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Speed Cameras In Chicago Earn $50M Less Than Expected
countach44 writes that (in the words of the below-linked article) "Chicagoans are costing the city tens of millions of dollars — through good behavior." The City of Chicago recently installed speed cameras near parks and schools as part of the "Children's Safety Zone Program," claiming a desire to decrease traffic-related incidents in those area. The city originally budgeted (with the help of the company providing the system) to have $90M worth of income from the cameras — of which only $40M is now expected. Furthermore, the city has not presented data on whether or not those areas have become safer.
Easy to solve - calibrate them to overestimate driver's speed. It is virtually impossible to challenge these, and many municipalities already do this with red light and speed cameras.
Also, can we stop pretending these are about anything other than revenue generation?
It proves the cameras are working, and people are speeding less. What's the problem? In an ideal world, the cameras would never go off, and never issue a ticket.
The Ottawa Public Library is having a significant budgetary shortfall due to a reduction in late fees.
The sad thing is that these entities have integrated punitive fines into their standard funding expectations and financial plans.
I think that sort of thinking needs to be scorned. It is a poor way to manage an institution. You don't want your model to be 'well, we will depend on and be incentivized to encourage people to break the rules we claim we want them to follow'. It's a rather ethically laughable situation.
-- Mal: "Well they tell you: never hit a man with a closed fist. But it is, on occasion, hilarious."
I mean, *if* you believe what they spout off all the time about the REASON for installing these cameras in the first place? Clearly it's about improving safety. Who in their right mind tries to project potential profits from implementing a safety measure?
Think about it ....
Money collected as punishment for crimes should be destroyed either literally or as a bookkeeping entry, so nobody* benefits from its collection.
Ditto punitive damages from civil suits.
This would remove the financial incentive for governments to fine people and remove the financial incentive for plaintiffs to seek high punitive damages. The stated "justice/deterrence" purpose of fines and punitive damages would remain.
*I'm ignoring the theoretical, negligible gain in the value of everyone else's dollars as global supply of US dollars shrinks by the amount of the destroyed money and the not-necessarily-theoretical hit to the local or national economy if money that would otherwise be spent on goods and services by the person paying the fine and/or by the government collecting the fine is lost.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
it will require a constitutional amendment
1. no government entity (fees, fines, tolls, tariffs, settlements, and seizures) may use non-tax monies for any of its operating expenses
2. all non-tax revenue are distributed evenly amongst the citizens of the collecting jurisdiction on an annual basis
People who break the law or use limited government services still pay. People who don't break the law and don't use services are rewarded with an extra tax refund. And politicians can't be sneaky about the amount of money they spend since 100% of it will have to come directly from taxes.
Of course this will never happen because of entrenched power and the 1% benefiting from the current system fleecing the general public.
Colorado made a big deal of how much money they would take in by legalizing marijuana. They, the state, predicted they would take in $184 million in the first year and now it looks like they'll be lucky to hit $40 million.
Wow only $40 million? What an insignificant figure ....
Wanna buy a shirt?
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Most likely the camera companies have minimum guarantee payments, will not let changes to traffic lights and timings that would reduce both accidents and fines etc. There was the fiasco with parking spaces, that makes it impossible for Chicago to create more parking spaces without paying the private company for their "loss of revenue". The private bridge owner of the bridge between Detroit and Windsor, Canada is suing to block the building of any new bridge. When turnpike operations are sold to such private companies, they have clauses preventing the improvement of alternative roads owned by the state or city that would divert traffic away from the turnpike.
The great American rip-off is the private companies taking over tax funded infrastructure and then preventing improvements to alternatives, and extracting rent. I think the only way to stop them is to sue such companies for criminal conduct and bad faith and have the original contract declared null and void. Two bit politicians coming into office for a single two year term should not be able to burden all the citizens for eternity to such contracts.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Some states have laws against small communities enforcing speed laws on state or interstate highways, so that the town doesn't become a revenue-generating speed trap.
All my liberal friends think I'm a conservative, all my conservative friends think I'm a liberal.
I'm a big fan of both red light and speed cameras, so long as it's clear that the goal, and the only goal, is to improve traffic safety by getting people to abide by speed limits* and obey traffic lights. The ideal scenario would be one in which the cameras generated zero revenue at all, because everybody was following the law.
*I'll be the first to say that speed limits on highways are too low, I'm talking about areas where cars have to share the road with pedestrians and bicyclists.
Clearly these aren't manufactured by the same company that makes Chicago's voting machines.
Crime went down in colorado. Along with drug overdoses.
Productivity might be an issue. But your other point is pure bullshit.
You can't count on law-breaking as an income model, or you by definition automatically have no moral right to claim it's for safety. The ultimate goal of whatever system you put in place is to put itself out of business. Instead, the system is put in place to serve itself and NEVER accomplish it's goal of stopping people from breaking the law.
But it's the system we HAVE. It's not called the corrections industry for nothing; one of the largest businesses in the country is catching people and punishing them. There's a reason we have the largest per-capita incarceration rate in the world. If there were no crime... the cops, lawyers, prison guards, surveillance equipment company employees, would all be out of work. For heavens sake, if you're a patriot and love your country, support it by breaking the law today!
it will require a constitutional amendment
1. no government entity (fees, fines, tolls, tariffs, settlements, and seizures) may use non-tax monies for any of its operating expenses
2. all non-tax revenue are distributed evenly amongst the citizens of the collecting jurisdiction on an annual basis
People who break the law or use limited government services still pay. People who don't break the law and don't use services are rewarded with an extra tax refund. And politicians can't be sneaky about the amount of money they spend since 100% of it will have to come directly from taxes.
Of course this will never happen because of entrenched power and the 1% benefiting from the current system fleecing the general public.
This. PLEASE! I've been saying it for years.
I really do think Budgeting is one of the places that one has to be the most careful about creating perverse incentives.
Frankly, cities should not be using fines in budgeting, but rather, should have a designated fund for ALL fines and fees to go into, which should simply be added to next years base tax income or, used to offset an entirely unrelated portion of the budget to the fine.
In this way, while there may be a sort of general incentive to increase general revenue, but the one thing you don't want, is the budget of any department with any control over either enforcement or policy making seeing any direct effect on his budget from the making or enforcing of the policy.
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
They're still making money from marijuanna sales there. I could have told them they wouldn't make that much money, they were way too optimistic, and set the tax rates too high to properly compete with illegal sources.
Compounding that was a federal campaign against the financing and housing of legal dispensaries - they have a hard time getting the money to get the economy of scale necessary for profit. Leasing commercial property is also almost impossible.
I don't read AC A human right
Also, can we stop pretending these are about anything other than revenue generation?
This. Just the mere fact that they actually budgeted against the ticket revenue tells you everything you need to know.
The construction zone that runs basically from Rockford into downtown is like 45 MPH the whole way, despite the road being two lanes and the construction nearly complete.
I drove it last week and it was agonizing AND the State Police were actively pulling people over.
I thought they could have set the limit to 55 MPH very reasonably; there were only a couple of places where I thought it realistically should have been 45 MPH.
Here, fixed it for you:
"Speed Cameras In Chicago confiscate $50M Less Than Expected"
The cameras don't earn anything, as they don't produce anything of value. They are simply taxing devices, yet another way to confiscate money from drivers, and justified with an unproven "keep your children safe" blanket
First off, because of state law, the speed cameras can only issue a ticket for going 6+ over the limit. So, 25 in a 20 school zone, or 35 in a 30 "near a park" zone is OK. Second, the 6-10 MPH over the limit is a $35 ticket. BFD. Only when you do 11+ over the limit (e.g. 41 in a 30), that's when it shoots up to $100. Finally, speed cameras are NOT allowed on Lake Shore Drive, Lower Wacker, and (obviously) Interstates.
On top of that, because of state law, the city had to paint "SAFETY ... ZONE" on the street in each lane, along with putting up extra speed limit signs with "PHOTO ENFORCED", by every camera installation, on that street and on all intersecting streets...
Windows 3.1x calc: 3.11 - 3.10 = 0.00
That's interesting, I view all those safety features as protecting me from other idiots on the road.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff