🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <138695@cup.portal.com> Floyd_-_Meyer@cup.portal.com writes:

 >    Unless the traffic offense endangered someone, the citation is a make
 > money device. I explain to the court that it is against my beliefs to 
 > give them money to punish me because they tend to do it more often
 > if I give them money.

This strikes me as an oversimplification: if I run a red light today,
having a perfectly clear view at the time that there is no pedestrian
or any other traffic entering the intersection, I have not endangered
anyone today.  However, the ticket I might receive for the offense
does not just serve as a make-money device; the safety of my running
red lights relies on my judgment of the visibility conditions, and
unless I have perfect judgment all the time, ticketing me today to
discourage the behavior of running red lights reduces the probability
of someone being endangered by me running a red light in the future.

(Follow-ups set to ba.transportation.)

--
Ping Huang <pshuang@mit.edu>, probably speaking for himself