It’s reasonable to believe the death rate is too high and there is too much enforcement if that enforcement focuses too heavily on a single aspect of the problem at the expense of focusing on other problem areas.
Speed enforcement seems to be the low hanging fruit. There’s (generally) no judgment call, readily accepted evidence, it’s politically palatable, and it’s like shooting fish in a barrel: there’s always someone you can tag.
It’s a lot harder to tag someone for driving onto the freeway at 30 mph and failing to merge properly. There’s no “merge trap” to witness it so the cop has to basically happen upon it. There’s not always clear evidence, there’s probably some judgment required too. People don’t like the idea of tickets for going “too slow”; everyone acts like it is absurd. You can’t even blame the LEO because he probably knows the ticket won’t stick. Yet this behavior is extremely dangerous and happens all the time.
Speed enforcement seems to be the low hanging fruit. There’s (generally) no judgment call, readily accepted evidence, it’s politically palatable, and it’s like shooting fish in a barrel: there’s always someone you can tag.
It’s a lot harder to tag someone for driving onto the freeway at 30 mph and failing to merge properly. There’s no “merge trap” to witness it so the cop has to basically happen upon it. There’s not always clear evidence, there’s probably some judgment required too. People don’t like the idea of tickets for going “too slow”; everyone acts like it is absurd. You can’t even blame the LEO because he probably knows the ticket won’t stick. Yet this behavior is extremely dangerous and happens all the time.