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Los Angeles To Turn Off Traffic-Light Cameras
Hugh Pickens writes "The LA Times reports that the Los Angeles Police Commission has voted to kill the city's controversial red-light camera program, rejecting claims that the system makes streets safer while costing the city nothing. The police department says the cameras help reduce accidents, largely by deterring drivers looking to run red lights or make illegal turns while critics of the technology question officials' accident data, saying the cameras instead cause rear-end collisions as drivers slam on their brakes and liken the cameras to Big Brother tactics designed to generate revenues. More than 180,000 motorists have received camera-issued tickets since the program started in 2004 but the commission estimates that the program costs between $4 million and $5 million each year while bringing in only about $3.5 million annually. Members of the public who attended the meeting urged the commission to do away with the cameras, which trigger seemingly boundless frustration and anger among drivers in traffic-obsessed LA. 'It's something that angers me every time I get in my car,' says Hollywood resident Christina Heller. 'These cameras remove our fundamental right in this country to confront our accuser. And they do not do anything to improve safety.'"
If you're annoyed by red light tickets, don't run red lights.
Does this mean that LA is or was a large red light district?
Bilderburg Group members are slithering into their compound slouched down in their limo or covering their face with a newspaper so they can plot their destruction of nations and furtherance of a single world government in complete anonymity.
These cameras remove our fundamental right in this country to confront our accuser.
Whatever the other arguments are, this one is stupid. It's a photograph of you running a red light. What's to confront? She either means that it removes your right to try to intimidate (or otherwise coerce) an officer into not issuing a ticket, or that it removes your right to most of the time get away with dangerous driving. Neither of these is a right.
"the commission estimates that the program costs between $4 million and $5 million each year while bringing in only about $3.5 million annually."
So it's not making money. Surprising and rare (since red light cameras are generally a cash-cow), but I'd guess that's the main reason to kill it. If it were making $10 a year I bet they'd keep it going.
Accidents at red lights are usually caused by carelessness, drunk driving, or some other obvious problem that no camera is going to fix. Whoever is doing something like that is outside running through the light like it isn't there, they don't care about a camera.
People that sneak through a light right after it changes or whatever rarely cause accidents. Not that they should be doing that because it's dangerous and can cause an accident, it's just must less likely to cause an accident.
the cameras instead cause rear-end collisions as drivers slam on their brakes
So which is better, a rear-end collision outside the intersection, or a broadside collision inside the intersection?
The accuser is the local government. The evidence is the red light camera's photo.
If you robbed a bank, or shot someone, and it was photographed or recorded, you wouldn't be arguing that the evidence was inadmissible because you couldn't challenge the camera.
You see a red-light, STOP!
You're driving, keep distance and pay attention.
You didn't stop a red light? Besides being against the law, you risk other peoples lives.
"""These cameras remove our fundamental right in this country to confront our accuser.""" -- How are you going to confront a picture of you running a red light? If you were making passage for a ambulance or policy vehicle, there will be witnesses and incident logs.
The town I live in did the same, largely due to resident backlash. Cities love them for the revenue... end of story, really.
Last I'd heard, any supposed safety benefits had been completely debunked. I'll leave it to someone else to cite that claim.
the program costs between $4 million and $5 million each year while bringing in only about $3.5 million annually
When you're spending other people's money, the rules of finance are different. If a government program costs $5 million and brings in $3.5 million, the net total is +8.5 million, NOT -2.5 million. That's $8.5 million worth of cash flow passing through the top of the pyramid. $8.5 million worth of leverage for the elite who have the ability to exploit that cash flow for personal gain.
Again, when you're spending other people's money, there is no such thing as a financial loss -- only in lip service.
I always thought a good idea would be to put a yellow line in the road before a traffic light to indicate that if you are travelling the speed limit and are beyond this line and the light turns yellow you can safely make it through the light. If you have not passed the line than you should stop for the light.
I love Jesus, except for his foreign policy.
I moved to Los Angeles in the late nineties and left before these traffic cameras were operational. When I first arrived, I noticed that people would collectively pause at a green light. It would be a one or two second delay which completely baffled me. In New England, we'd jump the greens like a drag race.
The answer came rather fast. In a lot of the intersections, there were no green arrows so in some places the only way for people to get across the street was to run a red light. And not just one person would run the light, but four or five. It was crazy but in time, it made complete sense to me and soon I internalized it. So I can imagine the outrage if there were now cameras placed at intersections. It's like paying a toll to cross the street. Maybe things have changed since then, but it seemed pure insanity not to have green arrows considering the amount of people in the area.
So the program isn't a cash cow... how does that undermine the cameras other objective of reducing the number of people that run red lights?
So instead of a bunch of grumpy drivers that ran red lights, we're going to get a few more collisions, possibly fatalities. Great thinking!
Don't US signals turn amber before they turn red?
There's another way to deal with this. Set a base rate for a ticket and charge according to income. Since you can't have police sitting at a red light all day long, deter law breakers by making sure it's painful to break the traffic laws when caught. I believe that Germany does this.
Your argument is incredibly naive or indicative of some sort of bias. Is your argument that the automated sensors attached to the camera are flawless? I suppose just like the sensors that detect a car at a light and change it to green that I've been stuck at forever. Beyond this, these cameras create danger instead of remove it. Since they are only designed to fire when someone enters the intersection after the light is red it naturally makes people either floor it or slam on their brakes when they see a yellow light. Let's be honest -- these aren't for safety, they're for revenue.
Yet too many cities buy into the sales pitch about the revenue side. The revenue of course only lasts until people become accustomed to the lights and suddenly, surprise surprise they don't run the lights anymore which fulfills the lie used to sell them to the public while at the same time ending the revenue which was the selling point for the officials to put them in.
We have them at two intersections I drive through regularly and since your used to them you know to not expect people to run them, including the car in front of you. They go yellow and people stop, no more of trying to beat it. I haven't seen an accident there in a long time but that could simply be timing on my part.
Now what I don't care for are speed cameras, those truly are only to generate revenue
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
I can't speak about L.A., but when they installed traffic light cameras in my city they shortened all the yellow lights as well. This makes it blatantly obvious that it is nothing more than a revenue generator.
In general the data seems to suggest that yes, total crashes at the intersection will decrease (CMF = 0.8). CMF stands for Crash Modification Factor. Right-angle crashes will decrease (CMF = 0.67) and are generally more severe than rear-end crashes. Rear-end crashes may increase though (CMF = 1.45). Both groups generally tend to loudly argue their own point and both may be correct without listening to the whole safety argument. See http://www.cmfclearinghouse.org/about.cfm and then search for "red light" and you'll see what I mean. All of this doesn't sort out the monetary costs and privacy aspects of the programs, but the safety data is reasonably easy to figure out so they can stop arguing over it.
Drivers do.
Many people don't know that you are supposed to STOP at a yellow unless you can't stop safely.
And you are supposed to leave enough space in front of your car to stop safely if the car in front stops suddenly. Otherwise you are driving too quickly for the road conditions, or following too closely.
don't slam the gas pedal when you see a yellow light.
We have as much entitlement to use the carriageway as car drivers. Anything that coerces drivers to show restraint at junctions and crossings is Good for pedestrians.
Frankly I don't care if cars are rear-ending each other, so long as they stay behind the stopping line when the damn light is RED.
... that if it's not making money then it's working.
All other arguments to one side (I appreciate there are other reasons why it's suggested the cameras should be pulled) but public safety isn't supposed to be profitable, is it?
"We live in a global world" - Harvey Pitt, former Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman
Leave the cameras, but don't issue automated citations based on them. Instead use microphones that trigger when there's an accident or gunfire.
This is a very old idea, have a camera that's always recording, but constantly overwriting it's storage. When an event happens, mark 30 seconds before and a few minutes after as "saved", and go back to recording.
I think they should turn them off, but leave them there. Don't tell people they are "fake." People push the door close button in elevators, even tho 90% of them don't work(most work in independent service mode, which elevators aren't in normally) and about 40% aren't even wired.
The minimum safe distance is what you need to stop in if the car in front SUDDENLY STOPPED. Not braked, not even emergency braked. But STOPPED DEAD. Like hit superman walking across the street.
Now, fair enough, if you ever left enough space for the minimum safe stopping distance, you'd have people overtaking you all the time (and then to get back to safe distance, you'd have to slow down).
But it isn't the rain that's the problem, it's the distance you're at.
If you risk that sort of accident, YOU ARE FAR TOO CLOSE.
And the fact that you can't keep a safe distance may be either your own fault or the fault of drivers in general.
Oh, and for Whirlwind Monk, no. The person getting rear-ended is not at fault unless it is shown they've been driving backward or cut in front too close.
Change the penalty for running a red light. Anyone caught running a red light has to let Barney Frank give them a dirty Sanchez.
As much as I am opposed to private companies getting cushy deals to run red light cameras, and using "civil fines" to get around rules protecting peoples' rights, I am actually for red light cameras. And I'll tell you why. They save lives. Oh, I'll admit that the total number of accidents increases slightly, but the types of accidents are important. The serious accidents, people getting t-boned when someone runs a red light, (the kind of accident that often leads to serious injury and death, not to mention severe damage to the vehicles), drop drastically when red light cameras are put up, but the number of minor accidents (someone rear-ends the car that stopped at the intersection) increases - with people getting used to the new behavior, I would expect those to go back down. And I have personally seen the numbers, as compiled by law by my city's Traffic Engineer. He hates the red light cameras, just because they are so much of a hassle, both bureaucracy-wise and politically, but he admits they save lives. The local news stations will interview him, and then report just the part about "total number of accidents increase," leaving out the part where "red light cameras prevent traffic deaths" because that doesn't sell as well. The issues of proper appeals, confronting your accuser, private companies taking on law-enforcement roles and acting in the government's name, etc. can be dealt with (and should be - the system needs to be fair), but running a red light needs to be discouraged, and this is a cost-effective way to do it. I have seen no evidence that camera speed traps increase safety.
I'm guessing the majority of nasty accidents at intersections result from people trying to catch the tail end of the light... esp when combined with people who are getting a jump on the green.
1) Long yellow-light durations. You'll speed through a light that's just turned yellow, but you'll stop at a light that's been yellow for a while. My hometown (Fremont) found that adjusting this setting reduced red-light running by much more than installing intersection cameras: http://www.thenewspaper.com/news/34/3436.asp
2) Long pauses between the moment that one signal goes red and the cross-traffic's signal turns green. This allows the intersection to clear, even from assholes who still manage to run a red even after the long yellow.
Ironically (but predictably) what seems to happens when stoplight cameras are installed is a LOWERING of the yellow-light duration...
We left LA after our daughter was born in part because we couldn't stand the risk involved in driving through that city, not with a baby in the car. To illustrate how insane it is, when you're at a red light and it turns green, people don't start to drive, they wait several seconds, because there are ALMOST ALWAYS one or two idiots who will drive at full speed through the newly turned-red light, although they could very easily have stopped. But it's LA, so the right thing to do is to drive through the red light, and assume that people who have the green light won't start going soon enough to crash into your car; otherwise, if you're the one with an opportunity to drive through the red light but you actually brake, the idiot behind you is going to rear-end you, since they assume that you'll accelerate through the light, so they get a chance to play with other people's lives as well. I have never seen as many cars with evidence of accidents on their body as in LA, not in any European or North American city.
As a pedestrian it's insanely dangerous as well, since car drivers think they should drive through their red light and you are an object that they don't think exists. And given the clement climate, one would decently expect that biking is a pleasant, common activity, with lots of bike lanes throughout the city. The car drivers use the few bike lanes to cut corners, or to park, and they are too busy with their cell phones to even try to leave a bit of space for bikers.
"To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield." -- Tennyson
Would somebody like to point out that they don't CAUSE accidents because people slam on their brakes - that's due, exclusively, to already-bad drivers (of the kind that the system is designed to catch / remove / discourage) having insufficient braking distance between them and the car in front and is a phenomenon that will happen even if the red light didn't exist (e.g. if a child ran out into that road every two minutes or whatever).
So the police's response is to abandon the cameras? Don't catch one kind of driving-rule-violating idiot because you often find a different kind of driving-rule-violating idiot instead?
Red-light cameras are ubiquitous over here in the UK. I can't say that I've ever seen one activate (whereas I see a speed camera per month or so flash someone who also wasn't paying attention enough to notice the bright-yellow, signposted box at the side of the road).
And certainly people don't lobby for red-light cameras to be removed - if you get caught on them, you were breaking the law. If you have an accident because you couldn't stop before the guy in front, you were breaking the law (driving without due care and attention). If you run into the back of someone who has braked for a speed camera - yes, they're a pillock but you were STILL BREAKING THE LAW by being too close.
They may not be "safer" but then abandoning them entirely so people now KNOW they can run those cameras and see virtually zero punishment is infinitely more dangerous (and harder to record in statistics without some device recording how many people run red lights, for example).
How about putting a camera facing BOTH ways and then convicting those people who have insufficient braking distance enough to hit someone queueing at a red light (or stopping hard to prevent themselves getting caught in a red light). The fact is that if someone's car is hit while doing that you were BOTH going too fast while approaching a red or amber light!
And, personally, safety is the kind of thing you spend money on. It's only in stupid countries like mine that the police expect to make a profit on something like that (and get universally moaned at when they do, ironically!).
1 no due process, just a picture of a license plate, that is not always right
2 police have to WORK for money, just like anyone else, not automated fleecing of motorists
3 sure they can have their cameras if they want, as long as they are ok with me sending in a picture of my money to pay the ticket
In the us everyone hates to pay any taxes so police depts are considered a revenue stream - I recently got a speeding ticket and the officer recommended to me after getting the ticket to plead not guilty - when I went to court I got a non moving violation but at the same price as the ticket- speed traps abound in the us -in other countries (like Germany ) speed zones make sense, there are very few places where the speed limit is slower than the maximum safe driving speed -if you get a ticket there you probably really deserve it. Here we get the crappy government we pay for and deal with this nonsense.
the last linked article mentioned that the red-light cameras actually increased accidents, because people would slam on their brakes, causing a tailgater to run into them.
Ahem. Almost all states have laws stating it is YOUR responsibility to maintain an "assured clear distance" between yourself and the vehicle in front of you.
Bottom line: tailgating is not only illegal, it is not an acceptable part of driving. if only more people would get that into their heads, we could reduce wrecks drastically.
1. Its not a picture of you. Its a picture of a car and its license plate.
I do not know of USA, but here if the driver cannot be identified then the owner is legally responsible of the fines. Of course, if he can prove that someone else was the driver it then gets passed to the driver. Apart from theft, it is pretty sure to say that the owner knows who was driving the car and can discuss the matter with him.
In the USA, the burden of proof is on the prosecution to prove guilt "beyond a reasonable doubt". The defense is under no obligation to prove anything. Most defenses consist simply or raising doubt. Here, there is a presumption of innocence. "Innocent until proven guilty."
Therefore, any "reasonable doubts" raised and believed by even one reasonable person on a jury of peers, usually 12 people total, (and here, a jury can be called for any matter more than $20) will fail to result in a guilty verdict.
So, if the prosecution cannot prove that I am the driver, they would have a harder time winning a case if I took it to jury (IANAL). If I had an alibi, or even the suggestion that "I leave my keys on the counter and often let my neighbor borrow my truck," and have no recollection of what happened on that particular day, I could use such information to sow doubt to be found not guilty without even proving that I'm innocent. I'm sure 1001 explanations could be found, none of which I have to prove, but my lawyer can merely suggest as "reasonable doubts".
I8-D
Bzzt!!! Wrong. It is common practice that each ticket is signed by a real person who has reviewed the evidence gathered by the camera. That person may be called to the stand. The staff that maintain the cameras may be called to the stand to discuss how they are maintained. Experts can be brought to the stand to discuss how the cameras work. Each camera has a video camera that may be brought forth into evidence. There are MORE people and evidence that can be brought to the stand with a red light camera than when a cop just gives you a ticket. Cameras do not issue tickets, they collect evidence. Just as a radar gun in a police car does. In fact, they collect MORE evidence that is well documented and provides even better opportunities for those truly innocent to fight a ticket. That also means the guilty have fewer capabilities to fight the tickets also. Seems like a win-win to me.
As for safety, a recent study by the Institute for Highway Safety found that fatal crashes and the number of injured went down significantly in the 14 largest cities that installed red light cameras. In Chandler, Arizona, the number of fatalities dropped 79%. Arizona has three of cities where red light running is most common. Yes, there are more fender benders. I'll trade less fatal crashes for more fender benders anyday. *AND* the reason there are more fender benders is because the guy behind the car that stopped was following too closely or was trying to get through the light. So he deserves a ticket and increased insurance costs also.
The IHS has also noted that other measures can be done to reduce crashes at red lights, such as a period when all lights are red and longer yellow periods.
I rarely read replies, it's my opinion and if you thought about your opinion a little more, I'm OK with that.
... to run a red light, crushing anyone in our way.
Watch this Heartland Institute video
We passed a similar law in Houston. Now the camera company is suing. Personally I feel the whole camera thing is BS. There are so many lights around here that are poorly timed that it was BS. 2 second yellow on a 40 mph road, and a red light camera type thing. A cameras pointing the wrong direction flashed me driving through an intersection and nearly blinded me. In fact the flashing thing was worse than running that light at 11pm. That camera moved during the Hurricane and was still point the wrong way 2 years later. Everyone turning on green including me had their picture taken. Red light cameras were stupid and should have never been passed in the first point.
And I can state the following observations:
1. Different areas of the greater LA area show different driving habits. Some areas have a (well-deserved) reputation for aggressive drivers, such as the Westside, compared to more sparsely populated, remote suburbs. Higher traffic density seems to correlate with more reckless driving.
2. Some yellow lights are abnormally short for the size of the intersection, but not all.
3. Some drivers are willfully reckless/stupid. Just last night, I was in downtown LA for an event that included street closures as well as a heavy police presence. Due to the crowds, traffic was very bad. Despite the presence of police who would try to regulate the traffic flow when they were watching, drivers would allow themselves to get stuck in the intersection (driving ahead when the light was about to change, while seeing there was no room for them to exit). The police didn't cite them for blocking traffic.
4. I've seen a lot of broken red light cameras--they would flash when no violation occurred. This has actually happened to me personally; I'd go through a clear green light with the flow of traffic, and get flashed. No ticket was ever generated, but the kind of distraction and anxiety that this sort of thing produces is abusive and might actually cause some people to panic and hit the brakes.
5. The fines are insane--$475 or more in some cases. Thankfully I've never gotten one. I've seen the posted fine rise steadily in a few short years, and it seemed completely arbitrary. It also has little or no deterrent effect on the wealthiest Angelenos, who tool around Beverly Hills and Hollywood in their luxury vehicles and consider that kind of money to be chump change. It would be like telling you, "oh, you broke the law, now you have to pay a fine of $0.25." Meanwhile, they endanger everyone else around them. But if you are relatively poor, $475 could crush you.
6. The cameras are not everywhere. I've seen people reroute around them, causing changes in traffic patterns that may actually increase accidents because more cars are being directed to intersections that aren't able to handle the traffic flow, or have more pedestrians. Many drivers roll through four-way stops around here.
why would you slam on the brakes if a green "SUDDENLY" turns yellow/red. I mean what the heck is going to happen to a green light on a traffic light - go pink with purple spots??? Its going to change to yellow/red at some stage and you should be prepared for this!
but the commission estimates that the program costs between $4 million and $5 million each year while bringing in only about $3.5 million annually.
So how much is that in human lives?
The three laws of thermodynamics:(1) You can't win. (2) You can't break even. (3) You can't even quit.
I'm glad I live in Michigan as they are illegal here. After reading the comments here it seems the ability to face ones accuser in court is a valuable right too many people are willing to give up. A photograph can be faked. The time stamp on the photograph can be faked. How do we know the company/government agency running the camera isn't fiddling the data? You can't cross exam a traffic camera. Not to mention the fact that you are supposed to be innocent until proven guilty. A picture is not enough evidence to convict, nor should it be.
I hate ticket cams. But I also dislike idiots. If you hit someone in the rear it is only because you made a huge error. The person in front of you as you should know may slam on their brakes at any given moment. If you are driving properly you will be focused and be able to make a safe stop. It is your fault 100% if you hit someone from behind. Now chime in and tell me that scatter brained idiots need t o drive as well as good drivers.
If they actually wanted people to slow down they would install decoy lasers and radar and encourage ownership of radar detectors.
I would argue that speeding is not necessarily unsafe in many circumstances, but in others it is definitely unsafe. I was the passenger in an accident once. We were pulling out of small side road and turning right (right-hand drive country, so turning right means you have to wait longer usually). We'd been waiting a while for a steady stream of traffic from the right to pass. About 50m down the road to the right, the road we were turning into curved out of sight. Having seen dozens of cars pass at a relatively steady rate, they cleared up and there were NO cars coming from either direction. We pulled out finally, and a car came tearing round the curve on our right, saw us, slammed on the brakes, and still hit us. A clear case where speeding caused the accident. So yes, in built up areas, round blind corners, over blind rises, ... there are places where speeding is dangerous. On a straight highway through a desert where you can see for miles, well, if you don't brake in time, it's not because you were speeding, it's because you weren't paying attention.
[note: based on LA Westside experience only]
1) People in LA drive like nuts. Going straight through a red light appears to be normal if they are in a rush.
2) It should be kept in mind that most of the red light cameras are in the nicer parts of town (like Beverly Hills). Of course, that is where the rich nuts who need to speed through a red light to get to their lunch meeting with a producer live.
3) If I really thought red light cameras would keep these nuts from doing it, I'd support them, but I don't think they do. The rich nuts get mad about the tickets but it is unlikely to change them from "type A" personalities. And it means the people who can't afford the tickets slam on their brakes on yellow.
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In normal conditions, saying that the follower is a terrible driver if they can't stop in time is absolutely right. I agree in principle.
The problem comes in areas, like LA, where there is so much reckless traffic that it's virtually impossible to leave a safe stopping distance in front of yourself. If you leave 1.1 cars worth of space, within a few seconds another car will fill the void. The only way to always have enough room to stop is to not drive at all.
This wouldn't apply in the vast majority of locations, but LA is an outlier in this regard.
So in general, I agree. I'm just pointing out that situations can (in some locations frequently) arise where you don't have the ability to maintain that cushion.
That said, I have managed to never run into anyone in any situation.
If LA adopted the Baltimore method they'd surely save money. Baltimore let a dead cop certify red light camera tickets. No salary to pay yet the revenue keeps rolling in!
http://www.wbaltv.com/r/26821379/detail.html
The city of Chillicothe, Ohio did a study of their own intersections after installing traffic cameras. They found that it was more effective to reduce instances of red-light running dramatically by increasing the yellow time. They also concluded that with a sufficiently long red pause between the time the yellow turns red and the cross-traffic red turns green, you can all but eliminate t-bone collisions. That is basically free.
You can see the study PDF here (www.shortyellowlights.com/ChillicotheRLCStudy.pdf)
In LA, the yellow is very often the only opportunity to make your left turn. On yellow you have to make sure the oncoming traffic is stopping or you'll get an at-fault head-on collision. Usually, about two or three cars make it right before and through the red, otherwise you get long backups.
I would like to see how you'd handle a left turn with a red-light camera and a short yellow light. There just isn't enough time to enter and clear the intersection from a stop. I have seen people sit behind the white line, blocking everyone else and sometimes not making the turn at all because of this.
I lived in Los Angeles for 3 years and frequently rode a motorcycle around which meant that you could split the lanes and reach the intersection front line. When they see the yellow light, many LA drivers accelerate on the theory that even if the light turns red before they reach it, there'll be a delay before the other cars get moving. There were many drivers in LA who would enter the intersection 10 seconds after it turned red. They are in a hurry after all and on a very important trip so they knew it was okay. This meant that when the light turned green and you were waiting to enter on a motorcycle, you looked both ways before moving and then slowly and cautiously entered to avoid sudden violent death...and that near avoidance happened frequently. Those red light cameras catch all of the people who are running the red light and they are the ones complaining. The fact that there are so many of them tells you how common running red lights is in LA.
was that effect just transitory as people have a timer in their head for how long the yellow lasts? Increase the time, and the rates go down. Until the internal timers are reset.
Removing the human element is what is wrong.
it's EASY for a computer to give a ticket, it's harder for a human being.
Just like it's easy to talk away somone rights if it's on paper, but it's much harder to do it to there face.
I've got many tickets over my life, and sometimes the police officer gives you a warning sometimes he give you a ticket, it's the human element that should be the deciding factor, you penalize a speeder for breaking the law willingly, if a old lady accadently makes a 1 second mis-judgement, she is not willingly breaking the law but simply at the wrong place at the wrong time and THAT is what a police officer is there to decide.
FUCK CAMERAS i NEVER pay my tickets for them, and no one else should. if we all just don't pay them they will have to take them away as there is no revenue.
sometimes we forget that WE the people PAY our government to do what we say, NOT the other way around. Stick up for your rights.
"More than 180,000 motorists have received camera-issued tickets since the program started in 2004 but the commission estimates that the program costs between $4 million and $5 million each year while bringing in only about $3.5 million annually."
Translation, its not making us money, in fact its costing us money so lets end the program.
The reason for the removal of a cameras was they they were not running a profit. Public safety? oh, yea... that too.
So in munny the truth comes out.. the REAL reason speed limits are too low, why you are more likely to hit a red than a green, why all those country-ass towns in the Midwest where the 'major industry' is an off-brand filling station have huge police stations and shiny new patrol vehicles.
This sig is not paradoxical or ironic.
People got involved, and get this crap stopped using facts.
So all you people who think getting involved is a waste of time, you are wrong. And all you people who complain but do nothing: Fuck You.
But I'm sure you will find some way to twist this into to some other grand conspiracy.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Allowing people to throw stones over a hedge is a bad thing. Also I demand to Know your name AC
Don't know about L.A. but in Seattle there are plenty of key intersections that people are constantly blocking. Pulling out into the intersection when there's no room for them to make it out, then sitting in the intersection during the other direction's whole green light blocking the way. It accomplishes nothing, gets them no further, and only makes traffic worse for everyone. I haven't seen any way to get people to stop mindlessly gridlocking these bottlenecks except by holding them accountable for it, and cameras do just that. I hate cameras and violation of privacy, but when people consistently don't follow the rules (and they're not so hard to follow, not so hard to understand, and not such a sacrifice here), it's one way to solve the problem.