Jeffrey Tucker bitches, and rightly so, about stop signs:
In some ways, then, it is true that the stop sign — as with every regulation by the state — embodies all that is wrong with the public sector. The rules are made to benefit the state. You are on the hot seat if any policeman says that you have done wrong. The pretense of a fair trial is a complete farce, as you have to tangle with judges who hate you, waste several days of work, and throw yourself on the mercy of the court. Once you are entangled in the web, you can’t really get out.
And who makes the rules? The central planners make the rules, and the public be damned. The rules are there to serve the state, not us, and the stop sign that is oddly placed in order to extract revenue makes the point very well. [emphasis added]
Yes, these rules are made to benefit the state. Most stop signs are really just useless once one thinks about them. I find it very unlikely that a person of sound mind is going to pull into traffic, knowing that a vehicle is approaching him.
More abhorrent than stop signs is red light photo enforcement. Which is arguably unconstitutional in Tennessee, per Article 1, Section 9:
That in all criminal prosecutions, the accused hath the right to be heard by himself and his counsel; to demand the nature and cause of the accusation against him, and to have a copy thereof, to meet the witnesses face to face, to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and in prosecutions by indictment or presentment, a speedy public trial, by an impartial jury of the County in which the crime shall have been committed, and shall not be compelled to give evidence against himself.
TCA section 55-8-109 lists failure to follow an official traffic signal as a Class C Misdemeanor—a crime.
To avoid this problem, cities redefine such offences as ‘civil infractions’ against the city. In other words, the government makes the rules to benefit the government; photo enforcement is a revenue generator — that’s it.
