I don't think that the OP's definition of "hypermiling" was referring to coasting on approach to red lights. I think he's referring to people that are ridiculously slow at reaching the speed limit after the light turns green. Their delay slows down everyone behind them and the poor sap at the end of the line gets stuck at the same light when normally he could have made it through. Say you are going through 10 lights. If you stop at the 1st light, then take longer to get up to speed, you may also get stopped at the 4th light instead of the 5th. This has a cascading effect backward as everyone behind you has advanced one less light than they could have (not exactly accurate, but you get my point). Now you're stopping at every 4 lights, instead of every 5, and the amount of cars that can pass through this section of road during this time is decreased, which means there are more people stuck at the beginning of the stretch. Add to this the time wasted coming to a stop and then accelerating because you have no room to coast. While sitting at a restaurant I once saw one person sit through an entire cycle while figuring out which way to turn. It backed up the traffic behind them and because there was always a line of stopped cars at the light, it took 30 minutes for the intersection to truly clear from that direction. It was quite an interesting observation.

True, but in Atlanta we have Interstates and roads that are 4 or 5 lines wide each direction, and EVERY lane decides they need to inspect the scene at 30 mph in a 65 mph zone. Someone needs to post a video on youtube of what it looks like to see someone get a ticket, cause I swear some people act like they've never seen such a thing in their life and this is their only chance.
Whoever posted above about the protected lanes and people not following the "Keep Moving" signs, I'm right there with ya dude. A lot of these things are probably supposed to be learned to get a license, but there are some that are "unwritten" which you learn as you go. Most people probably have knowledge of the rules of the road, fewer people apply them with common sense.

Yeah, yeah, total protonic reversal. Please, this is not my first rodeo.

I suppose you're right. I best take my sense of humility and admission of ignorance over to Digg... err, I mean Reddit... um, hmm... I guess I don't fit in anywhere.

I guess you'll just have to put up with people like me. I know you'll understand. It's understanding that makes it possible for people like you to tolerate a person like myself. :)

The above post beat me to the punch. Yes, an officer of the state cannot ask a private citizen to knowingly commit a crime in order to obtain evidence for a case. Doing so make the evidence inadmissible. It all hinges on whether or not the evidence was obtained at the instruction of an officer of the state, or if the officer had the knowledge of it and chose to not act against it (assuming it was a crime).

If you ever saw the movie The Rainmaker, the evidence brought forth by the plaintiff's lawyer hinged on this differentiation. In short, a fired insurance claims handler had stolen a corporate manual which included an addendum that instructed all handlers to deny all claims the first time they were submitted, regardless of whether they may be legitimate or not. It was at first ruled that the stolen copy was not to be admissible, but was later reversed citing a court case that allowed evidence in a case so long as the evidence was not obtained illegally at the request or knowledge of the state or an attorney. Granted, the case quoted is probably fictional, but i seriously doubt that the writers would include such a pivotal plot point without doing their homework and that there probably is an actual case where this was ruled on.

Legal debates aside, this movie is actually really good, if you like lawyer movies along the lines of Philadelphia and Erin Brokovich, etc.