[lbo-talk] is law enforcement a way to raise money for localeconomies?

Alan P. Rudy alan.rudy at gmail.com
Wed May 9 18:48:34 PDT 2012


On Wednesday, May 9, 2012 at 9:08 PM, Michael Smith wrote:
> On Wed, 09 May 2012 18:38:14 -0400
>
>
> So if I were making policy I would definitely privilege non-motorized
> peds users dramatically over motorized ones; and people without wheels
> dramatically over people with wheels. On the principle that he who creates
> the risk bears the burden of responsibility.
>
>

Doesn't this run exactly counter to your stance on morality? That there's a (presumably collective) he who creates risk who thus bears responsibility? This whole approach is individualistic and ridiculous, as is your self-proud "drive slow" perspective.

Having read Shag's FB page with some regularity, it seems hers is a far more coherent perspective, one that assumes a social division of labor where the rules of collective safety distribute responsibility. Cars have their place, as I've read her page, but only if they play fair, safely and honestly. Perhaps she does but I've never read her advocate provoking other road users.

I'm probably more than half with Doug. The rules of the road are clear, don't jaywalk across moving traffic, don't ride your bicycle in a weave through traffic, and don't walk against the light… similarly, in most states, there is also a (hardly ever enforced) law that mandates that autos give right of way to pedestrians in crosswalks where there is no other regulation. In such situations, however, should an oblivious, moronic or asshat pedestrian step off the curb directly into the path of an oncoming auto then the risk is created by the oblivious, moronic asshat just as the risk is created by a driver who refuses for jackassic, fucktardy or oblivious reasons to yield to a pedestrian easily seen ahead in a crosswalk.

My dad said that, in California, when he was in the Navy in the early-mid 50s, pedestrians who stepped off the curb when there was traffic could rely on traffic to come to a sometimes screeching halt to let them by… which totally freaked him out since, like me, he'd been trained in urban walking in NY and DC - where intelligent pedestrians run aggressively but scared (or at least they did in the 50s and 70s-80s). My mom reported the same phenomenon when she was growing up in Seattle in the 50s.
>
> There are a million other reasons to penalize driving, of course --
> not least among them the fact that it's a deeply antisocial and
> infantilizing activity. I'm convinced that spending so many of our
> waking hours in a car is one of the things that makes Americans so
> crazy.
>
>

And so, continuing with your individualistic moralizing, you blame drivers for the consequences of the infrastructural construction of the country… sweet, and so coherently leftish. Some of us drive an hour to work each way and use that time for a mixture of music appreciation, podcast listening, audiobook "reading" and emotional and intellectual preparation for the day. I don't have to assert that this is the norm to understand that the anti sociality and infantilization that may or may not be associated with driving may be exhibited on the road but is quite unlikely to be sourced there.

Hell, Doug's description of Brooklyn sounds an awful lot like driving in Santa Cruz where hyper-athletic, hipster mountain bikers with a death wish would regularly pop out into traffic between cars mid-block… the exact opposite of their riding practices on mountain trails where their collective abuse of folks who rode in a manner that damaged the trails was legion.

Alan



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