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Cities View Red Light Cameras As Profit Centers
Houston 2600 writes "Chicago could rake in 'at least $200 million' a year — and wipe out the entire projected deficit for 2009 — by using its vast network of redlight and surveillance cameras to hunt down uninsured motorists, aldermen were told today. The system pitched to the City Council's Transportation Committee by Michigan-based InsureNet would work only if insurance companies were somehow compelled to report the names and license plates of insured motorists. That's already happening daily in 13 states, but not here."
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So who is hotter? Ali or Ali's Sister?
Solution: Create more laws for people to break.
Wouldn't there be an ungodly number of false positives from a system like this?
... would work only if insurance companies were somehow compelled to report the names and license plates of insured motorists.
So the system would scan a license plate, see if it appears on the list of insured motorists and, if it doesn't, then fire off the ticket/fine? They would be basing this scheme on the absence of information?
For many reasons, that just doesn't seem right.
Some cities decided to shorten the yellow phase to have more violators and therefore more profit from those cameras. It's just too tempting. See reports here http://www.motorists.org/blog/6-cities-that-were-caught-shortening-yellow-light-times-for-profit/ and here http://wheels.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/06/03/trolling-for-trouble-in-the-red-light-district/
I don't either, but, I also don't want the cities photographing, id'ing and logging everyone as they drive about just to catch the few people out there that are driving w/o insurance. That is just WAY too large a dragnet.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Houston, TX installed "red light cameras."
Then the greedy-ass city council wanted more revenue, so they shortened the yellow-light timing. They now have yellow-light times that are around 2 seconds on most of the camera-watched intersections. Other cities have done the same thing.
The problem is, the shorter a yellow-light timing, the more accidents. Study after study has shown this. Shortening the yellow light timing (to trap motorists "still in the intersection") to get more ticket revenue also makes for more accidents.
It's literally blood money, coming at the expense of people injured or killed in those accidents, but the city councils don't care because it's "their" blood money.
They actually tried doing that down here in New Orleans...back before Katrina. The measure got thrown out as that it was branded a 'racist' ordinance. That just blew me away. I don't care what color you are, if you can't afford to have lawful insurance on the car, you shouldn't be driving one. A car costs money (fuel, repair and insurnace)...if you can't afford one, don't drive one.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
OTOH, don't accidents that take place with the front/back of one car meeting the front/back of another car tend to be far less dangerous than a T-bone? Mostly because of the extra crumple zone protection that is available. Before side airbags was common a number of injuries were caused by people banging their heads sideways against pillars and doors and windows. A lot of research has gone into making cars safer against the T-bone, but there's still less room for metal to give sideways...
While I'm under the poverty line, I still make sure my car insurance is kept up. Before I could afford a car, I rode the bus.
This isn't discrimination against the poor; it's the poor trying to live beyond their means by operating a car before they're financially able. I have about as much sympathy for those folks as I do for the folks that took out mortgages they couldn't afford... or is that "discrimination against the middle class"?
Don't tell me to get a life. I'm a gamer; I have LOTS of lives!
Rarely does a single article capture so much of what is wrong with a culture. We have:
- Broken window
- Excessive fines
- Government corruption/collusion with private businesses
- Legislated business models
- Original sin as defined by the One True Authority. And, of course, only they have the cure.
Disgusting if you think about it for more than 15 seconds.
Billy Brown rides on. Yolanda Green bypasses Gary White.
Hello. I am Mr. Reality Check. Let us examine this proposal in detail.
Chicago, the shining star of all good and right, wants to install a sophisticated network of cameras to (a) track every motor vehicle in operation in the Chicago Metropolitan Area, (b) record the license plate tag, location, and time of motor vehicle operation, and (c) cross reference the license plate tag information with a comprehensive insurance coverage database in in order to (d) send out $500 citations via mail to potential offenders.
Unfortunately, this system is not realistic and poses some massive privacy concerns. While it may be feasible to create the network of cameras described in (a), it is substantially difficult with current technology to implement the optical character recognition required to implement part (b). Furthermore, the privacy implications of tracking every motor vehicle in the Chicago Metropolitan Area are enormous. This network would take public surveillance to United Kingdom levels.
Assuming that (a) and (b) were implemented successfully, there are major jurisdictional and scale issues with (c). In order to assure a minimum of false positives, the State of Illinois would have to implement a comprehensive insurance-to-registration tag database that would be automatically updated by the insurance companies within seconds of issuing or changing a policy. The cost of this type of project are enormous. The coordination of all involved stakeholders is extremely difficult given the various processing cycles, business policies, cross jurisdictional politics, and potential for error. There is also problems with the handling out of state registration tags. The system must be able to effectively deal with the tags of every state in the United States. If this system only processes Illinois residents, there may be some serious constitutional repercussions under Amendment 14 (equal protection of the law).
Finally, after gathering the data in (a), processing the information in (b) and (c), we get to the collections portion of the process, (d). Now, assuming for the moment that this system works and is accurate, we can now send citations to every uninsured vehicle driving on the road way. However, since most citations carry the weight of a parking ticket, most people tend to ignore them. Since these uninsured motorists usually (i) can not afford the cost of insurance or (ii) do not want to pay for insurance, it is logical to conclude that they will not pay for their automated traffic violations. While the "more than $200 million" figure is impressive, I would be even more impressed if they managed to collect 10% of that number.
In conclusion, this system will not work. It is technologically, politically, fiscally, and logistically unfeasible given today's technology and political climate.
This is Mr. Reality Check and I am signing out.
-Valen
The incidence of red-light-running didn't go down because of the cameras, it went down because a new state law went into effect this past January that lengthened the yellow light time. (Or rather, put it back to the safe value that the engineers intended, rather than the unsafe too-short value that the politicians changed it to in order to increase revenue from red-light cameras!)
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
I'm with the insurance companies in this case.
Imagine: you get hit by an uninsured motorist, and wind up in the hospital with serious injuries, miss work, maybe lose your job, have a totaled car, and are unable to climb out physically and financially.
Maybe no one was at fault. Maybe they were. As motorists lacking insurance statistically also lack assets, responsibility for one's actions are shirked.
Driving is a privilege, not a right. Your actions bear responsibilities, no matter the boorishness of insurance companies and accident litigators.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
2007 Virginia Study shows that red-light cameras increase rear-end (and total number) of accidents at intersections.
--You will rephrase your request for me to go to hell. Goto statements are not acceptable programming constructs