On 27/03/2021 09:14, TimS wrote:
> Except that too-small control structures lead to local tyrannies. In the UK
we
> have about 50 police departments, for 65 million people. The US has more than
> 15000. And the US elects judges and chiefs of police, so sometimes people
> don't get justice, they get law and plenty of it. It's noticeable that road
> signage in the UK is designed to get people safely from A to B,

Not since the 1960s.

whereas in the
> US it's designed to raise revenue.

As it is here largely. Or break cars.

> And then there are quotas - conspiracies
> betwen a city Mayor and the Chief of Police to fill the City's coffers; this
> is just a form of legalised banditry.
>
Its the same here. Parking schemes employ wardens whose wages are paid
out of the  fines. Car parks are a monopoly that is 'revenue neutral' as
a minimum. The cost of installing the machines is paid for by the
parking charges, The same goes for speed cameras.

In my local town there used to be a complete absence of traffic lights.
Sometimes one had to wait a while for a gap in the traffic, to emerge
from or enter a major side road. But the road was wide enough that
queueing traffic did not hold up the other traffic.

Now with traffic lights one *always* queues, congestion is increased.
But people are told it 'improves safety'. I think it creates jobs for
people who manufacture and install traffic lights.

Even in our village there was a proposal that extra speed limit
enforcement should be added to the rural roads 'to reduce accidents' I
researched. The only fatal accident in the last 30 years was a
motorcyclist who failed to make a bend in an *unrestricted* zone.

Bureaucracy becomes a self justifying parasite, all for the best
possible reasons.


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"Women actually are capable of being far more than the feminists will
let them."

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