the limit is too low.  If they don't, the homeowners living on that road get mad at them for traffic driving too fast.

I also wonder how many stops are directly related to speeding.  Anytime we see someone pulled over, we automatically think they were stopped for speeding.  It could be running a stop sign.  Or the vehicle was broken down.  But we're going to naturally assume they were speeding.

I had heard one story regarding troopers on the NJ Turnpike that would sit in the center median.  People approaching them would, of course, slow down after the trooper was spotted.  It didn't matter to the trooper, because he didn't have radar in the car.  He was actually looking for burned out headlights or other safety violations.  And I think I recall reading that only 1/3 of the tickets handed out on the Turnpike were due to speeding violations.

Does that really help matters?  Not really.  But at some point you have to draw a line as to what people are allowed to get away with, and if they're allowed to ignore the law why have the law in the first place?

[SP Cook]

OK here goes.

The "Nuremburg defense" AKA "police don't set the SL" or "I just have a job to do"  or in the orignal German "I wuz just following orders" is illigitimate.  The powers that be, which included police, are all a part of the corupt SL system. 

Why?  Because random taxing honest ordinary people at the side of a highway is easy, profitable, empowering, and reasonabably safe as contrasted to serious useful police work which involves dealing with actual criminals, which is dangerous, degrading, and cost taxpayer money.

And, do police conduct "mini-trials" deciding who to random tax and who to "warn" ?  Yes, they do.  Do they almost daily violate the SL themselves (and are they smart to do so, because the SL is too low) ?  Yes they do.  And do SOME police sell stickers and what-not that have an implicit bribe attached?  Yes they do.  And do SOME police use traffic stops to work around Constitutional protections and conduct searches without a warrant?  Yes they do/

And, WHILE THE WHOLE ANTI-COP BLM B*** S*** IS B*** S***, some people are going to perceive random tax decisions are being born of bias, be it racial, religious, political, or whatever?  Yes they are.  Are they right?  Above my pay grade, and also not relevant.  A better society would not put the police in that situation, and would thus avoid the issue.

So, yes, we need (not only because it saves so many lives and because it frees up police to do useful thngs) to pretty much END "traffic" as something polic do, because it will improve the professionalism of the police, improve race (and other types) of relations, and make our society more just and more fair.

Imagine a country where seeing a police car with some poor person pulled over is so rare it makes the evening news.  A fairer, more just, safer, and better society.

Count me in.

[kalvado]

Imagine a country where seeing a police car with some poor person pulled over is so rare it makes the evening news.  A fairer, more just, safer, and better society.

Honestly speaking, wouldn't happen. There are enough people driving inadequately even if generally reasonable (e.g. once upon a time I did run traffic light after 18 hours working day.. happens..). There are people who drive insane on a daily basis, not many - but there are some. I am not talking left lane hogging or driving +20MPH, I am talking serious stuff. And drunk driving, if nothing else. But Darwin takes care of those anyway...
Sometimes I feel that speeding stops are just as pretext as burned license plate light - a way to check for drunk driver/ marijuana smell / something else. A little cash in process is just a benefit. You know, Fourth amendment is just as harmful for law and order as Second amendment is!

[Otto Yamamoto]

OK here goes.

The "Nuremburg defense" AKA "police don't set the SL" or "I just have a job to do"  or in the orignal German "I wuz just following orders" is illigitimate.  The powers that be, which included police, are all a part of the corupt SL system. 

Why?  Because random taxing honest ordinary people at the side of a highway is easy, profitable, empowering, and reasonabably safe as contrasted to serious useful police work which involves dealing with actual criminals, which is dangerous, degrading, and cost taxpayer money.

And, do police conduct "mini-trials" deciding who to random tax and who to "warn" ?  Yes, they do.  Do they almost daily violate the SL themselves (and are they smart to do so, because the SL is too low) ?  Yes they do.  And do SOME police sell stickers and what-not that have an implicit bribe attached?  Yes they do.  And do SOME police use traffic stops to work around Constitutional protections and conduct searches without a warrant?  Yes they do/

And, WHILE THE WHOLE ANTI-COP BLM B*** S*** IS B*** S***, some people are going to perceive random tax decisions are being born of bias, be it racial, religious, political, or whatever?  Yes they are.  Are they right?  Above my pay grade, and also not relevant.  A better society would not put the police in that situation, and would thus avoid the issue.

So, yes, we need (not only because it saves so many lives and because it frees up police to do useful thngs) to pretty much END "traffic" as something polic do, because it will improve the professionalism of the police, improve race (and other types) of relations, and make our society more just and more fair.

Imagine a country where seeing a police car with some poor person pulled over is so rare it makes the evening news.  A fairer, more just, safer, and better society.

Count me in.

Who said anything about BLM?


XT1585