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3DR
Joined: 24 May 2009
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 Posted: Thu Jul 12, 2012 4:44 am Post subject: |
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I think it's just another growing pain Korea has to go through. Give them another 10 years and I'm sure they'll be right on track.
And it happens everywhere. I remember my parents driving me and my four friends in the station wagon down the interstate. He opened the back hatch so when driving we would get a nice breeze.
Now I look back at how stupid and dangerous that was. One of us could've easily rolled out of the car after hitting a bump or something. |
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atwood
Joined: 26 Dec 2009
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| Posted: Thu Jul 12, 2012 4:26 pm Post subject: |
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| JustinC wrote: |
I stopped drinking the Health & Safety cool aid years ago. It's proven that the safer cars get the more recklessly people behave when in them. That takes some smarts to be able to recognize you can drive worse because you have airbags, enough to know when you're putting your loved ones at risk. The west has discovered it can cow it's population into being OK with a state that tells it how to look after its children, regardless of the situation. People mistake a comfort blanket for handcuffs*, but I don't.
*metaphorical, obviously |
You're drinking someone's kool-aid:
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| The sacred text in this canon is the classic 1975 study by economist Sam Peltzman that reported that automobile safety laws - like seatbelt laws - make people feel safer. Feeling safer, people believe they can "afford" to drive more recklessly (the so-called "Peltzman effect"). But by 2001, the celebrated Peltzman effect had been unmasked as not quite an urban legend, but surely a grossly overstated instance of offsetting behavior. The first hit came from Steven Levitt and Jack Porter, who showed that whatever small increase in recklessness seatbelts introduced was swamped by their power to restrain drivers and occupants. Wearing a seatbelt reduces the likelihood of death by 60% and saved as many as 15,000 lives in 1997 alone. The second blow came from Alma Cohen and Liran Einav in 2003, who found that seat-belted drivers are not more reckless. And these analyses are still unrebutted. Mandatory seatbelt laws reduce driver and occupant deaths, with no increases in pedestrian deaths. |
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-greater-good/200903/do-economists-wear-seatbelts
Last edited by atwood on Thu Jul 12, 2012 7:28 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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pangaea
Joined: 20 Dec 2007
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| Posted: Thu Jul 12, 2012 7:21 pm Post subject: |
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| I didn't write that. Please make sure that when you quote someone, you are quoting the right person. |
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atwood
Joined: 26 Dec 2009
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| Posted: Thu Jul 12, 2012 7:29 pm Post subject: |
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| pangaea wrote: |
| I didn't write that. Please make sure that when you quote someone, you are quoting the right person. |
Sorry about that. My cut and paste went awry. I edited it. |
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Steelrails
Joined: 12 Mar 2009
Location: Earth, Solar System
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| Posted: Thu Jul 12, 2012 8:06 pm Post subject: |
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| No. Read what you wrote again. You equated the huge bribes that organized criminals used during prohibition to the bribes that middle and lower class families would pay to get out of seat belt fines. You continually make these asinine connections like they make sense. |
What, you think the only bribes collected during prohibition were big payoffs? You think some guy caught with a bottle didn't get hit up?
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| Organized criminals did it because it was part of doing business, and they made much more money in return. |
In many countries the cops get much of their bribe money from traffic pull-overs and small crimes. Some others get bribe money from bigger fish.
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| LOL! I'm not saying this is the right or wrong way to go about it. I'm calling you out on the constant fabrications you concoct. Ever show proof of these extreme claims? Don't tell me it's common sense. |
Yes, if you do as you propose and send every cop who takes bribes to prison, in a place where all the cops take bribes, you'll have to fire pretty much every cop. What you think people will just stop because one guy gets fired or their boss gets fired?
The most effective way to deter police corruption is through competitive wages. In order to provide competitive wages for such a stressful job you have to pay well, especially in retirement because without a substantial retirement package, the incentive to collect bribes will increase as the officer approaches retirement age. Who pays for that? City governments and the tax payer. Unfortunately, those benefits packages are often a major burden on government finances as numerous stories about state and municipal finances can attest to. There was even a thread here on Dave's about retired cops getting yearly pensions in the $100,000 range.
Now, if you wish to disagree with the idea that higher pay reduces police corruption, feel free. It certainly isn't set in stone, however I would submit that while high pay may not eliminate corruption, low pay will almost certainly breed it.
You may also disagree with the assertion that pension costs for police officers are a major burden for governments, however a quick google search will turn up cities and forces around the world where this is a massive problem. In fact because of the high costs of pensions, forces have less money to hire cops, thereby increasing crime.
So in the long run, throwing cops in prison for collecting 50 bucks in bribes on traffic tickets may end up creating more crime than it stops, thereby decreasing child safety.
Here's just one article-
http://www.publicservice.co.uk/news_story.asp?id=19012
Again, the law of unintended consequences strikes again. The answer to problems is not as simple as writing a law and throwing some people in prison. Sorry, the Dave's magic wand solution technique doesn't work. Seldom are there quick and easy sustainable fixes in public policy. |
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atwood
Joined: 26 Dec 2009
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| Posted: Thu Jul 12, 2012 11:55 pm Post subject: |
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An easy solution to the bribery problem regarding the writing of traffic tickets (and I agree that the comparison to organized crime is way off the mark) is a quota system.
What has worked quite well in curbing speeding in Korea, where bribery at traffic stops was common, is the use of cameras. You can't bribe a camera. Maybe cameras could be programmed to catch those not wearing seat belts. |
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crescent
Joined: 15 Jan 2003
Location: yes.
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| Posted: Fri Jul 13, 2012 4:34 am Post subject: |
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| Steelrails wrote: |
| What, you think the only bribes collected during prohibition were big payoffs? You think some guy caught with a bottle didn't get hit up? |
Since it was not ILLEGAL to drink alcohol, i'd say that would be pretty rare if at all. I'd appreciate proof of this claim of yours.
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In many countries the cops get much of their bribe money from traffic pull-overs and small crimes. Some others get bribe money from bigger fish.
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Obviously. But, connecting the two as you did is laughable.
| crescent wrote: |
| LOL! I'm not saying this is the right or wrong way to go about it. I'm calling you out on the constant fabrications you concoct. Ever show proof of these extreme claims? Don't tell me it's common sense. |
| steelrails wrote: |
Yes, if you do as you propose and send every cop who takes bribes to prison, in a place where all the cops take bribes, you'll have to fire pretty much every cop. What you think people will just stop because one guy gets fired or their boss gets fired?
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Quit it with the putting of words in my mouth. I did not suggest putting ANYONE in prison, so you can keep ranting on about your garbage until your fingers break. Your link only shows the prevailing climate for every municipality and their public work force. If you think there was more there, you are only rolling yourself.
I should have learned a long time ago that you are incapable of an honest argument. |
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young_clinton
Joined: 09 Sep 2009
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| Posted: Fri Jul 13, 2012 4:44 am Post subject: Re: Korea's utter lack of a child safety culture |
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| Smithington wrote: |
| I'm currently teaching at an elementary school. I've just come from my classroom. I went to move a fan to the front of the room. I went over to it, bent down to unplug the fan from the power cable and got the most powerful electric shock of my life. |
I've been shocked by 110 volts that you get in the USA. Not the most pleasant experience. 220 would be twice the fun. |
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Steelrails
Joined: 12 Mar 2009
Location: Earth, Solar System
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| Posted: Fri Jul 13, 2012 7:41 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: |
| Since it was not ILLEGAL to drink alcohol, i'd say that would be pretty rare if at all. I'd appreciate proof of this claim of yours. |
So cops don't chase moonshiners and rum runners and get bribes? You think Cletus with his bathtub gin was organized crime? You think the Sheriffs of the South (You know the ones with an upstanding reputation in regards to their treatment of African-Americans and respecting their Constitutional rights) haven't taken some bribes from moonshiners? (or confiscated their batch for themselves)
It's like drugs. Not all drugs are manufactured and distributed by the cartels. You don't think a cop has ever busted a grow-op and sold the stash?
| Quote: |
| Obviously. But, connecting the two as you did is laughable. |
Connecting small-time police corruption to big-time police corruption is laughable? Doesn't it stand to reason that if one does one kind of corruption they have a strong potential to engage in another kind?
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| Your link only shows the prevailing climate for every municipality and their public work force. If you think there was more there, you are only rolling yourself. |
That was one link out of many stories a person can find with a simple google search about law enforcement pension and health care costs and their burden on government budgets. A relatively honest police force is an expensive proposition. If you aren't going to passively condone small-scale bribery as a means to supplement cops' low wages, then be prepared to pay a premium and deal with things like pensions and health care costs that force your city to borrow money in bad economic times in order to meet its obligations.
It's all about the law of unintended consequences. This is why magic wand solutions like "No more bribes" and "Let's have strict seat belt enforcement" lead to various other situations and seldom work as intended.
If you want strict seat belt enforcement, be prepared for officers getting bribed. If you don't want bribes, better start raising taxes and raising wages for cops. Oh and once they get better wages and benefits, be prepared to face a strong police officers union that will be highly resistant to change and make it difficult for you to fire cops that do good bad (Yes, one of the side rules of the law of unintended consequences is that human beings inevitably find a way to corrupt things).
It's not as simple as saying "Let's enforce seatbelt laws" and it being so. |
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