Paved with good intentions

[unixronin]

Via cracked.com, Bitmines, and paulesyllabic¹, the five most popular safety laws that don’t actually work.

Highlights:

• “Traffic calming” costs more lives than it saves.  “One report from Boulder, Colorado suggests that for every life saved by traffic calming, as many as 85 people may die because emergency vehicles are delayed.  It found response times are typically extended by 14% by speed-reduction measures.  Another study conducted by the fire department in Austin, Texas showed an increase in the travel time of ambulances when transporting victims of up to 100%.”
• [1997 article]  A 1997 study found that in 1994-1995, crime (both violent and overall) decreased by three times as much in states without Three Strikes laws as in states with them.  In eight of the thirteen states that had three-strikes laws, crime actually increased during that period.
• Fully half of the 233 Amber Alerts issued in 2004 were for children who were in no danger.  48 of the 233 alerts — more than 20% — were for children who hadn’t even been abducted.
• Sex offender registries don’t distinguish between serial rapists and somebody who took a leak in public while drunk.  Besides, 95% of sexual assault victims, child or adult, already know their attacker anyway.

And I’m sure I don’t have to point out the utter stupidity behind zero-tolerance policies to anyone here... not to mention the rampant abuses.

[1]  Not necessarily in that order.  Or any order.

Comments

[ithildae.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the incentives are all wrong.

As a challenge, try to create incentives for a desired behavior that have no unintended and undesirable consequences. I spent a few years in business implementing the IT side of an arms escalation in the sales commission structure. Some really bright and motivated guys trying to keep the commission system as a way to generate profit for the business. The sales reps were constantly working to game the system by offering the lowest price to the customer, and gain the highest commission. When we started, that meant a loss on the entire sale. I was instrumental in helping to craft the policy, and the computer system to prevent gaming, but there were several hundred sales reps, each one entering and reentering customer orders in different configurations to yield the highest commission (which I had no problem with) and provide the lowest cost to the customer (which hurt the business bottom line, a problem.)

Doing it right is a huge problem, and not one with easy answers. There are only a few thousand people in congress. Trying to imagine what 300 million+ people can do with the law is a daunting task. (Even limiting the number of practicing lawyers and judges to the intent of the law is infeasible.)