Traffic Cameras in D.C.

Kappelmeister writes "The Washington Post has an article about red-light-running and speeding cameras all over D.C. that have issued over half a million citations to date. (Police send you a ticket and photographic proof up to a month after the fact.) Though the cameras successfully reduce dangerous driving and boost the city's revenue, a lot of wrongful citations fall through the cracks and give some that guilty-until-proven-innocent feeling. Once again, how far is too far?" I came across this much more informative investigation of D.C.'s traffic cameras a few weeks ago. It's heavy on facts and figures, and hammers home the observation that an extra second of yellow light is at least as good at promoting good behavior, but much less lucrative for the local government and the contracting firm.

Comments

North Carolina too...

[vanguard]

They have this in my area (RTP, NC) too. It's fairly well known that unless you're actually innocent, you can't get out of it.

You need to prove that you weren't driving, it wasn't actually your car, etc.

One nice thing about the system is that if you're caught with the cameras, it's not treated like a moving violation. You don't get any points on your record and your insurance isn't impacted.

The system doesn't bother me. It only catches guilty people, it's less fallible than the police, and it provides more money to the local gov. (I like our local gov). And most importantly, it makes the street safer. Let's not forget that running red lights kills people. Punishing the guys that do that is a good thing.

Vanguard

Old news in the UK

[Rogerborg]

These things are endemic in the UK, both lights and speed cameras. Some consequences and quirks:

• Drivers learn where they are and how sensitive they are extremely quickly. The major effect they have is to produce zones where drivers brake frantically, creep along for fifty yards (for speed cameras), then accelerate sharply away in annoyance.
• They are used discretionally. The older flash-and-film cameras only have film put in depending on whether they need to meet quota this month (just as the police used to do random blitzes with radar guns on the last day of the month to make quota). The newer digital ones can be tweaked remotely to crank up the tickets, and the really new image recognition ones are pretty smart. They read license plates, and flash them up on big signs along with the speed as a warning.
• Here's an interesting angle to try: plead the fifth. If you're sent a letter saying you've been caught and ticketed, insist that they prove that it was you driving. When they demand you identify yourself, roll out that good old amendment. This defence is currently going through the European courts.
• Mostly, don't sweat it. The cameras only hand out the same number of tickets as the police (they're carefully tweaked to ensure that), while at the same time being less discriminatory. They don't (yet) ticket people on the basis of "Driving while black", or let them off for being "Hot and flirty in charge of a vehicle.". That's a good thing, right?