(no subject)

[trinityvixen]

Ha ha ha ha ha what?

They're kidding, I trust.

No, really, fine you $100 for every time you walk across a crosswalk with your earphones on or your Blackberry out? If the government wants to wholesale steal my iPod, why can't they just do that? Then I won't be at risk of having $500 gouged out of my bank account every day when I walk to work (and $500 for when I walk back, so $2k because I go home for lunches...).

Comments

[ivy03.livejournal.com]

Next up, legislature for stupid people who don't look for oncoming traffic. This is ridiculous. I would expect it to meet immediate ridicule and failure, but this is New York. Home of the trans fat ban.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

Well, I for one am glad that my chosen means of getting struck by car death-trap activity--reading--doesn't seem to be on this list. I don't look forward to the day when having my book out of my bag lands me a $5 billion ticket and hard time, I tell you what.

[chuckro.livejournal.com]

The trans fat ban at least makes some vague sense--nothing stops you from eating all the trans fats you can get your hands on, you just can't serve them to customers at your restaurant. Laws intended to keep other people from hurting you are a far sight better than laws intended to keep you from (often knowingly and willingly) hurting yourself.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

Laws intended to keep other people from hurting you are a far sight better than laws intended to keep you from (often knowingly and willingly) hurting yourself.

Which is why the cell phone ban while you're driving makes sense and this one doesn't. You get hit, it's your own damn fault for not lowering your music volume.

[chuckro.livejournal.com]

Typically, fines are determined as a function of the amount of harm caused and the likelihood of being caught. This is easier to see in some cases than others--if you're caught without a $1.50 ticket on the light rail, the fine is $77--which means they expect to catch about 1 in every 50 violators. Other examples are things like parking fines, where the dollar cost of the crime is easy to determine.

For something like a speeding ticket, you can play statistical games to figure out the cost of the crime--or you can look at the estimated "catch" rate for speeders and figure out what the government thinks the cost of the crime is.

Occasionally, fines are pulled out of the aether by politicians who've decided they're acting in someone's best interest. This leads to things like jaywalking laws--or "crossing the street while wearing headphones" nonsense. I personally hate such laws, because they do nothing but prevent perfectly good social Darwinism.

More to the point, though, odds are good this wouldn't have a siginificantly higher prosecution rate than, say, riding the light rail without a ticket. So you'd only get a ticket one out of every 50 times you crossed the street. That's only about $40/day in fines--much more reasonable.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

$40 a day? I swear, if I thought I could save that much by not even carrying either cell phone or iPod on me, I'd be drinking so much more Diet Pepsi, I tells you what.

[arcane-the-sage.livejournal.com]

You left out the best part. The fact that the lawmaker who came up with the idea has admitted to reporters that he has been on his cell while walking through intersections -_-' So this guy isn't even trying to practice what he preaches. No worries though, no way in hell will this be made an enforceable law. Just way too much resistance to it.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

There's no way this is enforceable...unless they put a quota on tickets the way they (supposedly) did with parking tickets. If you had cops just sitting around making sure the general populace was safe and they spotted someone, hell, they could just write up the tickets in advance and fill in names and dates in the busier parts of the city and make $1k the span of ten minutes.

That, of course, would lead to people shrieking about the cops being too distracted writing tickets to keep an eye on criminals and getting such a stupid law rescinded.

[kent-allard-jr.livejournal.com]

This is the worst kind of liberal Nannyism, and I'm ashamed that this jackass is a boss of mine.

Luckily, no Democrat in the New York State Senate has any power to pass anything. Unless the Republican majority gets behind it I assume it's a dead letter.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

I love the things people bring up when they know there's no chance it will pass. That's their insanity litmus test.

[umeyard.livejournal.com]

Wow.

I would like to make another proposal since its being discussed due to a girl who was listening to her iPod while walking and could not hear people shout warnings, i would like to know if New York will soon ban deaf people from crossing New York streets as well? You know just in case since they would not be able to hear the warnings either.....

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

Ha ha ha! You're just still bitter about that Black History Month thing.

[umeyard.livejournal.com]

LOL
actually its something i have always hated that they try to pass laws regarding "not being able to hear". There are states that wont allow deaf people to drive since they cant hear anything....neither can people who have their radio and bass turned all the way up. Its my personal cause.

You should have seen my reaction at work when we have 37 diffrent languages you can specify when going to see a doctor and ASL is not one of them. It just blows my mind that some jerk off like this guy is trying to pass a law like this when his basis is something you CANT make a law against.

*grrr*

and honestly still laughing about this being National Hot Breakfast Month (no it is, look it up!!!)

[chuckro.livejournal.com]

...and it just hit me:

We should ban people from using iPods until they learn to read lips so they don't accidentally kill anyone!

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

See umeyard's post: if you do this, deaf people and people who don't understand the language being shouted at them will then be not allowed to cross the street. Hurrah! WE'll have gotten rid of tourists finally!

[chuckro.livejournal.com]

You totally missed my reference, didn't you? I'll give you a hint: I'm sure jennie, umm, I mean "Blayde", will happily teach you to lip-read.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

I did if it's what I'm thinking you mean. I've tried to block out that bit of cruel embarrassment.