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Chicago Red Light Cameras Issue Thousands of Bogus Tickets
mpicpp points out a report in the Chicago Tribune saying that thousands of the city's drivers have been wrongfully ticketed for red light violations because of "faulty equipment, human tinkering, or both." The Tribune's investigation uncovered the bogus tickets by analyzing the data from over 4 million tickets issued in the past seven years.
Cameras that for years generated just a few tickets daily suddenly caught dozens of drivers a day. One camera near the United Center rocketed from generating one ticket per day to 56 per day for a two-week period last summer before mysteriously dropping back to normal. Tickets for so-called rolling right turns on red shot up during some of the most dramatic spikes, suggesting an unannounced change in enforcement. One North Side camera generated only a dozen tickets for rolling rights out of 100 total tickets in the entire second half of 2011. Then, over a 12-day spike, it spewed 563 tickets — 560 of them for rolling rights. Many of the spikes were marked by periods immediately before or after when no tickets were issued — downtimes suggesting human intervention that should have been documented. City officials said they cannot explain the absence of such records.
English language has rules, such as capitalization of the first letter in a sentence. FOLLOW THE RULES, BOOTLICK!
So log the workorder, then repair the system, then close the workorder. Just like in the municipal code manuals.
:)
You, uh, didn't even make it through the summary, did you?
But hey, you got 1st p, so, I guess that counts for something.
Impressive reading skills.
1,000 out of 4,000,000 tickets makes a 0.025% error rate. That's a perfectly acceptable margin of error.
You need to discriminate between positive and negative error rates in situations like this.
If it failed to ticket 0.025% of red-light runners, we would consider it an amazing success.
If, however, it tickets even one law-abiding driver, then it very much needs an angry mob ripping these damned things down from the poles, throwing them on the front lawn of City Hall, and demanding an end to the outsourcing of "justice" to for-profit companies.
If it were only as simple as that. Invariably red light cameras lead to officials treating it as a revenue stream and trying various ways to "maximize" that revenue.
6 Cities That Were Caught Shortening Yellow Light Times For Profit
http://blog.motorists.org/6-cities-that-were-caught-shortening-yellow-light-times-for-profit/
City’s ‘gotcha’ traffic cameras use short yellow lights to increase ticket revenue
http://nypost.com/2012/10/08/citys-gotcha-traffic-cameras-use-short-yellow-lights-to-increase-ticket-revenue-study/
Florida Officials Shortened Yellow-Light Times to Increase Violations
http://archive.wtsp.com/news/local/story.aspx?storyid=316418
Authoritarianism is far more common than people realize... but then people don't know what it really is to begin with. It's not simply Nazi and then everything else.
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
What do they call what they're doing?
"Business as usual."
Ongoing Criminal Enterprise?
-- You are in a maze of little, twisty passages, all different... --
Executions shouldn't be legal, either.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
The order of society is far more important than a single insignificant persons life.
You might want to re-think that stance - Not because I particularly value human life, but because it negates your own point.
A rolling-right-on-red doesn't threaten to undermine the order of society. Punishing people who haven't committed any crime, however, does. When people stop believing in at least the theory that our system of crime-and-punishment more-or-less works, the motivation to at least give lip-service to pointless laws completely vanishes.
It's unacceptable even if it is random. Mass surveillance is never okay.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
1,000 out of 4,000,000 tickets makes a 0.025% error rate. That's a perfectly acceptable margin of error.
Bullshit. That's a HORRIBLE error rate. Remember that whole "innocent until proven guilty" part of the Constitution? If they are going to be used at all these things have to be tuned to have a false positive error rate of close to zero. If that means a higher false negative rate (people who ran the light but didn't get a ticket) then so be it. That's the way it is supposed to work in our justice system. If that means foregoing some traffic penalty revenue then so be it. Better that a hundred people get off without penalty than one person be falsely convicted.
That depends entirely on the state and municipality.
Most states allow you to turn on red when it is clear, but some don't. A few don't even require you to stop when making a right turn, if the way is clear. Conversely, municipalities in states that allow a turn on red can disallow it by posting notice at the intersection. And finally, a scant few states don't allow turns on red at all and are happy to ticket drivers for doing so.
Typically, people do 99% of their driving locally (or at least in their home state), so they know the relevant law. If not, err on the side of caution.
I doesn't matter if it is a .025% false ticket rate or a 95% false ticket rate. The article is pointing out that there are short-lived undocumented changes in camera behavior indicating either a faulty system as a whole or a direct manipulation of the equipment. Both of these are worthy of investigation, no where in the article (it is possible that I missed it) does it suggest that the system itself is failing and should be thrown away. Merely that it looks to either have a fault or is being abused by authorities.
Personally, I align with the later option.
But by all means continue to completely ignore the article.
"Then, over a 12-day spike, it spewed 563 tickets — 560 of them for rolling rights" That is pretty much the issue. See, before these stupid cameras people came to a very very slow speed, looked and executed a turn all at once. If there is enough visibility at the intersection you would make a right. Police could technically ticket you for it but I have never heard of one in my life of driving / motorcycle riding. In fact I still regularly do this in front of police at areas that have no camera. There are often issues of technicality here too, like, you need to stop before the white line but you stopped after. The cameras are very questionable from a safety standpoint because now people don't know how to behave when coming to a stop. It has been documented that these cameras cause more rear end collisions because of this fact. In this case in particular the fact that the journalist uncovered seems to be selective enforcement. In other words, there have been cameras for years. We always still did a rolling stop on red, no one ever got a ticket. Now one day same cameras, same signs, but different enforcement.
Innocent people getting executed is perfectly acceptable to me as long as the error rates are low.
Then you are a pathetic cowardly inhumane sociopath who I pray never is put on a jury. I don't care if you support the death penalty or not but the notion that it is ever acceptable to execute an innocent person is just reprehensible. Of course for someone who talks so tough you apparently can't be bothered to post under your own name.
I know "the city" is pretty big, but I don't believe it's made it all the way to Chicago, yet.
The Quirkz Handbook of Self-Improvement for People Who Are Already Pretty Okay
I thought Capone died long ago on the island...
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
Obviously you don't live in Chicago and have never driven on it's roads. But odd driving practices aside as a Chicago resident I have to say that I wouldn't be surprised at all to find out that the city was quietly adjusting the thresholds on intersections occasionally to make a quick buck. I mean it is Chicago we are talking about, the only city where the officials are more corrupt is probably Detroit and the corruption never stops at the top.
By appealing and not agreeing to "settle" with the prosecution — in fact, I did not even want to "talk to them" other than during a hearing and in judge's presence. This made it necessary for the actual officer, who (supposedly) reviewed the ticket before it was issued, to appear in court — which he didn't do. Maybe, I was just "lucky" at that and, maybe, Chicago would've allowed the prosecution to avoid presenting the officer for testimony, but...
The automatic cameras allow for issuing a massive number of tickets — because human police don't need to do much work. If more people appealed — thus necessitating the human policemen's presence in court for each such ticket, maybe, they wouldn't be such a valuable proposition for the local authorities.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
And that's why flight voice recorders on aircraft should be illegal, right?
Any sufficiently unpopular but cohesive argument is indistinguishable from trolling.
It isn't a law, it is a traffic regulation. Thus why the outcome is a fine and not a criminal trial.
Seems that you are ignorant, thus undermining orderly society. Time to march you off to be executed for being so insignificant.
Nobody is fooled by the name "red light camera" . The entire point of these things have always been generation of revenue by ticketing people for rolling right turns. They serve no credible public safety interest of any kind.
As always with these cameras. It's NOT about the law, what's legal, or enforcing the law.
It's about making a profit. A revenue stream. I'd say "first and foremost", but that implies there's another reason. And there just isn't. It's about extracting ever more money from the citizens through any means necessary. Even though Chicago's signing away 90% OF THE TICKET REVENUES TO THE CAMERA COMPANY!
And the cameras aren't set up "everywhere" to give uniform coverage.
They're set up in areas and in such a way as to maximize the APPEARANCE of a violation from the camera's perspective.
Basically these sorts of camera deals need to be illegal.
If the city isn't going to buy the systems outright and administer/enforce them itself, they shouldn't be allowed to go through a third party company who has a profit motive involved in what is otherwise a law enforcement issue. It's a total conflict of interests.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
That's because of people speeding. The faster you drive, the less time you have to react to the light changing or the driver in front of you stopping. In fact, the time you are given to react can even be negative if you drive too fast.
Therefore, if safety is the goal (big if), red light cameras should also be speed cameras. Without people speeding as they approach traffic lights, there will be far fewer rear end collisions and far fewer red light infractions.
Any sufficiently unpopular but cohesive argument is indistinguishable from trolling.
In many states it is also legal to turn left on red when turning from a one-way street to a one-way street.
Exactly. My first impression reading TFA is that the headline is wrong. It should read: "Red Light Cameras Issue Thousands of Bogus Tickets"
Although, put that way, it's probably a couple orders of magnitude higher.
(And yes, officials were caught shortening the yellows in our town as well. It appears to be standard practice when putting in red light cameras.)
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Well, since you're an A/C, you must not be significant... Let's start with you.
Peter predicted that you would "deliberately forget" creation 2000 years ago...
Chicago has a streamlined form of government, having one branch: finance.
Is that really the same as mass government surveillance of public places, or the NSA-style surveillance, where people are spied on en masse? I think not.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
That's not mass surveillance, it only records the flight crew and it records on a loop so only the last 30 minutes or so are available at any given time. It also serves a very important purpose in case something happens to the plane.
That's because of people speeding. The faster you drive, the less time you have to react to the light changing or the driver in front of you stopping. In fact, the time you are given to react can even be negative if you drive too fast.
Failure to maintain proper following distance causes rear end collisions.
Without people speeding as they approach traffic lights, there will be far fewer rear end collisions and far fewer red light infractions.
I'm the Easter bunny.
http://www.motorists.org/red-l...
Yeah, if you look, you'll find that phrase is not found in the US Constitution.
No those exact words are not there but I refer you to the Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Seventh and Eight amendments, particularly the Fifth. Innocent until proven guilty is the shortened version of what they collectively say.
It's merely an inference (by the courts) that it exists as part of US jurisprudence.
It is nothing of the sort. Explain to me how "nor shall any person... be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law" be anything other than different phrasing of innocent until proven guilty. (That's from the Fifth Amendment BTW)
So, it's acceptable to you if you are amongst the innocent people who are executed?
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
The occasional error in the court system is perfectly acceptable to an orderly society.
It may be inevitable but it is NEVER acceptable. Only a sociopath would think otherwise.
The cameras are very questionable from a safety standpoint because now people don't know how to behave when coming to a stop.
The problem is not that people don't know how to behave, it's that they've been doing it wrong since the day they passed their driver's test and stopped caring, and now cameras are catching them in the act. I'm all for including a copy of the page in the driver's manual that states what you are SUPPOSED to do in this scenario.
When you get to a red light... stop. It's not a yield sign, it's a red light. Stop, then turn right if it's safe. There is no county in the US where a rolling turn is acceptable, it's just the the cops don't bother ticketing over such a minor infraction. Doesn't make it legal though...
Magic doesn't work in my presence. My power of disbelief is too strong.
Monitoring the three people in the cockpit of a plane carrying 300 people is hardly "mass surveillance".
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
I do not think you understand how the justice system works, even if sentenced .025% of innocent people to death it would be doing far better than current efforts.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
Wrong. Most of the justice system is designed to scare people away from breaking the law by showing off the might of the government (aka make an example of them). Yes, putting people in jail is an economic strain in many ways, but society is designed around needing X number of "examples". It does not particularly matter if "them" are innocent or guilty.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
The needs of the many out way the needs of the one.
What does god need with a starship?
It's worse in my town. they shortened the green light on busy cross streets along the main drag with the red light cameras. You are lucky to get two cars through now and if you are waiting for apposing traffic before turning left, you will be in the intersection when your light turns red. They did this right after the cameras went up.
Luckily, soon after the cameras went up, the state and a court said they couldn't be used pending a couple court cases over them. One judge already called it "criminal" in one of the cases and another called it racketeering so I think the state supreme court might not allow them either. The state (Ohio) is not banking on the courts, they are trying to pass legislation that would bar their use unless a cop was at the intersection witnessing the infraction.
One of the very first yellow light studies was conducted over Chillicothe Ohio's cams. I don't know if this is the original or not (I originally remember reading a PDF about it and from another site) but this explains a lot of the problem with short yellows.
http://www.shortyellowlights.c...
As much as I don't like these cameras, when you get a ticket in Chicago, and most of the suburbs I know of around here, you're provided w/ the means to actually watch your car commit the violation. I got a ticket for a rolling right turn on red last summer. You key your license and the citation number into a city website (google it, you'll find it) and you can watch an mpeg4 stream of your car passing through the intersection or turning on red or whatever - with a little curl magic you can download it as a keepsake.
Armed with the video, you should be able to appeal the ticket if you truly didn't commit the offense or if the camera went bonkers and ticketed everyone going through the intersection.
If it's a borderline case, most people don't bother with the hassle of appealing and just pay the fine...miss a day of work and sit in a traffic court for hours (and possibly pay court costs) or pay $100.
My observation around the Chicago area is that people are mostly just butthurt because they're getting ticketed for infractions that were lightly enforced before due to labor / manhour constraints of the police forces.
The city is filled with dirty crooks in office, always has been. Chicago is the place where not only does the dead vote, but they vote TWICE!
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
The article doesn't list the days in question.
There are certain days in the winter where there are icy conditions and cars slide through lights or rolling right turns for safety reasons. Of course, the cameras don't care.
Is doing better actually acceptable when wrong convicting an innocent person?
Everything in our justice system is supposed to be geared to allowing guilty people walk if there is any real doubt in order to escape convicting innocent people. sometimes it doesn't seem like it is still that way and sometimes is seems like the more guilty a person is, the less punishment they get while fringe cases are made examples of, but we need to strive to ensure innocent people are not punished if at all possible.
There is no (proven) scientific correlation between speeding and accidents. There is a correlation between reckless driving and accidents. There are numerous peer reviewed scientific studies that prove raising speed limits (selectively) would reduce accidents.
even if sentenced .025% of innocent people to death it would be doing far better than current efforts.
Assuming 300M people in the US are innocent people, or at least innocent of a capital crime, sentencing 0.025% of innocent people to death would execute 75000 people. That's about 1000x the current rate of executions, so I think it would be worse than current efforts. :)
Unless you meant that 0.025% of people sentenced to death being innocent would be better then current efforts. That one's probably true.
A citation for a traffic violation is IN LIEU of an arrest. An officer can arrest you for an illegal turn, even if that rarely happens. Minor laws are still laws. Calling them "regulations" just connotes less importance but doesn't change the definition.
I think you're narrowly defining "speeding" to mean "exceeding the posted speed limit." Using a more broad definition that includes the reasonable and prudent speed under the given conditions (visibility, weather, road condition, etc.) and following distance (i.e. tailgating or not), you will find a wealth of data that shows that speed does indeed contribute to the rate of collisions.
And of course the amount of damage in a collision is proportional to the square of the velocity.
Any sufficiently unpopular but cohesive argument is indistinguishable from trolling.
Sigh... I took his comment to mean that brakes in good working order would fail not that they would wear out.
If that was a defect rate for brakes in all cars manufactured. A 0.05% is excellent. It means you have a 99.95% chance of buying a car without the brakes failing.
actually no.. Take GM's recent recall about a spring in the key mechanism that was too weak. GM identified it caused 31 crashes and 13 deaths but is recalling 8.2 million vehicles over the problem. So 31 crashes out of 8.2 million vehicles is about a .000378048 % failure rate. GM is facing lawsuits, paid an record civil penalty, and it constantly being grilled on capitol hill by congress and government agencies because a number far less that .05% was not excellent.
There is no proof that any of the tickets were issued when the driver did NOT commit an infraction (if that is not correct, please point it out because I missed it). The problem seems to be that this particular traffic law was being heavily and rigidly enforced without prior warning. A bigger focus on the enforcement of a long-existing law does not need to be announced by anyone, even if it is a dick move. Do you believe the law in question to be immoral or unjust? What is the alternative? - Should the existing law be repealed/amended such that a "rolling right turn" become legal? That will surely lead to more traffic accidents. - Should the existing law not be enforced? If so, then what is the legitimate* purpose of having that law on the books in the first place? - Should a police officer be stationed on every corner to write tickets the old-fashioned way? This is a colossal waste of resources**. On a semi-related note, should it be illegal for security cameras to be used by police, and instead require an officer to physically witness an alleged crime in person? I'm not suggesting that the government parties involved aren't rigging the system in their favor by manipulating the timing of traffic signals, but this particular infraction seems pretty cut and dry. *An illegitimate purpose would be to allow for selective enforcement by police that are on so-called "fishing expeditions" looking to harass particular groups of people, search vehicles, etc. **Obviously it's a waste of resources on the courtroom side if the tickets were, in fact, issued to drivers who did not commit an infraction. I'm making the assumption that the equipment is correctly calibrated, as there is no evidence to prove otherwise. Again, it seems the ticket-reporting module was intended to only report red-light infractions all the way through the intersection and/or include a higher tolerance - still doesn't take away from the fact that, petty as it is, the drivers did actually commit an offense.
No, society has to accept errors happen and strive to avoid them while not forgoing the process altogether. That is why when we find an error, instead of saying "but he was convicted anyways, let him rot", we release them and allow them to sue for reparations.
You are 100% right though. In that errors cannot be avoided. But they shouldn't be accepted either.
Do you believe the law in question to be immoral or unjust?
Try to follow the conversation before making huge rants. He said: "Any toleration of law breaking undermines the order of society." That is what I responded to.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Yes it does. Any toleration of law breaking undermines the order of society.
Order of society flows from legitimacy rather than enforcement of law. While related the capability to enforce law is directly dependent on ability to obtain legitimacy.
Loss of legitimacy undermines the order of society. Unenforceable law erodes legitimacy.
Tolerance of law breaking is an important safety valve.
See the feedback loop?
If you need convincing you need only look into history of prohibition and war on drugs to see what happens when legitimacy is eroded.
Realities of environment in which people live matters. In extreme circumstance if enough people are desperate enough even normally universally agreeable rules against stealing can temporarily fall into the realm of unenforceable where the peoples only perceived choice is steal or starve/die. This is why governance is difficult and why zero tolerance is reserved for North Koreans, decapitated dictators and hypothetical alien overlords.
A citation for a traffic violation is IN LIEU of an arrest. An officer can arrest you for an illegal turn, even if that rarely happens. Minor laws are still laws.
You have to understand that there are a wide variety of moving violations. While you will certainly get arrested for a DUI, I really doubt they'll convince a judge that failure to wear a seat belt justifies arresting anyone. Those "laws" just exist to generate revenue for the city and it actually costs the city money to arrest someone, especially when done for trivial matters such as driving in a carpool lane when not entitled to.
That is sort of a concern. On the whole, these spikes likely wouldn't show anything out of ordinary is views as a total for a year or quarter or something long range. But because the data is available for shorter periods of time, it was found quickly.
So did the company or the city alter the cams in order to increase revenue and make the camera pay for itself or is there a completely different explanation. Right now, it seems they were altered and not documented then altered back.
Yes it does. Any toleration of law breaking undermines the order of society.
Order of society flows from legitimacy rather than enforcement of law. While related the capability to enforce law is directly dependent on ability to obtain legitimacy.
Loss of legitimacy undermines the order of society. Unenforceable law erodes legitimacy.
Tolerance of law breaking is an important safety valve.
See the feedback loop?
If you need convincing you need only look into history of prohibition and war on drugs to see what happens when legitimacy is eroded.
Realities of environment in which people live matters. In extreme circumstance if enough people are desperate enough even normally universally agreeable rules against stealing can temporarily fall into the realm of unenforceable where the peoples only perceived choice is steal or starve/die. This is why governance is difficult and why zero tolerance is reserved for North Koreans, decapitated dictators and hypothetical alien overlords.
THIS. I wish I had mod-points.
Actually there is proof the system wasn't perfect..
An example was provided where someone challenged two of her tickets. The judge reviewed the video and determined that the person had indeed come to a stop in both scenarios.The judge ruled in favor of the person, and dismissed the ticket.
Additionally, numerous tickets were thrown out at a significantly higher rate during traffic ticket spikes.
Most people are conditioned to not challenge automated tickets. The articled said 95% automatically paid. The remainder that challenged, 90% of them lost, until the traffic ticket spikes started occurring. In one instance, one location was challenged at a rate of 1 in 7 tickets for 242 challenges. 109 were thrown out.
At some point the courts will have reviewed enough footage at one location, that they just auto accepted.
And here-in lies the rub. Make the process tedious enough to challenge, and make the fine small and convenient to pay, and very few will question the accuracy of the system. "The incident was last week, and I was in a rush, did I come to a full stop? Forget it, pay the fine."
The problem is they changed something in the system, it triggered a volume where people realized the system can't be right.
As to the point of enforcement.
There are laws on the books that are meant for true good: Hey don't go killing people. Don't be stealing other people's stuff. Don't drink and drive.
There are laws on the books that are meant to guide people in safe conduct. Don't be speeding. Don't run red lights.
And there are byzantine laws on the books that when researched are for some obscure reason. No hanky panky on Tuesdays in the kitchen. Da heck?
Enforcement's job is to make sure the law is enforced, but to also exercise a level of reasonability in the enforcement of the law. So and so is speeding. Hey they are having a baby. We should help them. VS Hey, a-hole is doing 50 in a school zone. Bust 'em.
The reasonability measurement should have been occurring when the vendor and IBM were evaluating the infraction before sending it out. Somewhere along the lines, that fail safe wasn't being done.
Me three!!! Succinct and accurate reflection of reality.
Should a police officer be stationed on every corner to write tickets the old-fashioned way?
No. Perhaps we should mostly focus on bigger things, and if they happen to see someone breaking the law, then they can handle it? We shouldn't have officers dedicated to looking out for trivialities, or at least not many.
This is a colossal waste of resources
Good. You seem to think it is a good thing to streamline law enforcement, but in 'the land of the free,' it absolutely is not. That just gives them too much power to abuse, and far more efficiently. That's why mass surveillance is bad.
On a semi-related note, should it be illegal for security cameras to be used by police, and instead require an officer to physically witness an alleged crime in person?
My take on this is that security cameras are okay, but if and only if there is a person using it. So cops can use cameras as long as they're placed on their car or on their bodies, but installing security cameras everywhere in public places is a no-go. Also, stop assuming that cops are right and force a court case each and every time they say they caught someone breaking the law (and they want to punish them), even for 'trivial' matters. If they don't have evidence, then the person goes free. This would also force them to focus on more important things most of the time.
still doesn't take away from the fact that, petty as it is, the drivers did actually commit an offense.
There's no guarantee that any such thing happened. We can't even see how these cameras work, and even if we could, automating surveillance of public places is a bad idea. It just makes abuse more efficient.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
I'm glad to hear it. We need more people to put their society first, even when society is wrong.
No, we absolutely don't. We need fewer worthless, mindless authoritarian scumbags, not more.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
If you allow municipalities to a) collect the fines and b) game the system be prepared for problems.
In BC it is mostly the opposite. Ticketing and cost of enforcement IS covered by the municipalities (who fund the police) but the fines go to the provincial government. So increased enforcement (which may be a good thing) will cost the municipality more. And if they are willing to fund that then good for them. But they won't increase their revenues. And in fact may increase their policing costs if the ticketing officers have to attend court more often to defend the tickets they write.
Gaming the system (short Yellow lights for example) will result in higher revenue to the province. But more complaints to the municipality. So mostly doesn't happen.
While the province can (to some extent) game the system by trying to introduce things like traffic cameras, in practice they are more sensitive overall to campaigns to complain about them. So they move slower with more political caution.
We also have a provincially mandated insurance (for which there are lots of pro's and con's...) One of the side effects is that intersections that are expensive (i.e. high number of accidents) to the Insurance company will get money flowing from there back to the municipality to improve it. E.g. better signals, barriers etc. The point is that money to improve safety may be less than paying out for accidents. They also will make suggestions back to the city engineering department WRT to things like signal timing which will help reduce accidents.
I live in NJ. Aside from that problem, I have a friend who was recently auto ticketed for running a red light. When he received the ticket in the mail he was notified of a website where he could see a video of the traffic violation. We looked at the video and it was clear that he went through the red light. That seems like a fairer way to issue automatic tickets. If it's clear in the video that you didn't do what you're accused of then it would be worth fighting the ticket. Of course, videos can be faked but perhaps someone can think of a way to make sure that doesn't happen. In my friends case, I doubt that the video was faked.
I really doubt they'll convince a judge that failure to wear a seat belt justifies arresting anyone.
Unless you're in a state like Florida or California, where a news story about a motorist dying after a traffic stop for some minor offense would be met with anger, but not the least bit of shock, disbelief, or surprise. American law enforcement is out of control, and rapidly turning into urban death squads enforcing swift punishment against anybody unfortunate enough to annoy a bully with a badge & a license to kill.
If, however, it tickets even one law-abiding driver, then it very much needs an angry mob ripping these damned things down from the poles, throwing them on the front lawn of City Hall, and demanding an end to the outsourcing of "justice" to for-profit companies.
Only because the populous is too stupid to understand numbers. Innocent people getting executed is perfectly acceptable to me as long as the error rates are low. The order of society is far more important than a single insignificant persons life.
That's because you're what is technically and by the numbers called an "asshole".
He's also full of shit, and a hypocrite. Beneath contempt would be screaming about justice denied if say his wife or kid was killed, for not doing anything wrong, or put on trail and executed, and it turned out to be an error.
Or perhaps after a cop accidentally shoots him because he was scratching his nuts in public, with his dying breath, would say - "it's okay officer - you probably don't kill too many people "
If Beneath Contempt is still willing to continue to display his idiocy here, perhaps if he could comment on this Justice for profit, related incident. When two judges in Scranton PA recieved money kickbacks for sentencing children to a for profit detention center. Many of these children did nothing that in a normal law system would just get a lecture.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K...
But is corruption and imprisoning people for personal gain okay if the "error rates are low?" 6000 kids out of all th ejuvenile system is pretty low - right? How about if your kid was sent to juvie for a year for say.
Acceptable error rates in criminal/civil matters are 0. We won't ever hit that number, but anything higher is just not acceptable. We must always strive for only punishing the guilty, Anything else means we accept the guilty going free.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
These automatic tickets are CIVIL fines instead of criminal. No one has to show up. If you don't pay they just send you to a collection agency.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
No. Perhaps we should mostly focus on bigger things, and if they happen to see someone breaking the law, then they can handle it? We shouldn't have officers dedicated to looking out for trivialities, or at least not many.
No. Every person should be prosecuted for every single trivial offense until such time that we realize that many of those trivial offenses should not be offenses at all. By just prosecuting a "random" sample is to burden a select few with a punishment that most get away with. That isn't a fair or just system.
Well, police aren't omnipresent, so there's going to be some "random" factor to it. The same is true of other larger cases (e.g. murder, rape, etc.). There's just no getting around it. If we want to get rid of some laws, then we should do that without pointlessly prosecuting people for laws that we believe are unjust to begin with.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
A few [states] don't even require you to stop when making a right turn, if the way is clear.
What states are those? I travel around the U.S. *a lot*, and I've never seen this... I'm guessing it's going to be something like Wyoming, North Dakota, etc. (I'm asking sincerely - I think at one time some of those states had no real "upper speed limit" - the law was written to the effect "can't travel faster than the conditions allow" or something like that..)
> There is no county in the US where a rolling turn is acceptable
Sort of. http://www.bradenton.com/2014/...
I quote:
These two specific exceptions were written by the legislature to combat abusive tactics by municipalities throughout the state.
Keep in mind that there are a lot of places in Florida where you have wide roads in urban areas with buildings literally 5-10 feet from the street, and there are lots of areas where the white "stop lines" are SO FAR back from the intersection, you literally can't see far enough to the left to MAKE a reasonable judgment about whether or not it's safe to proceed with the right turn until you've moved another 10-20 feet beyond it.
IMHO, the the IDEAL solution would be for FDOT to just reconfigure most of Florida's major intersections as CFIs ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?... ) and render the whole concept of a right turn on red (or green, for that matter) meaningless. By definition right-turning cars in a CFI are "go at all times, then merge to the left into what would otherwise be the right lane past the point where left-turning cars cross incoming traffic".
References:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C...
Or... a slight variation on the CFI theme... the PFI :-)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
The primary witness in all this is software.
As such the software needs to be available for cross examination the same as
any other software. Perhaps not open source but clearly open and testable
interfaces.
Further any revision and change must be subject to audit. The obvious issue
is bogus citations because code did not operate as per specifications in the
law. All citations issued while the bogus code was "live" would then need
to be reviewed.
A contract service should not be able to adjust anything not specified in
the law.
With a robot the notion of enforcement priority makes no sense. i.e. allocation
of staff and resources can justify priorities but a machine should simply
operate against a specification and within tolerances that make sense.
Anything else would be a legislative action and not allowed or empowered by law.
Tolerances that make sense would include normal reaction time expectations (not average).
Tolerances need to include sane and honest error parameter stackups.
Tolerances need to be population sensitive.... some are kids some have gray hair.
Consider any regulation that uses the word average is a regulation that
begins with an assumption that 50% would fail. Further average is not
a sufficient statistical metric to do anything with.
Contractors and contracts that share revenue need to be open to audit and
need to have a legal presence and legal liability in the same venue that the citations
are to be issued. Fraud and abuse should incur greater penalty than those cited.
i.e. it is not OK to simply say "my bad, here is your ten bucks back" when abuse and
fraud are involved.
Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't. Mark Twain.
you want more corrupt branches of gov't?
I think one is too many.
Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
If anyone needs these cameras it is Ohio. Some the the worst drivers I have ever come across...
http://www.youtube.com/channel...
This is a sig. This is only a sig. Had this been an actual sig you would have been informed where to tune for more sigs.
1,000 out of 4,000,000 tickets makes a 0.025% error rate. That's a perfectly acceptable margin of error. You need to discriminate between positive and negative error rates in situations like this. .
And you need to factor in the time frame, dumbass.
Thanks for posting this. And yeah, I live in Florida. Grew up in the suburbs out here, and it is exactly as you describe with the intersections and the law. It may not make sense to people who live in much denser environments.
Lol, In the 90s, I made a road trip to California. When I got home, later, I recieved a "camera" ticket complete with a picture of my tag and a fine.
I took a picture of the correct amount of money and sent it back....
Probably got a warrant for my bad self in California now. How f**kin cool is that?
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
Montana outlawed 'em entirely, because of how they just naturally lend themselves to this sort of corruption and setting the public up to fail (ie. short yellows practically forcing 'em to get ticketed). Bozeman was all set to have an exemption but then Redflex whined about how they couldn't make any money under the new rules, and the state legislature decided enough of that shit and nuked the exemption. So... no camera enforcement. :D
http://www.thenewspaper.com/ne...
http://www.thenewspaper.com/ne...
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
So are you Steve Barkley?
Thanks to the War on Drugs, it's easier to buy meth than it is to buy cold medicine!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
It's now federal, and uniformly legal in the U.S. unless the intersection is signed otherwise.
And as it happens, right-on-red-after-stop was a western innovation, allowed in most western states as much as 50 years ago. I remember it becoming legal in MT somewhere around 1970.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
I haven't run into that anywhere, but I do know about a nice new trend I'm seeing in Tennessee. A lot of intersections are now getting right-turn arrows. Just after the light in your direction of travel turns red, and the opposing lanes get their green left-turn arrows as normal, a new green right-turn arrow lights up for you at the same time. Really helps to alleviate congestion.
Thanks to the War on Drugs, it's easier to buy meth than it is to buy cold medicine!
And the article is specifically about Chicago which does allow them.
That's a winner!
Tell him what he's won, Johnny.
A NEW CAR! Not only that, but we'll fly you and a guest non-stop to beautiful Juarez, Mexico for Coedine Margarita's poolside at Juans Motor Hotel and Pizzaria, then on for a tour of the factory that makes Rice-a-Roni; The San Francisco treat! And; you can do it all with a 5 piece set of luggage from Samsonite! Considerations paid for by sponsors, family and employees of Joes Car Wash excluded,taxes apply in N.Y., R.I. and Maine, taxes due upon receipt,local and state laws may apply, but they have to wait their turn for an interview like everyone else.
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
Nope, but I probably was inspired by the same story.
Never heard another word about it, guess I was too many states away for them to bother with.
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
So, a heavily indebted city has a rogue revenue generation mechanism that would take time and effort to fix? Yeah, we'll get right on that.
In Seattle I challenged a parking violation with photographic evidence. The magistrate accept the evidence into the record. After some back and forth over the interpretation of the evidence, she proffered a deal.
Magistrate: "I'll reduce the fine. $2.00."
Me: "The evidence clearly shows I was not in violation."
Magistrate: "You are more than welcome to take the matter up with a judge."
Me: "So this is really about getting a conviction, not about justice."
Magistrate: "$2.00. Take it, or leave it."
Me: *fuming* "$2.00 it is. Have a good day, Your Honor. *bowing*
Under criminal law you have the right to face your accuser. Is the court supposed to bring in the red light camera for testimony? Sure you can request a hearing on the ticket but I meant no cops have to show up. You guys are thick.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
The order of society is far more important than a single insignificant persons life.
Without all those insignificant lives, society is nothing.
"City hall" in German is "Rathaus" Kinda explains a few things......