That's what I would have added... curiosity. I think, like a lot engineers, the kind of people who took their parent's phones apart when they were kids to figure out how they worked... always playing the "what if" and "I wonder what would happen" games.

Is it? A "lot of time?" I'd like to read your study showing that to be the case.

I suspect traffic circles ("roundabouts") would be a great solution in the long run around here if it wouldn't increase accidents by 5000% percent in the mean time from all the people that simply can't understand the concept.

A lot of the cases of police reports that I've encountered are police being there from an accident... or they're already giving someone a ticket (IOW, they're not going to jump in their car and come after you).

I don't know why people are scared of the police. The vast majority of them are good people just doing their job trying to keep you safe. People's opinions of them are colored by ubiquitous news stories of the tiny fraction of bad cops, and their depiction in popular media. I was a passenger in a friends car when a police car pulled up next to us at a red light. I looked over, the cop looked over, I gave a friendly wave, he waved back. My friend went ballistic. "Are you trying to get me a ticket?"

I asked "Why? Are you doing something wrong?"

"No."

"Then what's your f#@$king problem?"

I've gotten several speeding tickets in my life; been involved in several accidents (not related to speeding and not my fault), and I've never had a negative experience with a police officer... when they ask to see my license and registration, instead of arguing with them, I hand it over. I was speeding, they pull me over, I know I was speeding... I've never seen cop give anyone a hard time unless they started arguing about it.

Does it happen that there are bad cops? Of course... but they're in the distinct minority. With all these cop haters on slashdot, you can be guaranteed they're happy enough a cop is around when they need one.

Agreed.... speeding is a lot less heinous and much less annoying to other drivers than tailgating, weaving, cutting people off, failing to signal, signalling when not turning or changing lanes, using high beams in traffic, and host of other things.... and I've NEVER heard of anyone getting tickets for those things because speeding tickets can result in objective evidence (radar or speedometer readings). I've seen people turn left from the right lane, and right from the left lane (only once causing an accident, though). There is, IMO, a growing mentality of "my mistakes are not my problem... they're yours!" where someone failed to be in the correct lane at the correct time, so they just force their way where they want to go instead of continuing the way they were committed to and turning safely farther up the road. I see this all the time.... if I missed my turn I would turn at the next location is possible, maybe making a u-turn or something - I would never in a million years cut across several lanes of traffic at the last second because of my mistake.

It's a terrible system... and the majority of police reports I've seen are always in the same spots. This is in/near big city Atlanta... these are not speed traps since traffic can't possibly flow that fast anyway. It's the odd idiot in the HOV or luxury lanes going 80 that get nailed, not your average commuter that might take a 5 to 10mph "liberty" with the speed limit.

I don't know if it's required, but I believe they routinely do. My GPS consistently shows a few more MPH than my speedometer, and when I've taken long trips I've never gone as far as my speedometer told me I should have gone (based on MPH reported by my speedometer and keeping an eye on mile markers).

Back to the topic at hand, though, locations of police spotted in public locations is public information. This is the type of information that "wants to be free." My father was a police officer, I have several relatives who are still police officers, Several friends of my family are police officers... I highly respect them and, IMO, understand their point of view better than your average person. After seeing all the people lying, resisting, spitting in faces of police officers... I think that they have a LOT more restraint than most people are capable of. While it bothers me that police officers break, it's hardly surprising when the average person hates and distrusts them, despite the fact that 99% of the time they are good people doing their job... it's that tiny fraction that doesn't that makes the news, and colors people's perspectives.

I use waze... and I'll thumb up police reports if I see them, but I never slow down - because I'm not speeding to an extent where the cop would care. Around here the police on the interstates have a detrimental effect on commuter traffic, because when people see cops they slow down to 5 to 10 MPH below the limit, and it pisses me off. I cruise by police doing 5MPH over the limit and have never gotten a ticket. The very rare cases I've heard of people getting tickets for less than 5MPH over the limit have all been dismissed by the court. One department around here (at least) is ordered not to bother anybody doing less than 10MPH over the limit.

I give no credence to this complaint. I know that, in some locations, the police even use waze to see where they're being reported. Then they can move, they can "not there" the report - being a voluntary app (that I've only submitted information for twice because, hey, I'm driving here!) I find most of the reports dubious at best, and most of the time don't even see the cops that are supposed to be there.

The benefits of Waze over something like google maps is not the cop reporting - it's the accident and slow traffic reporting, it's the combined information from 100s or 1000s of "wazers" to help guide you around problem areas. The last time waze told me to detour and I didn't, I got stuck in an hour and a half of traffic I could have avoided.... never again.

Yes... I'm very cynical about human nature; I think it's unfortunately very likely some impaired person will be taken advantage of by some scumbag.

Nothing. If someone gets fined or jailed for libelous or dangerous speech, do you still consider it "free?"

No... it just means you're not free from repercussions from damage you do.

Does it also mean free from any repercussions whatsoever?

But we're talking about the here and now, and here's the difference: someone like Eric Robert Rudolf kills in the name of Christianity, is summarily denounced by 99% of Christians, and is hunted, caught, and convicted - largely by Christians. Something like what happened today happens, and some fraction of Muslims cheer it on, a large chunk of Muslims say nothing about it (split between quietly agreeing and approval of what happened and people fearing for their own life should they speak out against it), and a tiny fraction that speak out against it... and placating denoucnements like "we denounce the killing of innocents." Of course, to radical Muslims, non-Muslims are not "innocent."

I'm not particularly religious myself, and I find a lot of preachy Christians pretty damn annoying, and they have little problem trying to control how I live my life... but at least I'm not in fear for it.

Sadly, I agree. I moved to the Mac world 10 years ago because I was tired of the constant struggle to keep Windows boxes working, both hardware and software. At that time, Mac was a breath of fresh air. It did just work. Now I'm with macalli, I dread each new update wondering if things will net out as better or worse.

Yes to TGA... I work in television graphics, and we targas far too often (not by my choice).