Happens often in Mexico!!Originally Posted by 8x10 user
Sandy King
Happens often in Mexico!!
Sandy King
For discussion and information about carbon transfer please visit the carbon group at groups.io
[url]https://groups.io/g/carbon
And in Turkey
Ian
Yup. I read a book some years ago about a couple of guys who set out to set the south-to-north driving record--from Tierra del Fuego to Point Barrow, or whatever. The only place they did not drive was just sound of Panama, where there is no road access. They drove through areas of Shining Path unrest, and through many desperately poor countries. But they said the greatest local-level corruption they saw anywhere, and that presented the greatest risk, was in Mexico. Mexico is a poster child for why we have to be ever vigilant about corruption in local law enforcement. Like many petty crimes, it's easy to ignore and even rationalize, but little corruption eventually leads to big corruption.
There was a well-known speed trap in Texas, on I-35 just north of San Antonio. The town of Selma enforced vigorously, and eventually moved their city hall to the freeway frontage to more conveniently extort funds from people driving through on the interstate. But they nailed one politician too many, and the Texas legislature put an end to it by setting an upper limit on the percentage of a local government's budget that can come from enforcement activity, as part of the municipal incorporation laws. Selma moved their city hall back to the actual town, and the building was, last I looked a few years ago, the City Hall Bar, and had a 40's police car decorating its front lawn. When enforcement becomes unreasonable, citizens push back.
Many of the cases presented in this thread, had they happened to me, would have resulted in a letter to the state attorney general. Those guys are elected--they pay attention to those letters if they start showing a trend.
Rick "thinking a thread on LFPF does not constitute push-back" Denney
1. Ridiculous in your mind, not necessarily ridiculous in the minds of others. And I seriously doubt that some of these things are laws anyhow. Hopefully you don't think that everything you read on the internet is true just because it's on the internet.
2. Nobody has ever said that everything we do should be unlawful because it presents a risk so your examples are irrelevant. In general any time a law is enacted that prevents us from doing something there's a balancing act going on between individual rights and the rights of others. In the OP's case, the relevant legislators thought the "right" to stop on the shoulder of an interstate just because the person stopping feels like doing so were outweighed by the dangers involved to the person stopping and to others. Seems o.k. to me but even if I disagreed I couldn't say that idea is totally ridiculous. I don't know how many times I've read of a policeman or a motorist being killed after getting out of a car on the shoulder of a busy road but it's a lot.
3. Fortunately we don't follow your notions of what the police should and shouldn't do. I can just imagine how you'd like it if each individual policeman was given the power to decide what risks were acceptable and which were unacceptable and whether a warning or a ticket or incarceration was to be the appropriate penalty.
4. I agree.
Brian Ellis
Before you criticize someone, walk a mile in their shoes. That way when you do criticize them you'll be
a mile away and you'll have their shoes.
I did send a letter to the Governor's Office and the board of tourism, I did not consider the Attorney General. I think I'll do that. Thanks for the tip.
Who is this "we" you speak of? Police officers ARE allowed to chose between giving you a ticket and a warning. Its is SOLEY and explicitly at their discretion.
I was once ticketed for speeding in New Jersey and the officer was very clear with me that he was going to write me up for a lesser offence because he felt the fine for speeding was too high. I didn't fight him on it.
Every driver's handbook I've ever read states that you can be pulled over for speeding, even if you are just moving with traffic. Whoever the officer on the spot chooses to give the fine to, gets it.
In the suburbs of Philly (my neck of the woods) when police get a noise complaint about a party and find underage drinkers, people go to jail. In Philadelphia itself, they're just asked to keep it down. Its not because the laws are any different, its because Phily cops have much bigger problems to deal with, and booking kids for drinking uses up valuable man power that would be better used to keep people from hurting eachother.
Police officers are far from letter-of-the-law enforcing robots.
I think of this every time I recall how the CA Highway Patrol stopped to ask why were (many years ago) parked on the side of the freeway and there was no apparent emergency. He gave us a warning even after we told him that we stopped to make sure we remembered to unload the rifle.
There is a law against anything you may wish to do - a few are good laws.
I've seen that happen. One summer I was driving home from the Rockies doing 105 km/hr and on one stretch of the highway a dozen cars passed me like I was standing still. They must have been going 130 or 140km/h. About 5 kilometers later I saw every one of those cars pulled over in a radar trap and five RCMP officers were busy writing tickets,Every driver's handbook I've ever read states that you can be pulled over for speeding, even if you are just moving with traffic. Whoever the officer on the spot chooses to give the fine to, gets it.
I suspect that the practice is you can either pay the fine or post bond, which happens to be the exact same amount as the fine. If you can't or won't) post the bond, then you will indeed be arrested.
And yes, the amount of bond and the procedures concerning it, are to a large extent set by individual municipalities. A municipal judge, while the lowest member of the judicial totem pole, can be a very effective source of revenue for small towns.
Almost 40 years ago, while in college, my friend and I were pulled over in rural Wisconsin for speeding. The bond, or fine, was more money than the two of us had on hand. The sheriff had to drag us around while we made phone calls and eventually found somebody who could arrange to have the money sent. It took several hours, and at the end of it, the sheriff admitted that if he had known it was going to be such a hassle (for him), he never would have stopped us.
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote
Bookmarks