47
votes
Why is the perceived safety of some countries and the actual safety not strongly correlated? For instance, why do Croatians feel so safe?
Murder rate (or general crime rate) and "safety walking alone at night" are not necessarily derived from the same sorts of crimes.
Consider for example a country where domestic violence is ...
- 2,379
41
votes
Accepted
Why are arrest records public in the United States?
The US political system was designed by people who are profoundly sceptical of government power. Their Constitution is designed more to protect the citizens from the state than to protect the citizens ...
- 104k
30
votes
Why are arrest records public in the United States?
The information isn't meant to be used against the arrested person, but rather to protect them. The arresting authority has to make public who was arrested (with information that should identify them ...
- 1,314
26
votes
Why is the perceived safety of some countries and the actual safety not strongly correlated? For instance, why do Croatians feel so safe?
Because Perception and Reality are often different.
There is a lot of selection bias, right from reporting by media to gossip to what political parties say to what each person wants to believe.
...
- 4,682
21
votes
Why are helmets and seatbelts required?
There are laws that are meant to prevent people from hurting themselves. Examples:
Prohibition of advertising for cigarettes (or forcing cigarette packs to contain images of lung cancer sufferers, ...
- 32.2k
20
votes
Why are countries still introducing COVID-19 quarantines for travelers from affected regions, even though it's been proven they don't work?
While it has clearly been shown by the virility of the virus so far that travel restrictions will not stop the inevitable community spread of the illness, and that their effectiveness as impeding the ...
CDJB♦
- 102k
20
votes
Why is the perceived safety of some countries and the actual safety not strongly correlated? For instance, why do Croatians feel so safe?
Most people never witness a violent crime, but read about it. So perceived safety is strongly related to how much crime is reported. How often it is reported: Same crime can be reported when it ...
- 4,874
17
votes
Why are arrest records public in the United States?
The main reason for public arrests records were concerns about secret police carrying out arrests for political undesirables. Famous examples include the Gestapo (Germany prior to split), the Stasi (...
- 2,428
16
votes
Why are helmets and seatbelts required?
It's a tradeoff between two things: the harm prevented by the law, and the freedom exercised (or harm tolerated) without the law.
While I won't echo the existing answers, I will say that the harm ...
- 299
15
votes
Accepted
Why these far-right politicians identify child sexual abuse, and not another crime, as the justification for their attacks on cyber security?
There is practically no debate on the issue of child abuse, especially child sexual abuse. Practically everyone agrees it is bad, practically everyone agrees it should be punished. Furthermore, as a ...
- 13.1k
14
votes
Why are arrest records public in the United States?
Historically, the question has largely been posed in the form, "what must or can be kept secret?" rather than "what must or can be revealed?".
The general rule is (and has been ...
- 70.9k
13
votes
Accepted
Why does Virginia allow driving without vehicle liability insurance by paying an "Uninsured Motor Vehicle fee"?
Answering my own question after four years...
It seems I am not the only one who questioned this regulation.
In March 2023, Senate bill SB 951 was signed into law, which abolishes the "Uninsured ...
- 2,295
12
votes
Accepted
NAACP Florida travel advisory really about traveling to/in Florida, or about moving/living there? How often to they issue political travel advisories?
According to USA Today the first ever travel advisory issued by the NAACP came in August of 2017 when the organization issued a travel advisory for the State of Missouri. The second came two months ...
- 15.7k
12
votes
Accepted
Why is the perceived safety of some countries and the actual safety not strongly correlated? For instance, why do Croatians feel so safe?
Perception is not often well-informed, and will probably reflect the direction of change rather than the actual longer-term average. The UK is suffering slightly rising violent crime levels starting ...
- 331
11
votes
Why are helmets and seatbelts required?
What you understand by 'freedom' is not a universally accepted guiding principle.
For example, some lawmakers might be operating on the idea that we should attempt to maximise the health and happiness ...
- 1,950
11
votes
What's the point of legalising dangerous drugs in some states in the US?
The premises of your question are wrong.
Lets start with the title. "Legalising dangerous drugs". The danger of marijuana is debatable. Alcohol and Tobacco are equally if not more dangerous (...
- 955
9
votes
Accepted
Would stricter security avoid school shootings?
The security in courthouses and government buildings is primarily there to protect the judges and public servants from the public, who enter and exit through separate ways from each other.
And in ...
- 3,411
8
votes
Why are countries still introducing COVID-19 quarantines for travelers from affected regions, even though it's been proven they don't work?
In addition to CDJB's answer, there's an extra reason to delay, delay, delay.
During the SARS outbreak I read, I believe it was John Barry's 1918 Influenza book. A good read, on a number of levels, ...
7
votes
Why are helmets and seatbelts required?
Law can restrict freedom
Your definition of freedom "I should be able to do anything and everything, if it DOES NOT AT ALL hurt anything or anyone, be it financially, physically, mentally etc.&...
- 5,579
7
votes
Why are helmets and seatbelts required?
Unfortunately, most other answers here don't have any sources. I'll answer this from the perspective of German lawmakers and translate the appropriate sources, since that's what I am most familiar ...
- 955
7
votes
Why is the perceived safety of some countries and the actual safety not strongly correlated? For instance, why do Croatians feel so safe?
Croatia is a pretty well-known tourist-friendly country, thus it's quite possible that the primary tourist attractions in there, along with popular tourist routes, are guarded better than towns with ...
- 301
6
votes
NAACP Florida travel advisory really about traveling to/in Florida, or about moving/living there? How often to they issue political travel advisories?
It's not a literal travel advisory like you'd see for traveling to Ukraine or Somalia or Afghanistan. Rather, it's a statement of opposition by the NAACP against the state of Florida. On a shallow ...
- 51.4k
4
votes
Why these far-right politicians identify child sexual abuse, and not another crime, as the justification for their attacks on cyber security?
Standard political playbook-strategy in the U.S.:
You want to pass a law that is likely to face severe public and/or political opposition? Include provisions/arguments that allow you to accuse the ...
- 6,079
4
votes
Why is it easy to bring a gun into a school, but not onto an airplane?
About 3 million people fly into and out of US airports per day. I'm not sure if takeoffs and landings are counted twice here. But it gives a ballpark. People have to bring extra time to allow for ...
- 104k
4
votes
Is gun violence in the US mostly limited to people involved in property/violent crime?
Yes. The research seems to support this assertion:
From Urban Wire's "What we know about gun violence in the United States: Who’s affected?":
A small set of key groups and a small number of ...
- 91.2k
4
votes
Why are helmets and seatbelts required?
Other answers being good, a lot of pressure to mandate the safety tools and features comes from the insurance business.
When you insure something (be it property or other lawful asset, such as life ...
- 5,610
4
votes
Why is the perceived safety of some countries and the actual safety not strongly correlated? For instance, why do Croatians feel so safe?
Because the source of the data might not be reporting accurately on reality
@ccprog has an excellent point about Numbeo being the source of these statistics, which has a number of major problems.
In ...
- 430
3
votes
Why are helmets and seatbelts required?
Sometime in the 80's, Mike Royko (editorialist for the Chicago Tribune) wrote a piece covering an accident case. (I'm going from memory here.) A car had hit a motorcycle and the fault was clearly the ...
- 127
3
votes
Is there an official assessment of the side-effects of a quarantine for COVID-19 in US or in China?
In the US there are two federal agencies the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Federal Emergency Management Agency that have larges staffs of physicians, epidemiologists, public ...
- 1,449
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