On Fri, 27 Mar 2009 17:32:19 -0700, Darren New wrote:

> Jim Henderson wrote:
>> I say it doesn't matter WHY they were driving recklessly - make the
>> fines or other penalties high enough, and people will eventually get
>> the picture.
> 
> I disagree. Look at smoking pot, or teenagers sleeping with each other
> or sending naked pictures of themselves to their friends.
> 
> Clearly, smoking pot carries disproportionate penalties, yet does
> apparently nothing to reduce its prevalence.

Well, *most* of those illegal activities (with the possible exception of 
teens sleeping with each other) don't generally cause things like 
automobile accidents.  This is a generally different class of problem 
that we're talking about.

I think we've got enough laws to cover "reckless driving" without having 
to legislate "you can't eat a cheeseburger", "you can't talk on a phone", 
"you can't read a book".  Eventually we get to the point where someone 
does something the legislators didn't think of that's worse than all of 
those put together and then we have to watch our legislators argue about 
whether or not we should have a law that makes it illegal to, I don't 
know, pet puppies while driving.

It's just a waste of taxpayer money and legislator time.

That's what my point was, really.

> And three cheers for spell checkers after a whiskey sour. Otherwise,
> this post would be illegible. :-)

LOL.  My wife has a habit of writing on Livejournal after having had a 
bit to drink.  Her friends really enjoy those posts. :-)

Jim

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