Here we go again...

[JohnStOnge]

http://www.sphere.com/opinion/article/f ... 2F19327929

A woman in Mississippi wants a law such that if somebody doesn't stop when a school bus does while deploying its stop signs they, on first offense, get a $500 fine, have their license suspended for 30 days, and possibly spend 48 hours in jail. It is another example of somebody suffering a tragic loss of a loved one and feeling like they have to do something so they push for draconian penalties that are way out of line with the seriousness of the offense. I know the knee jerk response because I've seen it many times. The knee jerk response is something like, "IF IT WILL SAVE EVEN ONE CHILD'S LIFE IT'S WORTH IT."

No. It's not.

People do things that put others at risk all the time. Sometimes children die when people run stop signs. Sometimes children die because someone was speeding. Sometimes children die because someone ran a red light. Are we going to start fining people $500 and taking their license away for 30 days because those red light cameras catch them running red lights?

Let's play with numbers a little bit. In that article, the grieving mother says that 18 children were killed last year when people failed to stop when school busses did. She also says that, in Virginia alone, there were an estimated 600,000 instances per year in which people failed to stop in such situations. Just to get a general idea as to magnitude of risk, let's assume the rate of failing to stop in such situations nationally is equal to that in Virginia. Bottom line is we come up with about 23 million instances in which people fail to stop when school busses stop and about 1.3 million of such instances for each of the 18 child fatalities last year.

What that means is that, in any randomly selected indivdual instance of somebody failing to stop when a school bus does, there is almost no chance that a child is going to be killed. I'm sure some larger number of cases involve injury. But, still, it is not an action that carries, by any reasonable standard, a high risk of adverse consequence.

No way people should be talking about a law such that somebody who happens not to be paying attention on a four lane road and drives by a school bus that has deployed its stop signs gets their license suspended for 30 days. But I imagine it's going to happen because people get into the "it will save lives" emotional mode and a mother who lost her child is a sympathetic figure. But one of these days we need to start saying "no" to this kind of stuff. We need to stop making irrational laws because somebody is able to put an emotional face on things. We shouldn't be imposing crazy, draconian penalties because mothers are interested in "finding a meaning" behind losing their children.

[Gil Dobie]

Making any traffic violation a life sentence will deter people from driving, therefore stopping Global Warming.............................

[JayJ79]

sometimes children die when they choke on a quarter that they swallowed.

let's ban quarters.

[youngterrier]

should their be a penalty for doing this? certainly. What should it be? I don't know--I don't ride the bus

[dbackjon]

Seems a little extreme. Yes, the punishment needs to be sufficient to deter people from breaking the law - although in a perfect world, people would see a stopped school bus and be careful in the first place.

[travelinman67]

Well...

...let's be fair here.

As a motorist, I want all small children to be tattoed with a warning "label":

"WARNING: May act irrationally causing harm to oneself. Striking with vehicle may result in permanent injury or death."

Think of how many children's lives could be saved...

[JayJ79]

Well...

...let's be fair here.

As a motorist, I want all small children to be tattoed with a warning "label":

"WARNING: May act irrationally causing harm to oneself. Striking with vehicle may result in permanent injury or death."

Think of how many children's lives could be saved...

Not to mention preventing needless damage to the cars.