I consider both pretty serious. And both seem to have gotten worse since the pandemic.
There is a difference in that fare evasion is a discrete, fully "voluntary" act, whereas traffic violations can be inadvertent and one of degree. Moving traffic violations, however, have the potential to have very large negative consequences. There is an argument for enforcing both because of the demonstration effect. Seeing one violator get away with it, increases the likelihood that another will also violate.
Ultimately the level and type of enforcement needs to be guided by considerations of cost-benenfit.
Another view you might consider is an ethical analysis: even if you run a utilitarian analysis, which I suppose most people who are angered by fare evaders might use, jumping the turnstile violates rule utilitarianism, Viz, you are breaking the rules, and through breaking these rules you might contribute to someone losing his job and being unable to feed his family, etc, but, flouting traffic laws violates rule utilitarianism and act utilitarianism: fare evasion will not decrease someone's please through bodily harm, but running a read light? I do not think one could ever claim there is a moving violation which could be considered "victimless." Perhaps these things are just categorically different, and it would benefit everyone to view them as such.
It is worth noting the difference in the *way* these violations victimize, I think. Turnstyle jumping victimizes in aggregation - one individual skipping the fare is close to meaningless, but if many people do it, each one is contributing to the resulting revenue shortfall, whatever that ends up meaning. Meanwhile speeding or running a red light are violations that victimize stochastically - each individual instance is unlikely to cause any particular harm, but any one has the potential to cause grievous injury. I don't think that excuses the differential treatment, but it might help explain it.
Addison gets closer with the example of a parking overstay. I think that is plausibly equivalent to fare evasion, and ironically it's the one that tends to be punished most harshly, relative to impact, with consequences like towing that can quickly yank a car owner into a kafka-esque hell for the sin of misreading a half-destroyed sign.
This is a good conversation. I hope it can get shared widely. Now put skin color or sex in the mix and it gets even more interesting.
Speeding is worse because it can kill, and it uses more energy than necessary. Anyone that passes a transit turnstile is more likely to need to get somewhere than have the extra money in their pocket.
I see the distinction simply as crimes with and without a victim. Stealing a candy bar makes a victim of the convenience store owner. Jumping the turnstile deprives the transit agency income. But going fifteen miles over the speed limit on an open road will only create a victim if the driver encounters another car or creates a one-car "accident". I'm not advocating speeding, but I can see how traffic violations can be easier to justify.
Revealed preferences are a useful tool for assessing how serious we regard these infractions to be. We know that nobody regards most traffic offenses as very serious because the people have spoken through their representatives about the penalties for those offenses. If the offenses were serious, then the penalties would be serious, too. But they're not.
Of course, the only justification to treat a traffic offense like speeding or slowing down rather than coming to a full stop at a stop sign as even remotely serious is if they pose dangers to others. The traffic laws are loosely correlated to notions of safety, but very loosely. We ask people to stop at red lights so they don't crash into someone coming through the intersection. But we cannot seriously argue that there is any danger from stopping at a red light in the middle of the desert at 4 a.m., apprehending that there are no other cars as far as the eye can see, and then going through the red light. The laws correlate to general principles of safety, but humans are capable of using their discretion and discernment to figure out when real-world situations deviate from general rules.
A self-driving car programmed never to break a traffic law would literally be useless. As soon as it saw somebody double-parked, or an orange cone in the road, that required it briefly to steer over into the opposing lane to move on, it would sit motionless like Buridan's ass. To say nothing of the times it might need to swerve without advance signaling to avoid danger.
Simply put, it's often fine to break a traffic law, and we regard humans as generally good judges of when those occasions arise. Policemen are generally good judges of this too, which is why it's better to have those laws enforced by humans than cameras.
I don't regard turnstile jumping as a particularly serious crime either, certainly better addressed with a fine than a night in jail. (Anyone who supports speed cameras should have no problem with facial recognition cameras issuing turnstile jumpers $200 fines. For that matter, anyone who supports license plates should have no problem with a requirement that everyone entering a subway station come wearing a QR code sufficient to identify and track them...)
I find the issue of the appropriate penalty a less interesting question, though, than the issue of why we should have turnstiles in the first place. Obviously, the purpose is to collect fares, and the purpose of collecting fares is to make subway funding at least somewhat connected to subway usage, so people who use the subways more pay more. The problem is that this doesn't just impose costs on subway users, it imposes inconveniences, especially the maddening inconvenience of watching your train leave the station as you are desperately battling to get through the turnstile. It be preferable to strike a better balance between those inconveniences and our desire subway riders to pay their fair share of subway funding. I would think it better to deem the subways a general public good and make them free than to inconvenience the entire ridership trying to fund the system with bottlenecks collecting a dollar at a time.
Comparing fare evasion to a traffic ticket make a lot of sense.
Maybe.
It's arguably more like not paying the gas tax, something that is used to pay for that thing you're using. Sounds weird since we can't really not pay the gas tax by it's design.
Anyway, the other aspect of fare enforcement is the riff-raff factor. Ya know, the folks smoking on the train, taking a wizz, et al. Minnesota's Metro Transit is in the process of ramping up fare enforcement in part thanks to modification of the state law regarding it. Metro Transit by far is the most violent LRT system in the US.
The idea is a large part of this comes from the lack of enforcement. If that's the case as far enforcement increases, we should see a decrease in crime.
I heavily think that not coming down harsher on traffic violations is a large reason why we have such awful drivers.
That, and we make it too easy to get a drivers license.
I consider both pretty serious. And both seem to have gotten worse since the pandemic.
There is a difference in that fare evasion is a discrete, fully "voluntary" act, whereas traffic violations can be inadvertent and one of degree. Moving traffic violations, however, have the potential to have very large negative consequences. There is an argument for enforcing both because of the demonstration effect. Seeing one violator get away with it, increases the likelihood that another will also violate.
Ultimately the level and type of enforcement needs to be guided by considerations of cost-benenfit.
Another view you might consider is an ethical analysis: even if you run a utilitarian analysis, which I suppose most people who are angered by fare evaders might use, jumping the turnstile violates rule utilitarianism, Viz, you are breaking the rules, and through breaking these rules you might contribute to someone losing his job and being unable to feed his family, etc, but, flouting traffic laws violates rule utilitarianism and act utilitarianism: fare evasion will not decrease someone's please through bodily harm, but running a read light? I do not think one could ever claim there is a moving violation which could be considered "victimless." Perhaps these things are just categorically different, and it would benefit everyone to view them as such.
It is worth noting the difference in the *way* these violations victimize, I think. Turnstyle jumping victimizes in aggregation - one individual skipping the fare is close to meaningless, but if many people do it, each one is contributing to the resulting revenue shortfall, whatever that ends up meaning. Meanwhile speeding or running a red light are violations that victimize stochastically - each individual instance is unlikely to cause any particular harm, but any one has the potential to cause grievous injury. I don't think that excuses the differential treatment, but it might help explain it.
Addison gets closer with the example of a parking overstay. I think that is plausibly equivalent to fare evasion, and ironically it's the one that tends to be punished most harshly, relative to impact, with consequences like towing that can quickly yank a car owner into a kafka-esque hell for the sin of misreading a half-destroyed sign.
Towing should be reserved for traffic blocking infractions.
This is a good conversation. I hope it can get shared widely. Now put skin color or sex in the mix and it gets even more interesting.
Speeding is worse because it can kill, and it uses more energy than necessary. Anyone that passes a transit turnstile is more likely to need to get somewhere than have the extra money in their pocket.
I see the distinction simply as crimes with and without a victim. Stealing a candy bar makes a victim of the convenience store owner. Jumping the turnstile deprives the transit agency income. But going fifteen miles over the speed limit on an open road will only create a victim if the driver encounters another car or creates a one-car "accident". I'm not advocating speeding, but I can see how traffic violations can be easier to justify.
They seem HARDER to justify, depending on the degree of speeding. And with speed cameras much easier to discourage with fines.
Revealed preferences are a useful tool for assessing how serious we regard these infractions to be. We know that nobody regards most traffic offenses as very serious because the people have spoken through their representatives about the penalties for those offenses. If the offenses were serious, then the penalties would be serious, too. But they're not.
Of course, the only justification to treat a traffic offense like speeding or slowing down rather than coming to a full stop at a stop sign as even remotely serious is if they pose dangers to others. The traffic laws are loosely correlated to notions of safety, but very loosely. We ask people to stop at red lights so they don't crash into someone coming through the intersection. But we cannot seriously argue that there is any danger from stopping at a red light in the middle of the desert at 4 a.m., apprehending that there are no other cars as far as the eye can see, and then going through the red light. The laws correlate to general principles of safety, but humans are capable of using their discretion and discernment to figure out when real-world situations deviate from general rules.
A self-driving car programmed never to break a traffic law would literally be useless. As soon as it saw somebody double-parked, or an orange cone in the road, that required it briefly to steer over into the opposing lane to move on, it would sit motionless like Buridan's ass. To say nothing of the times it might need to swerve without advance signaling to avoid danger.
Simply put, it's often fine to break a traffic law, and we regard humans as generally good judges of when those occasions arise. Policemen are generally good judges of this too, which is why it's better to have those laws enforced by humans than cameras.
I don't regard turnstile jumping as a particularly serious crime either, certainly better addressed with a fine than a night in jail. (Anyone who supports speed cameras should have no problem with facial recognition cameras issuing turnstile jumpers $200 fines. For that matter, anyone who supports license plates should have no problem with a requirement that everyone entering a subway station come wearing a QR code sufficient to identify and track them...)
I find the issue of the appropriate penalty a less interesting question, though, than the issue of why we should have turnstiles in the first place. Obviously, the purpose is to collect fares, and the purpose of collecting fares is to make subway funding at least somewhat connected to subway usage, so people who use the subways more pay more. The problem is that this doesn't just impose costs on subway users, it imposes inconveniences, especially the maddening inconvenience of watching your train leave the station as you are desperately battling to get through the turnstile. It be preferable to strike a better balance between those inconveniences and our desire subway riders to pay their fair share of subway funding. I would think it better to deem the subways a general public good and make them free than to inconvenience the entire ridership trying to fund the system with bottlenecks collecting a dollar at a time.
Comparing fare evasion to a traffic ticket make a lot of sense.
Maybe.
It's arguably more like not paying the gas tax, something that is used to pay for that thing you're using. Sounds weird since we can't really not pay the gas tax by it's design.
Anyway, the other aspect of fare enforcement is the riff-raff factor. Ya know, the folks smoking on the train, taking a wizz, et al. Minnesota's Metro Transit is in the process of ramping up fare enforcement in part thanks to modification of the state law regarding it. Metro Transit by far is the most violent LRT system in the US.
The idea is a large part of this comes from the lack of enforcement. If that's the case as far enforcement increases, we should see a decrease in crime.