Friday, June 04, 2010
Driving question
You are approaching an intersection (where the other street has a stop sign and your street doesn't), and see another car ignore the stop sign and drive out into the intersection. Do you (a) slow down to avoid hitting the other car, or (b) keep going and collide, and then send around a YouTube video from your hospital bed to prove that you had the right of way?
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Sounds like someone chose "B", eh?
ReplyDeleteC) Slow down and honk
ReplyDeleteWhat if you erroneously thought that you could make it through the intersection before the violator, but then the prick speeds up so that he can collide with you? I bet you're happy you have that video, then, huh?
ReplyDeleteWhom am I addressing? My wife, who is angry that I got into an accident, or the cops who want to give me a ticket. Or even some angry prosecuter who wants to go beyond giving me a ticket, and take my car away?
ReplyDeleteIt is quite appropriate to show the video to the cop. If he is an honest cop, he will let me off. The prosecutor is clearly NOT honest, so there may not be any point to showing it to him.
My wife is likely to be glad I have the video, but is still going to be concerned with how I drive. Rightfully so.
as for what I should be doing in the first place, well thats questionable. How badly do I need to get across the intersection first. What are the consequences short term and long term of letting the other car go by? Thats where the parallel MAY break down. Letting one car go by is trivial. Letting one boat with loads of cement go by is probably trivial too, even if the cement is used in the worst possible way. But if I let that boat go by, how do stop and search boats that may hold missiles?
ReplyDeleteNow it may be that theres another effective way to keep missiles out of gaza. Or it maybe that its not worth keeping the missiles out of Gaza - that the gain in making it clear that the occupation of Gaza is over and Gaza can be treated as hostile foreign territory is worth the open channel for weapons. But surely the answer to that is not obvious.
If you're an ordinary civilian, you let the bozo go. But if you're a cop, sworn to sacrifice your life and safety, maybe "B". And if you're a cop, and you suspect the guy has an open container, and you've already flashed your police lights at him and he doesn't stop, definitely "B". And if at that point, you see the situation as a guy intentionally using his car as a deadly weapon after being signaled to stop, you can pretty much do what you want.
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