Because the auto industry paid lobbyists for decades to prevent the spread of local and national rail and tram lines?

Sorry, that's kind of an oblique answer, the direct answer is money. A few extraordinarily wealthy people made a few more people rich by sacrificing what is right and good for America, with what is convenient and enriching for them. And now all our urban areas are designed for cars instead of people, which makes them shitty and inhospitable.

As a society, we would understand better, if more of us had the ability and desire to see how other industrialized nations live, but instead we just ramrod "American exceptionalism" until lil Johnny thinks his patch of Iowa, or Alabama, or Texas or wherever is equal to, or superior to anywhere else. All without ever having to leave the state, at all. I mean, what if they don't have FOOD there?

It blows my mind how easy it is for drunk drivers to get back behind the wheel. Once someone has proven how overwhelmingly selfish and foolish they are, it's unfair to everyone else to put us in that danger.

So our solution is simply to weaken civil liberties for everyone with unreasonable searches.

You aren’t wrong but the overincarceration is largely sentence lengths not arrest rates

Get rid of stops for small shit like expired tabs or dim taillights so traffic cops can focus on unsafe driving. John Oliver did a pretty good piece on this recently.

https://youtu.be/E8ygQ2wEwJw?si=Hse7NbqRhwlQEEa8

Odd for you to call vehicular manslaughter an inconvenience, but let's be clear: you can both reduce police involvement where it is not needed (such as mental health crisis) while still maintaining some order for actual dangerous offenders. You can also approach a problem from multiple angles, such as making prisons more about rehabilitation than punishment, or addressing future crime by investing in education and family welfare.

None of that means you also can't address a very local problem of 40,000 annual hit and runs with 8,000 deaths. Living in South LA, you literally see street take overs at least once a week usually with stolen cars. Doing two things at once- that is, addressing the current problems while also preventing future ones- shouldn't be difficult for someone "doing the mental work" like yourself.

Actual reckless driving needs to be enforced though. It needs to be something you go to jail for, your car gets towed, and you can't drive again until the fine is paid, and you take Driver's Ed. There are people out here doing 20+ mph faster than everyone else and weaving through the merge lane and shoulder because the HOV lane and farthest travel lane are flowing at 80 and that's just too slow for them. This is not, "every fucking inconvenience". These people are driving like they're the object of a police chase already and police aren't allowed to do it anymore because it's so dangerous to other people on the road.

So while I get you don't like the police, I'm not sure how else you're going to stop McFuckStick from swiping that family of four into the back of a semi truck.

It would be full of women, not men. The police have helped domestic abusers and rapists and murderers of women for decades. In fact, a lot of the police force is made of men who have done those exact crimes.

Just like if the medical system were just, doctors would have disabilities. As it is, almost no person with a disability can really make it through med school and residency to become a doctor.

This is the essence of why representation matters, and why one big powerful group shouldn't have total power over another group.

It's tricky, since you have inherent power imbalances and the jobs dangerous on top of that. I think you can look at Japans older model where they basically just have a pen and paper and chill out in kobans (corner police boxes) to just help people with directions and any disorders. Less heroic TV types and more glorified public assistants.

Would never fly here, but police are adorable in Japan.

The UK is a lot closer to that (though still has its issues). One of the main differences is the base mentality. America is "police by force", the UK is "police by consent". Our normal police don't even carry guns. The mentality change this creates is huge. They default to trying to deescalate things, and dealing with things calmly. This makes people a lot more responsive to their orders, when required.

Though to note, our officers aren't push overs. Most are fully capable of controlling someone aggressive. We also have armed response. Any mention of a gun involved, and they come in armed and trained to the teeth. We also have a mandatory minimum sentence of 5 years for an illegal firearm.