“Speed cameras, there's no controversy. They clearly save lives. People hate these things, just absolutely loathe them. … And I think the reason is just that they apply to everyone and everywhere.”
Scaling Laws · October 2026
Speaking at a live taping at Nebraska Law, Tokson is discussing what happens as technology makes near-perfect enforcement possible. Small things people used to get away with now earn a $100 ticket, and he says rules that hit everyone draw far more backlash than selective or chancy enforcement.
Transcript
People don't like it.
What?
Yeah. These, you know, red light cameras, there's some controversy over, you know, sometimes they cause more accidents or whatever. They, on net, cause fewer accidents and save lives. Speed cameras, there's no controversy. They clearly save lives. People hate these things, just absolutely loathe them. And I think that, I mean, I guess it's a little more mixed to that, but a lot of people do hate them. And I think the reason is just that they apply to everyone and everywhere. And these little things that you used to be able to get away with, you know, barely running a red light. I grew up in Massachusetts and we were taught to run yellow lights pretty aggressively.
Of course, in mass holes. Yeah, it's just sort of part of the culture
is aggressively going through yellow lights. So things that you used to get away with and no one's around, you know, no one's there to see you, now you're getting a $100 ticket, that seems to really infuriate people. I think the reasons why are complex, but the simplest one is just this applies to…
And so my hunch is that a lot of folks, when they're thinking about lawmakers sitting in a room devising some new criminal scheme, writing some new law, are thinking about, great, we are excited about capturing all of this criminal activity. But in actuality, you point out this idea of a socially…
More from Scaling Laws
