A note from cyclists

[John Cuthber]

Interesting.

In the UK it is forbidden to be drunk on premises licensed for the sale of alcohol- like bars. It is also unlawful to sell alcohol to someone who is drunk.

 

The laws in the UK seem to be some of the dumbest in the world.

 

Having said that we do quite well on this criterion

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-related_death_rate

 

 

You can also be prosecuted for riding a bicycle while drunk- but you can't lose your driving license for cycling drunk- which seems sensible to me.

( back to the topic again)

[CaptainPanic]

You can also be prosecuted for riding a bicycle while drunk- but you can't lose your driving license for cycling drunk- which seems sensible to me.

( back to the topic again)

Same here in the Netherlands. You can (theoretically) get a fine. In practice however the police are more likely to congratulate you for riding a bike when drunk (instead of taking the car).

 

Drunk people on bicycles tend to only hurt themselves, and do no other damage or harm.

[Mr Skeptic]

Anyway, I maintain that it would be very impractical and unnecessary to adopt a zero-tolerance regarding the alcohol laws we have. Most people that go out drink more than is officially allowed (the limit is very low). And the very large majority cause no problems. But it's still useful because it gives the police a chance to arrest someone who is really annoying for being drunk in public.

 

... and I think that a similar approach is useful for enforcement of certain traffic laws. <-- that's to bring the discussion back on topic.

 

I agree. I think an awful lot of signs that should have been yield signs were replaced with stop signs or lights. In fact, the only place I've seen yield signs is on entrance ramps to highways, where putting a stop sign would be too stupid even for politicians. But why all the stop signs? Why waste all that time and gas? A stop sign has very clear enforcement: you stop, yield, and go. This is easily measured quantitatively: your speed must go to zero. But "yielding" doesn't really have a clear measure, and is partially subjective. I suppose an objective measure could be designed based on not going so many seconds (at the other car's velocity) in front of them, but that would be hard to measure both for the driver and for enforcement. Without a clear measure, there are much higher costs for enforcement both because it is harder to do and because it is likelier to go to court. And on top of that, the people are likelier to "ignore" the law because of different subjective judgment, or because enforcement is so much harder that they can get away with it.

 

And so, our result is overly harsh laws that get frequently ignored both by the people and by the cops, but that can be enforced at a whim if deemed necessary. Unfortunately, that also means progress toward a police state.