Thread by @radleybalko

So the anti-car people have just been relentless in my mentions over the last 24 hours.

The odd thing is, I actually *agree* that we are a far too car-dependent country. I think Robert Moses is one of the great under-recognized villains of the 20th Century.

But …

… it’s precisely *because* we’re so car dependent that I’m wary of mass automated enforcement that would catch every violation every time. We have …

— cities that now rely on revenue from violations, meaning they need people to *keep* committing infractions to balance budgets

— roads often designed for speeds far higher than posted speed limits, essentially tempting drivers to break the law
— laws that impose DL suspensions and issue arrest warrants for people unable to pay fines
— numerous cities caught manipulating stoplights and shortening …

… yellow lights to generate more revenue, a direct threat to road safety
— evidence cities have put cameras near sudden speed limit changes, which is also more about racking up fines than road safety
— all of this when, save for a few large cities, it’s extremely …

…difficult to live your life without a car.

Again, I’m not happy about the latter point (or any of them), but this is our reality. In the past, I (and many others) have written at length about how these factors can be devastating for low-income people.

washingtonpost.com/news/the-watch…

You make it nearly impossible to live without a car. You design roads in a way that accepts drivers will drive above posted speed limits, you have city budgets dependent on revenue from fines, and you then remove driving privileges or arrest people to poor to pay those fines.

It’s all incredibly unfair. I fear that moving to mass automated enforcement, while still preferable to police enforcement, doesn’t address these underlying problems, and will likely only exacerbate them.

Instead of baiting drivers to commit violations and then soaking them …

… for doing so, we should be looking at less punitive ways to make roads safer. Narrower and fewer lanes in dense, pedestrian-heavy areas. Speed bumps. Roundabouts. Other engineering fixes. Some or all of these aren’t always possible in every context, of course. But …

… if we’re going to move away from police enforcement, as we should, we can’t just say it should all be automated and leave it at that. We also need to also talk about perverse incentives and predatory enforcement. Otherwise, we’re going to keep disproportionately harming …

… the same people, just in a different way.