John Stossel - Abolish Drunk Driving Laws

with Radley Balko. Police roadblocks are an effective means of trolling for fineable offenses and combatting that pesky Constitutional obstacle, probable cause. Like anti-terrorism laws and the TSA, drunk driving laws provide law enforcement with a mandate to arbitrarily violate individual liberty. http://www.LibertyPen.com

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[TheLegalImmigrant05]

Privatize roads. Whoever owns the road and stands to lose money if the road is not safe and people stop using it and go to alternative roads, it is up to that person to set up rules of using that road. Safe with airline security: leave it up to the airlines and private owners of airports, they are the ones with the greatest incentive to maximize security while minimizing hassle to passengers.

[zbyszanna]

In Poland we now have a bold plan to install thousands of new speed cameras this year. The government plans to increase the income from about 70mln$ to about 400mln$ anually just from the new tickets generated by these new speed cameras. Anyone saying they are there for our safety is obviously oblivious to our budget gap. Just a curiosity.

[njanovic1980]

@TheLegalImmigrant05 There is little profit in private roads, the cost of maintaining them eats the profit up. In there early 19th century there were private turnpikes and they never turned much of a profit, even then road maintence was expensive. The arival of the railroads was the end of the private turnpikes, they couldn't compete with them.

[canisfamilliaris]

@TheLegalImmigrant05

Well it's not really a free market if someone buys a highway and then is forced by the state to maintain it (ie: he has no choice) because he will be prosecuted for manslaughter if someone comes to grief on it. If he owns it he should be free do what he likes with it, and as long as there's no deception, people should be free to take the risk of cheaper tolls on a badly maintained highway. Isn't that the way its supposed to work?

[TheLegalImmigrant05]

@canisfamilliaris "Charging someone with manslaughter isn't really the free market is it?" What??? Wow, you have interesting ideas about free market. Do you believe free market = lack of law and order, aka protection of life and property? :) You are not being serious.

[canisfamilliaris]

@TheLegalImmigrant05

Hi nice answer

I'd buy a major highway and close it until the government paid me a huge wedge of money to keep it open. Guess the main drag into a major city would be good, they couldn't really wait for a private company to knock down loads of buildings (after they've managed to buy them all), to build an alternative route it would be a license to print money.

Charging someone with manslaughter isn't really the free market is it?

[TheLegalImmigrant05]

@canisfamilliaris If someone dies as a result of poor road maintenance (provably) by the owner, the owner is liable for manslaughter. That would seem to me a strong incentive to make sure people don't die on your roads. Compare to gov't owned roads today. How many people are dying on the road b/c of poor maintenance or management? Tens of thousands/year. Who is losing money or going to jail? Nobody. What recourse do people have? None. Think about this in terms of systems of incentives.

[canisfamilliaris]

@TheLegalImmigrant05

I see your point. A road provider runs his road badly (say he's developed a drink problem) and as a result your daughter, mother, son or father lie dead and shattered on the badly maintained blacktop. Perhaps you're visiting the area and don't know his rep?

You in a huff tell him, "I'm never going to be using your highway again, that'll teach you"

You leave satisfied he knows he's going to lose the income.

How many dead before he's bankrupt?

[Jusplais]

prosteria and testeronitis has always been a factor in  poor thought. his mindless prosteria.

[Jusplais]

go get a hystorectomy for that false misogynistic conditon of hysteria/hysters or uterus' causing mania. Or have cervixes fallen out vulvas driving drunk? Balko is an igonorant fool I 'm paying no mind to his rhetoric.