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Arizona Backs Off Its Speed Camera Program
crimeandpunishment writes to inform us that Arizona is putting the brakes to a controversial and contentious speed camera program. The cameras have been used along highways in the Phoenix area and in vans throughout the state. While the cameras are used throughout the country, Arizona's program was the widest use of the technology, and the decision to drop it is a setback for those who argue that the cameras slow speeders, reduce accidents, and free up police for more serious matters. "The camera program was instituted by Brewer's predecessor, Janet Napolitano, now the Homeland Security secretary. Cameras were introduced in September 2008 and were added until all 76 were up and running by January 2009. Lawmakers considered repeal proposals within months, but set the issue aside and appealed for calmer debate when a passing motorist fatally shot a camera-van operator doing paperwork in his marked vehicle in April 2009."
We're not the UK yet, we don't need this crap here.
Speed cameras, like any other Big Brother tools, reproduce by binary fission. Usually, once you agree to one, suddenly you find yourself facing down the lens everywhere you go. Just look at the folks across the ocean. They used to be a proud empire, now even their most fervent US-mockers recognize the extent to which their freedom has been curtailed.
The fact that folks in Arizona managed to get rid of the cameras is a testament to the fact that at least some of the U.S. still values their freedom, and that the Big Brother is not yet fully in control.
Also, if you read the article it appears as if that one incident wasn't the chief reason the cameras were scrapped, but rather that it was a contentious issue for the November ballot that they didn't want to deal with.
speeding cameras are really about making money and do little to increase public safety. How many times do people have to catch the read light cameras being intentially set with short yellows to figure that out (the yellow is changed short as many cameras operate at a loss if they don't) If the companies that make and operate them were forced to be a non-profit with the highest paid employee no more than $85k in total compensation I wonder how many people would be pushing them?
Surely that depends on how stupid your populace are? If you're dumb enough to repeatedly get caught speeding and not learn from it then yeah, they're not going to improve things. If, however, people go "there's a speed camera - what speed should I be doing? Better make sure I don't exceed the limit" then you're fine. They're only a money making scheme because people are too stupid and arrogant to keep to the speed limit.
Red light cameras are a bit different - they've got a variable you can tweak. Speed cameras allow a threshold (although they don't have to in the UK, by law) and can be tested and calibrated.
(Said as a former driver who now mainly cycles - but it applies to both parts of my commuting life)
There are many laws, and the fact that something is law, doesn't make it gospel. Just because it's on the books, doesn't mean it's right.
On the highways, away from residential areas, speeding laws are generally solely structured to bring in more income.
In NY, there are areas where highways have 50mph speed limits... or even 45mph... despite a wide, straight (or nearly so) well-paved road.
Ultimately, laws are meant to be the projection of the will of the people, moderated by the Constitutional interpretations of the Supreme Court... and we don't want the speed cameras.
I like the idea of strict enforcement, I hate the currently implemented use of selective enforcement which has lead state and local governments to utilize "speed enforcement" as a revenue generation racket. This was made very clear and apparent in the state of Virginia which, in 2006 implemented "Civil Remedial" fees in order to help fill short gaps in the state budget. This is a very nasty habit state governments have gotten into in order to avoid increasing taxes.
Strict enforcement will cause a public backlash against the laws. The right choice would be to reassess most posted speed limits, and make the appropriate fixes to traffic areas that have used the invisible barrier of "low speeds" to protect the public.
20th century Marxism is not progress...
That depends entirely on if the speed limit is set with any regard to what a safe speed is for the area.
upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
You can also hide the speed cameras, artificially lower the speed limit, make the camera on a hair trigger (or even trigger slightly below the speed limit and misreport.)
I agree it sounds that way, but in this case it's a real and present danger. We're not talking about some obscure law or politicians whim. Speeding through a school zone during school hours is just a _stupid_ thing to do.
Shit, I worry about driving on side roads for fear of a 5 year old chasing a ball at dusk. Obviously you can't stop driving in school zones or in residential areas, but you can _stop_ being a jackass and at least realize you're driving a 2 ton chunk of metal that will snap a kid in two in an instant.
That is why picture enforcement of school zone speed limits _is_ something I would support.
That's the typical short-sighted libertarian response: Rather than advocate fixing the timing on the yellow lights, which is the correct solution to the problem, you want to throw the baby out with the bath water and remove the lights entirely.
Gentlemen! You can't fight in here, this is the war room!
Y'know what gets people to slow down? A real cop, lighting you up, pulling you over, and having to sit by the side of the road (as you watch every car that was doing the speed limit glide on by for 20 minutes :) as you await your fate.
I got my first ticket in 20 years of driving during a recent road trip. I knew I was speeding, he knew I was speeding, and after he wrote me up, I actually thanked him for the reality check. Had it been a camera, I'd have paid the fine and not changed my behavior for the rest of the trip, because I wouldn't have known about it until I got home. As it was, I kept it to within 5 of the limit for the rest of my trip, and to my surprise, even in the extremely remote areas of the state - we're talking the kind of places where you're the only car within miles miles - slowing it down wasn't as boring as I'd thought it would be.
Speed cameras don't deter speeders. Immediate negative feedback does.
legislating against jackassery is impossible.
turn up the jukebox and tell me a lie
Follow the money not the murder. There taking them out because too many people ignore the mailed ticket at it's too expensive to hand server everyone. Remember the accused has legal rights to be properly server, you can't just charge, try and convict someone. It is a slippery slope we don't want to go down. Besides I have seen more accidents and near accidents from idiots looking up too late and slamming on their brakes to count.
Si vis pacem, para bellum! For evil to succeed good men need only do nothing!
> Surely that depends on how stupid your populace are? If you're dumb enough to repeatedly get caught speeding and not learn from it
> then yeah, they're not going to improve things.
I wouldn't say I have been repeatedly caught, I have gotten one speeding ticket and two that would have been but they did me a supposed "favor" and ticketed me for something else. Either way they get their hour and a half on their time sheet for a ticket (yes they do here in MA) and my insurance company still got to bilk me for supposedly being less safe.
What have I learned? Be more vigilant in looking for pigs on the road. I have learned that my government does the bidding of insurance companies. Thats about it. Overall, I try not to be intimidated by thugs and let them dictate my driving style since, I know I am safe. Just look at my record. Its mostly paperwork violations (because, as we all know, paying $50 to the RMV for a renewal is one of the most important habbits of a safe driver) and speeding stops... the one accident thats still even on my record was when some road raging moron slammed on his breaks in front of me while I was trying to change lanes in heavy traffic, called the police, and went about raving about how I was swerving in traffic because I made one lane change to avoid blocking an intersection at a red light. Seriously.
All they do is enforce laws, whether its absolutely retarded to do so or not.
-Steve
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
Come live here for a while, have your property stolen your wife assaulted in SCOTTSDALE of all places. They get a bus ride home I get a bill for $2500. Ya we need to stop all illegal activity at our boards, our highways our cities and suburbs. Its just to bad for the hard working law abiding workers that the majority of crime is associated with illegal aliens. Bring back the Migrant and Seasonal Farmworkers Program and modify it to allow for other forms of work. They should have to follow the same rules and be monitored in the same way by US Immigration as I am!!
Si vis pacem, para bellum! For evil to succeed good men need only do nothing!
Multiple anecdotes (let alone single ones) aren't data.
The question in your case would be: does lowering the speed limit to 45mph in the construction area actually make things safer? If it then causes a mix of 75 and 45 traffic, the answer is- probably not. The goal here is to make things safer, right? Not enforce arbitrary limits because it makes you feel better. Has the big push for low work zone speed limits mixed with 2-5x fines actually reduced fatalities and serious injuries? If so- thats the cite requested.
I used to think the 'council worker' type workpeople had it easy, leaning on their shovels all day etc. But they are out there in 40C degree heat, and 0C degree cold, working meters from cars that are supposed to be doing 40kph but aren't doing anything like it (i never realised how scary that was until I had to change a tyre on a busy road - i got as far off as I could but was nervous the whole time. I definitely have a whole lot more respect for the job than I used to.
As for the "citation needed" statement, if the OP had spent the 5 minutes providing some sort of citation it would save everyone else spending 5 minutes. Too many people post opinion and speculation as fact on the internet and they should be called on it, especially on a public forum where stuff gets re-quoted as fact (see here :)
You speed, you're break the law, plain and simple.
When you start following speed limits and making complete stops when you're on duty in a patrol car, I'll start to think that you really believe that law is important. Until then, you're just a meter maid in my book, and I'll treat you as such.
Where is the percentage of accidents that would have been avoided if the driver were traveling at the posted speed limit?
I wasn't arguing that the workers aren't in danger- they do a tough, dangerous job, and if they are killed doing it, its a footnote on the back page, not a full front page spread that cops get. I really appreciate the work they do.
Thats certainly a step in the right direction study-wise (a world better than the above AC's 'cite'), but I don't see anything in the study that says speeding vehicles and/or lower limits made things safer. In many semi-permanent construction sites things could be done to make things safer for all, and mixing 45mph traffic with 75mph traffic isn't the first one I'd try. Unless of course, someone has done that kind of study and found that regardless of the chaos it causes it is the best way to go.
The common knee-jerk reaction to problems on the road is- lower the limit 10, 20, 30 mph. Guess what? It rarely works, but it does create a nice revenue stream.
If it's a legitimate safety issue, then it's worth having an actual human police officer monitor or patrol the area. That's quite a bit different from the "administrative" issue of going a little faster than the speed limit on an open highway with no such hazards. The joke there is that speeding is not precisely illegal, it's just taxed. Which leads me to another point (from the summary)...
If we really cared about freeing up police for more serious matters, we'd stop prosecuting nonviolent drug users. Do the research sometime and look at how many cops, courts, and much jail/prison space is currently devoted to these victimless crimes. Then imagine what that effort would accomplish if it were put towards violent criminals and scammers who directly harm other people with their crimes.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
So whats the relevant conclusion? That work zones should have a 20mph speed limit? Of course getting hit by a slower moving car is less likely to kill you. What is less clear is whether artificially low speed limits on freeways/hiways prevent accidents.
Your bias is showing a bit, I think. Your challenge:
Specifically that people speeding in construction zones is an actual problem in AZ that causes injuries/deaths.
Since we can now all read the links above and agree that 'artificially low speed limits' reduce fatalities, you've opted to shift the discussion to just 'accidents' in general, without any respect to "injuries/deaths". However, this would NOT obviate the value in the limits. The reduction in death is enough to slow drivers down while in construction zones. The cost of doing so is assumed to be far lower than even a single human life... ...unless you're ready to shift the debate between the value of life and the right to drive as fast as you want.
You asked for citations, got them, and now are re-framing the debate. Why?
Again, I suspect bias.
My guess is that their beef isn't with people who drive the speed limit, but rather with people who drive no faster than the lane to their right.
If you aren't driving faster than the lane to your right, then you should move over. Sure, it's the law if that's what motivates you, but more importantly it's the right, proper, social, moral thing to do. Share the road.
This message is not directed at the parent AC; it is directed at anyone who thinks it's okay to ignore lane courtesy out of a misplaced sense of speed superiority.
Red light cameras are a bit different - they've got a variable you can tweak.
Except, of course, speed cameras have a variable too, the posted speed limit. Several times now we've seen speed limits intentionally lowered in ways to make conditions less safe, but provide greater revenue. We've also seen instances where speed limits change radically in areas where visibility of the sign is poor. The basic problem is, we can't trust the people placing the cameras and deciding the speed limits to act in the best interests of the people instead of the best interests of their department's budget. Until that problem is addressed (either by placing the decisions in the hands of a neutral party or establishing strict regulation and enforcement of how they are used), both red light cameras and speed cameras will likely create as much risk to the public as benefit.
You "can't"? Do you seriously not understand that bad laws only get changed when people of courage and principle stand up (or in Rosa Park's case, sit down) and challenge them?
The repeal of prohibition, universal suffrage, race rights, women's rights in the workplace and inside their own uterus, and a silly little thing called the American republic, all of these were won, not granted.
At this point, I'm not sure who's trolling who, so I'll leave you to advocate jailing the likes of Rosa Parks for saying that she didn't agree with a law. Go on, have the courage to say it.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
Hundreds of children get out at the same time, they are like you on the way home after work. Some kids are dumb but it's more like unobservant or distracted. For SAFETY reasons the speedlimit is temporarily reduced. Nobody slams on their brakes at the 20mph sign, do they do this when leaving the 70mph highway to the 35mph side road? no, you slow down.
I'd rather inconvenience you for 500meters than have hundreds of kids crossing a potential killzone.
http://soylentnews.org/~tibman
You touched on it at the end of your comment, but my preferred solution is improved technology: is there a way to design roads and cars that can be safely navigated at the speeds people want to drive? Can we make a highway and a car both safe at 100 MPH?
The angry people always harumph and tell everyone to slow down, and I don't understand that. If we MUST choose between safety and convenience, then I'm willing to go with safety (to an extent), but in this case I think it's a total false choice. Let's have both!
Obviously it's too late to solve this problem now, but I always wondered by schools are ever built near busy streets. Forget about the safety issues -- the distracting noise alone is a good enough reason to tuck them away in the middle of residential neighborhoods. Busy streets should be near commercial businesses.
Do some research and try to find accidents that were caused solely by speeding. I do not mean accidents where "speed was a factor" but the actual impact was caused by the at-fault driver failing to yield right of way (indeed, the fact that someone is speeding is all the more reason not to pull out in front of them). I mean accidents caused by speeding alone; for one example, a case where (let's say) the tires could not come up with enough traction to keep the vehicle on the road at that speed, resulting in an accident. Or an accident caused by a hazard that the vehicle could have maneuvered around at the speed limit but could not maneuver around in time when exceeding it. Good luck, for these are difficult to find.
What my years in the auto insurance industry taught me were that two things are the primary cause of all the accidents and claim reports I saw: following too closely and failure to yield right of way. Most of the single-vehicle accidents did not involve high rates of speed, or at least the police reports did not mention speeding. Most of those involved people who fell asleep at the wheel, were drunk, were texting or otherwise engaged in distracted driving, or things of that nature. Yet "strangely enough" the emphasis of traffic enforcement is placed on speeding, likely because it happens frequently, is easy to demonstrate in court, and produces a lot of revenue for the state.
I laugh when my state plays public-service commercials on the radio talking about how you shouldn't speed and you should wear your seatbelt because the cops and the state care about your safety. Every time I hear those, I think "yeah, and if the ticket money went to charity I might just believe that."
The one place where speed limits make a lot of sense is also a place where accidents are relatively rare: residential neighborhoods where there may be children playing. Yet the cops don't seem to pay much attention to these areas because they don't generally have heavy traffic. I am much more likely to see a cop sitting near the 65mph highway running radar than anyplace where people live. If you assume that ticket revenue is what the state cares about, then this makes perfect sense. More traffic == more vehicles == more traffic violations == more tickets == more revenue for the state. To say this is about safety is a joke.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
Then maybe they should have murdered them all. Laws definitely will change when facing a violent uprising.
Yes, because speed cameras are worth reaching for the ammo box.....
Fucking idiot. I love the 2nd amendment as much as the next guy but you don't reach for the gun over a goddamn speeding ticket. Here's an idea, how about the good citizens of AZ vote the morons out of office who passed the bill to install these things?
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Well, what can I say, I think you are driving like a jerk. You decline to share the road, and I think that's jerkish behavior. Obviously, many people think that anyone who goes above the limit are jerks, too; and reasonable people can disagree. It is my opinion that not only are you driving like a jerk, but also causing unsafe conditions. I wish you would reconsider your rude driving habits and drive in the lane appropriate to your speed.
For the record, I'm an American, and on highways I find my preferred driving speed is about 65-70. On some roads, despite a 65 MPH limit, this puts me at the very bottom of the speed of traffic, and I have no problem driving in the slow lane. Sometimes, less often, it puts me at the top of the speed of traffic and I use left lanes. I don't try to justify forcing other people to drive my speed -- those other drivers doing 80 are almost always driving perfectly safely, and I do not beef them for getting where they are going at their own speed.
Good luck. Really, consider driving in the slow lane. The slow lane can be very nice and relaxing.
"I've seen some good systems which focus on indicating to drivers when they're going too fast."
It's called a speedometer. Part of earning a license to operate a motor vehicle on state roads involves training on its proper use, and acknowledging you're supposed to look at it from time to time to obey the posted limit
Driving, let alone speeding, is not a right. If drivers need "gentle little reminders" that "maybe they should slow down," they have no business behind the wheel of that much metal moving that fast.
Nothing like a Slashdot posting involving traffic regulations to find a bunch of self-entitled +5 posts talking about how they're safe drivers and such regulations shouldn't apply to them, because obviously it's some vast government conspiracy by governments to impose regulations on the roads they built. How many of the people here complaining about speed limits actually bothered trying to contact their legislators or other elected representatives? Or is it just about having a sense of justification to do whatever you want?
It's not the economy, it's not the environment, it's the fact that I don't have to put up with all the other self-entitled asshats on the roads that is compelling me to use public transportation more. Speed limits, turn signals, right-of-way... all that crap is for other drivers, right?
You sound to me like a douche who shouldn't be allowed to drive. I KNOW that there are signs in Arizona that state that the left lane is for passing only. It doesn't matter whether you've seen them - maybe you should pay more attention. It doesn't even matter if those signs are posted on the specific stretches of highway that you drive on. You OBVIOUSLY know that it's the law, and the right way to drive.
If coping with traffic is to much for you, then quit driving. Get an apartment within walking distance of your job. Or, biking distance.
GET THE FUCK OUT OF THE LEFT LANE UNLESS YOU ARE PASSING!!!
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
The beltways are pretty special. As many as 8 lanes going in one direction. No, no one expects you to cruise in the rightmost lane. Cruising should be in the second and third right most lane, and the speed should increase as you move left. It doesn't change the rule stated by GP.
As for smaller city and urban highways (less than 4 lanes each way) the rules don't change either. Merging and slower traffic on the right, faster traffic on the left. If everyone did this, the traffic jams called "commutes" would be less severe, and wouldn't last as long. Every idiot who violates this most basic of rules adds a couple seconds to the endless traffic jams. Doesn't matter if it's D.C., L.A., Chicago, Houston, or wherever.
Everyone wants to think that his situation is special, and that he needs to change to rules to meet his needs, but everyone is an idiot too.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
I'm against cameras as well, same as marked police cars sitting on the median. All it does is make people slam on their brakes who were going the speed limit anyway, so now everybody is going 15 under all because of that one police car.
I'm curious why you assume I'm going to ask for citations. I'm not talking about a car going 75 hitting my car going 45. I'm talking about a roadside worker or pedestrian getting hit by a car going 45. When I mentioned the ability to maneuver, I was talking about the person in the car. I doubt my reaction time would be fast enough to dodge a car going 45 or 75.
Posts not to be taken literally. Almost everything is sarcasm.
Dude, wow, even though I disagree with you I certainly don't agree with whoever modded you Troll. How is that a troll?
The problem with that is that the ballot that goes in that ballot box usually looks something like this:
O - idiot who won't listen to the populace, because he's got his own agenda.
O - idiot who won't listen to the populace, because he doesn't understand the issues.
O - idiot who won't listen to the populace, because they're in the back pocket of the corps.
"City hall" in German is "Rathaus" Kinda explains a few things......
The majority of that post was pretty much describing how much pleasure the poster gets trolling everyone who is unlucky enough to share the road with him. I like to think he was modded (-1, troll) for real-life trolling that could get people killed.