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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."
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.
How about use it to fund public defenders? Those guys are always getting a raw deal (as are their clients), and it would create a bit of a stabilizing feedback loop. More fines means you need more defense lawyers, a win-win. Or have we given up on having a fair legal system?
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