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Out With the Red-Light Cameras, In With the Speeding Cameras
An anonymous reader writes: Have you enjoyed reading the constant flow of news about how red light cameras are failing? They've been installed under the shadow of corruption, they don't increase safety, and major cities are dropping them. Well, the good news is that red-light cameras are on the decline in the U.S. The bad news is that speeding cameras are on the rise. From the article: "The number of U.S. communities using red-light cameras has fallen 13 percent, to 469, since the end of 2012, according to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, a nonprofit scientific and educational organization funded by the insurance industry. That includes the 24 towns in New Jersey that participated in a pilot program that ended this month with no pending legislation to revive it. Meanwhile, the institute estimates that 137 communities use speed cameras, up from 115 at the end of 2011."
From now on, I mandate all sharks on the dashboards of cars, fuzzy dice, and dreamcatchers, be equipped with frickin' laser beams.
The summery and article seems to claim there is evidence that in some cases red light cameras don't increase safety, so they are bad, and moving to speed cameras is also bad. Is there some particular reason speed cameras are bad? Sure, people don't like tickets, but from a safety perspective, are they effective?
Oh no! Bad news is that speeding cameras are increasing. Now we'll actually catch people who are breaking the law. What will they do. Those poor souls.
Yes I'm trolling but I have an honest question for you. What makes you decide it's okay to break the law and then complain about the judicial system's ability to identify that you did? If you have something against the law in question then simply breaking it is unlikely to be the way to get it changed, and at worst quite silly if you complain about subsequently getting caught.
It's one of the few 100% voluntary taxes. You chose to pay it.
to low speed limits are not safe try doing 55 on the IL toll way and you may have trucks on your ass with people in all other lanes blowing pass you.
In Massachusetts, tickets cannot be automatically issued by use of red light cameras (a cop has to issue the ticket), which means all of the cameras on light posts, installed at fair expense, are pretty much meaningless. Speeding cameras probably fall under the same law.
Not that we don't need to enforce traffic light and speeding violations, but automatic ticket issuing systems don't stop the truly dangerous drivers as they are not an immediate deterrent. And automatic tickets piss off the people who get caught in the edge cases (run the yellow a little too late). A cop can focus efforts to pull over the truly reckless drivers and can adjudicate the minor violations in a balanced manner.
Left MS Windows for Linux Mint and never looked back!
Vote for Bernie in 2016!
Is there some particular reason speed cameras are bad?
They are bad (or at least do no good) if they do not slow people down, even worse if they are well marked and do cause people to slow down - a rapid slowdown is often the cause of accidents (as we see with red light cameras) and even if there is not an accident it can create a huge wave of disruption for traffic behind due to a wave effect...
If it's not doing any good, may cause harm, and just exists as an extra tax on the unwary then there's no point in having it.
One other side effect that is not often thought about is that if there are a lot of speed camera around (like in the UK) there are fewer police actually patrolling and stopping people who are actually dangerous (server around other drivers, blocking the left lane, etc) or even just helping motorists with issues if the car has trouble.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
We are all guilty of three felonies a day (google it), and traffic laws (not all laws) are in place to keep us safe... when appropriate.
The problem with automated speeding tickets is that, many times (i.e. no other traffic) there is no safety issue to speeding.
Sounds like another money grab for the overpaid government employee system.
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
Traffic Camera Facial Recognition
Either way, it's coming where it ain't already. Total lockdown, maintained by ... I'll spare you the rant. But for fuck's sake, it's getting nasty.
Well marked cameras placed in areas where they belong are a good thing IMO. However, I often disagree with cities on where they belong. They should go in areas with a lot of accidents resulting from excess speed and in school zones. I could also see temporary ones being put up in construction zones. Unfortunately, cities typically place them to maximize revenue rather than to improve safety.
If they are set up to maximize revenue, aren't they also in places where a lot of people are speeding? The motives might not line up, but the results do.
What?
Speed cameras are a joke. I drive past 5 of them on a daily basis along with 2 red light cameras. Speed cameras produce a safety bubble. People slow down way under the speed limit when they pass them and speed back up as soon as they are out of the line of sight. It is $75 if you get pinged going 12mph over.
My town had a big controversy over one camera where the road went from 40 to 25. It was making a lot of money on this major thru road from one county to the other. They moved it a block down so people could slow down, still gets a lot of people.
Best one was when they installed one right off I-95 and 90% of my co-workers got multiple tickets within the first week of it being active.
Mobile speed cameras are also fun. I got good at spotting the white SUVs randomly parked in the construction zones on the side of the road that could take a photo of any lane.
OH and my town also has FAKE speed cameras! Yes they randomly move a fake camera box around and place it in locations that real ones are not allowed to slow down traffic.
If they are set up to maximize revenue, aren't they also in places where a lot of people are speeding?
That means they are set were the speed most people feel comfortable driving is faster than the posted limit - in other words in places where the limit is wrong, as on average drivers pick a reasonable speed. If you have a lot of people speeding in an area, the limit needs to change - not the people.
The exceptions are places like school zones where there are good reasons why people should be traveling slower than the road allows for.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Places where speed causes accidents is a very small subset of places where people speed. If the cameras cause all places where people speed to become places where they break suddenly and cause accidents, then they hurt far more than they help.
It doesn't hurt to be nice.
We tried this just over a decade ago - and then quickly legislated against it
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/motoring/4751508/Brakes-are-on-speed-cameras.html
Breaking the law is breaking the law. If a cop doesn't catch you a camera should.
Some of those construction zones are there for months on end and with no workers for days at a time. I know I don't always have the patience to deal with ridiculous impositions, but at least with self-driving cars on the horizon, it won't matter for long.
No More Red Light Cameras!!!!!!!!!!!! Yiiipppeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!
We have a few speed cameras in school zones. Supposedly, when the kids are walking to/from school, they drop the school zone speed to 20 MPH from 35, indicate the reduction with flashing amber lights and enable the speed camera.
Except that they turn the damned 20 MPH zone on at random times during the day. No school starting/ending. No recess. But then, when preschool gets out at noon and all the mothers are walking the little kids home, its 35 with no cameras enabled. Its a scam. It has nothing to do with safety and everything to do with catching drivers who see no kids (but miss the warning light) and figure the 35 MPH limit is in effect.
Have gnu, will travel.
Many of the cameras, quite frankly, suck. They sometimes pick up the wrong car, report completely inaccurate speeds, fail in unexpected ways in inclement weather or when vehicles are changing lanes at the wrong moment and you essentially just have to take the manufacturer's word for it that they are basically infallible unless you want to hire an attorney and go through a major ordeal to try to raise doubts otherwise. They MIGHT occasionally (if you're lucky) have a police car drive past the camera, perfectly in his lane holding a perfectly constant speed, on an empty road under perfect weather conditions in a "standard" vehicle and verify that it reports he was going the correct speed. That apparently "proves" the systems is working right...
Just one of many examples nationwide.
I know someone incorrectly ticketed (essentially the laws of physics proved they could not have been going the speed that was claimed, unless perhaps their car had been fitted with an aftermarket solid rocket booster...). It happened to be on a rainy day as well, coincidence?
Ontario had vans with speed cameras in them, and I'd estimate that they knocked about 10km/h off the average speed of highway drivers, reducing speeds to about 2-5 km/h over the limit.
When a new government eliminated them, speeds went back up to the 12-15km/h over the limit over the next month or so. As expected, accident and mortality rates went up as well. Faster cars = less reaction time.
However, nobody was willing to seriously ask the real question. Is freeing up 5-10 minutes of a large number of people's day worth a few lives lost?
no speed camera gets a sharp image of HIS hands.
to low speed limits are not safe try doing 55 on the IL toll way and you may have trucks on your ass with people in all other lanes blowing pass you.
Ironically you bring forth the exact issue that lawmakers are counting on shit like speed cameras to correct. And in short order.
Try exceeding 55 on the IL toll way after you've received your third ticket in 48 hours. You might find the rest of the drivers as cautious as you now are.
Not saying I agree with this police state mentality, but you're not going to win many arguments by using the excuse that 55 is somehow "not safe" because everyone else does 80. Their answer to that problem is speed cameras.
I actually don't mind if there were fewer speed cameras - I don't speed more than 5-7 mph over the speed limit, but I can see that mild speeding on highways rarely cause problems. But red lights? I wish every crossing had them.
Ok, I might be biased because I was hit by a car once (a broken arm but nothing more serious) when crossing a road (on 'walk' sign).
"...a nonprofit scientific and educational organization funded by the insurance industry."
Sounds legit.
There was a stretch of road that I occasionally travelled in the UK, where it had an average speed check (with a low limit) because of road work for, I think, over a year, while just next to this public road is a nice, mostly empty, private toll road. I never saw any work taking place on this public road. I wonder how much the "road work" increased revenue for the toll road.
Years later, after the work has been finished, the speed limit on the public road is 10 mph below that of comparable roads.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
The noPhoto license plate rim defeats these cameras by detecting the flash on the red light or speeding camera and then countering with flashes built into the license plate rim to overexpose the photo. It's similar to the optical slave flashes that photographers have been using for decades now, a flash triggered by exposure to light from another flash.
If they are set up to maximize revenue, aren't they also in places where a lot of people are speeding?
"Places where a lot of people are speeding" != "places with lots of accidents".
If I were driving and broke suddenly, such as in my arm or leg, that'd definitely cause an accident.
Speed cameras have been widespread in most of the western world for decades now. Lately both speed and red light cameras are being replaced with combined enforcement cameras which work as both. Of course, most of the western world does not farm out the contracts for running their system to private companies, so they do not have the same problem of tweaking yellow light cycles to maximize profits, and cameras genuinely are placed where speed and/or red-light running is a genuine problem that is causing accidents.
Big Brother is watching you doing wrong at all times.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
Most studies show that red light cameras work, in that they reduce the overall number of injuries and fatalities (but increase the overall number of accidents), which seems like a pretty desirable benefit to me. People are more important than cars. As someone who is primarily a pedestrian, too many times have I narrowly avoided being hit by a driver who ran a red light, or who turned on a green forward arrow before the light changed to a green circle. I'd be quite satisfied if the people who did that had to pay a fine.
Don't want cities to try gaming the system? Fine, just have the government set rules that remove the incentive. For example, the provincial government could require that the revenue from red light cameras installed by the city goes to the province instead of the municipality, or goes to some sort of charity, or goes into the caisse de depot or CPPIB or something. Cities can install the cameras for safety if they want, but would see no financial benefit.
The big question with speed cameras is whether speeds are properly set for these roads.
There are 3 speeds a road can have:
1.The speed limit set on the road signs
2.The speed that it is safe to drive the road at (which may vary with weather conditions, traffic conditions etc)
and 3.The speed that the majority of the traffic is actually driving at.
Limit #1 (the posted speed limit) should be set at no lower than limit #3 (the limit people actually drive) unless that value is higher than limit #2 (the limit its safe to drive at).
If everyone is driving faster than its safe to drive at, the governments and authorities need to ask why. And possibly introduce safety improvements to the road to make it safer to drive at the speed people are actually driving at.
Places like the bottom of hills where most people are going in access of the speed limit at the bottom but coast back to the speed limit fairly quickly.
There's a bad one I drive regularly, 4 lane divided highway with overpasses, basically a bypass that goes up and down a big hill and when going down the speed limit goes from 80 to 50 km/h about a mile and a half before the light at the end of the road. Everyone slows down at the bottom of the hill on the approach to the light as it is a very safe stretch of road.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
Not really, take open freeway types of places. a great example of this is the Atlanta Beltway where you have a road built for much higher speeds limited to 55 mph.
a great video to see what happens when someone actually makes people follow that speed limit
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
And trust me that there are plenty of examples of this. Personally I've driven in many states on the same conditions of roadways with varying speed limits from 55 (GA) -> 75 (TX) and honestly people don't want to go slow so traffic is generally better in on the faster roads.. BUT that being said i fully agree with limiting speeds in residential areas, side streets, school zones, and any place that has potential for pedestrian traffic.
Also on a random note, bike lanes do not belong on freeways/interstates.. That is just asking for someone to be killed.
'...if only "Jumping to a Conclusion" was an event in the Olympics.'
I hate to say this, because I don't much like them myself, but the best kind of speed cameras by far are the average speed cameras that can be set up to cover the whole length of a set of roadworks (that's what they're used for mostly in the UK, though I think there are some permanently fitted ones in Cambridgeshire) or a 30mph zone (or whatever). You advertise them clearly so everyone is in no doubt at all that they're there (that's a legal requirement in the UK), and they don't cause the same problems that Gatsos do where people drive along fast then slam on the brakes to pass the camera, then speed up again, because there's no point. You can slow down as you pass any one camera, but unless your average speed is within the limit you're caught. On the converse, they don't penalise you if your instantaneous speed drifts a bit high at the wrong moment: as long as you notice, you just slow down a bit more and make sure your average speed is less than the limit. There's the (weak) argument that they tend to cause people to watch the speedo rather than the road, but in modern cars where you can just set the cruise control or the speed limiter that doesn't really happen.
They're so effective I doubt they generate many fines, but that's the point (or should be) - cameras ought to be about reducing speed and preventing casualties rather than revenue generation, and once people get used to these they do the job very effectively. Of course, whether your local government actually wants an effective speed reduction device rather than a revenue generator is another matter, but that's what elections are for...
The problem with the school zone ones are, they obnoxiously are active well outside of school hours, weekends, and holidays. Some are reasonable with allowing 5mph before they go into alert status. Some in the area go to "high alert" with even 1mph over the speed limit -- speed numbers in red with strobing red and white blinking lights around it. Even at 2am. On a Saturday.
I live on a street that used to have a school on it, but the school hasn't been an actual school in at least 4 years (I moved in here in 2011, and it was long abandoned then).
The local council often install radar detectors that flash up your speed. If you're driving in the 5k range below the posted speed limit, they flash up a sign "Warning! School!"
There's one uphill. It's been here for the whole time I've lived here, but the school hasn't been.
This is why I am quite looking forward to fully automated self driving cars. Never again will I get a ticket - or if I do, I can sue the car manufacturer. Of course the game will be up when city politicians realize what these cars mean to their "lost ticket revenues". Isn't entitlement grand?
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Cameras can't pick who they apply the law to
The main issue that is well known in France, is that speed cameras, or whatever automated systems that detects car infractions, are almost never placed in notorious dangerous and killer spots.
These are placed in spots where many infractions happen, long and secure straight highways with a small slope, for instance. So while it probably does no direct harm (other than making people inject less money themselves into the economy), it could do much more good it the states or the cities building those chose the dangerous spots instead... but well, saving lives does not makes as much money.
Speed doesn't just cause accidents, it exacerbates them. Speed limits aren't there just to prevent accidents, but to make them less serious. Speed limits on highways without a divider are commonly 55 while divided is 65 because a collision at 55 is far more survivable than 65. Obviously, in a full-speed head-on, you die either way, but since it would require dropping the speed limit to something that would cause the road to clog due to lack of throughput, they don't account for that.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I'm tired of people going 60mph on a 30mph residential street lined with houses. My mailbox has been hit once, garbage can twice, a neighbor's front yard torn up, and lastly 3 people have died - one being a child. It's also a disturbance of the peace having giant dump trunks floor their accelerator for over a quarter mile at 3 fucking am.
You are wrong. One of the best ways to get a bad law changed is to break it. That's how we ended up with the Civil Right Act being passed in the US, you could ask Rosa Parks about that but she died a couple of years ago. They also passed McCain Feingold campaign finance reform and the number of individual people lining up to pay for TV ads a week before an election skyrocketed because that law was about censorship of individuals who didn't own a news corporation, it got overturned by the SCOTUS.
So just about the most effective and quickest way to overturn bad law is to break it and force them to enforce it and get the bad press. Not sure red light cameras fall in that category, but a poor grandmother who had to adopt her grandchildren because her son is a meth addict and she is unable to pay for 10 tickets she got because her spedo on her pickup is broken would be a pretty good story on the news.
Oh there's the bullshit again. Red light camera's do increase safety. They may not decrease the number accidents but typically DO decrease casualties. But much more important, they reduce innocent victims. Instead of innocent people dying because some idiot slammed into the side of their car, we now mostly have 50% victims that either crashed into another car because they were tailgating and we have 50% victims that were incompetent drivers that failed to appreciate their surroundings, especially the idiot tailgating, and slammed the brakes in a panic.
Even if red light cameras would't increase safety, they would distribute casualties in a much fairer way, lowering the number of innocent victims and increasing the number of not-so-innocent victims. Red-light camera's increase effective self-determination.
0x or or snor perron?!
Traffic engineers know a principle called the "85% percentile", which means that the speed limit should be the speed at which 85 % of people feel safe driving.
Typically, this speed doesn't change, regardless of the posted speed limit. I encourage you guys to check out the short documentary "Speed kills your pocketbook", https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2BKdbxX1pDw (youtube)
I think you could make an argument for speed enforcement cameras provided that the logic of where to place them was safety data driven -- ie, you have solid numbers that show that a specific stretch of road has a high number of speed-related accidents.
I don't think that's how it works, though, I think like squad-car based speed traps they tend to get placed in locations where a higher number of people may get cited because people naturally tend to drive over the speed limit due to the nature of the roadway (good pavement, wide lanes, good sightlines, perhaps even a downhill grade).
Even where the data may show they are of safety value, they only cover a tiny stretch of road. I would tend to think that speed-induced accident zones are likely much larger than the small space a camera system could cover. I'd guess that unless they were portable and moved frequently to saturate the true target area, you might just end up with traffic that gets "camera smart" and merely slows in the camera's footprint (unsafely, even) and then resumes speeding.
I also think the public's appetite for speed cameras would improve if there was more leniency to them -- your first and maybe even second citation from a specific camera is a warning and all subsequent citations from the same camera are fines. Provide an educational motivation first before becoming purely punitive.
I'm curious what law enforcement's opinion of them is -- I can see where the brass involved with budgets and income and safety PR may be in favor of them, but I would think many cops would be opposed, since stopping speeders isn't just about traffic citations, it's an opportunity to question citizens under color of law.
And if your (in the US) FCC legal Part 15 device measuring the speed of your car happens to interfere with other speed measurement equipment (also Part 15), that's just too bad. Shall accept interference, shall not cause interference to other Part 15 devices is the rule.
One should look to the manufacturers of the photo radar for selection of the operating frequency band: after all, they have invested time and money in selecting a band which provides accurate results, and, of course, you want accurate speeds displayed in your car.
It's important that you have a speed display, because just radiating a microwave signal as a beacon might be considered a jammer.
I would suggest an implementation using a pulsed waveform (to get around DC bias drift in the Doppler measurment) with a swept pulse rate (so that you don't happen to coincide with some other pulsed source, most notoriously, fluorescent lights and such). Your receiver knows the pulse rate, but other devices with which you might potentially interfere won't be able to adequately resolve the pulse rate.
The state also has struggled with a ticketing system that requires people who ignore mailed violations to be personally served if the case is to proceed.
Why is ANY system allowed to bypass the service requirements long established in common law and from the Constitution? Postal mail is not service, and never has been, but somehow since there is a camera we throw out due process as too inconvenient? How asinine.
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
For a "backwards redneck red state," South Carolina is doing at least something right.
That we haven't done in the U.S. what seems common in Europe - destruction of speed and red light cameras. There are sites on the web showing the carnage.
That said - the cameras do offer prime hacking targets too.
..., even worse if they are well marked and do cause people to slow down - a rapid slowdown is often the cause of accidents (as we see with red light cameras) and even if there is not an accident it can create a huge wave of disruption for traffic behind due to a wave effect...
I would disagree with this point. I would ask, why would you be speeding in the first place? I could understand that there are certain road that all the sudden drops speed limit (i.e. from 50 to 35 but many people still drive above 50), and those who are out of town wouldn't know. However, driving faster than speed limit in the first place is not an excuse to invalidate the speed limit drop. Also, the huge wave of disruption is another thing. I understand that people would try to keep up with the car in front. So why would the first car in the traffic drive so fast then? Or if you are following someone, you could easily reduce the speed to speed limit anyway. You will get to the destination and will not need to worry about breaking the law. If one argues that the one is in hurry, then blame oneself of not timing one's schedule right. There is no excuse of being caught red handed and as a result causes a disruption/accident from speeding.
Texas has speed limits? Couldn't tell from all the times I've driven there. Even with all the construction that was happening in Dallas, no one went at or under the "speed limit"...no matter if it was sunny, raining, snowing...
I guess I'm just lucky. Almost every school zone in my city also has flashing lights on the signs that only flash during certain times, and the signs all say "when lights are flashing". Personally, I think high schools shouldn't have speed zones. By the time your in high school if you don't comprehend how roads work then maybe you should be removed from the gene pool.
Proved that you can beat these things by driving insanely fast.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
you mean like on freeways where most people go over the limit and accidents are caused more by jackasses that drive erratically rather than people going with the flow of the traffic speed.
I don't have a problem with properly implemented speeding cameras if the speed limits are reasonable, there are posted warnings and the enforcement level only catches the egregious violators, e.g., 20mph over the speed limit, not 5 over. It also needs to be safety-based not revenue-based and any net-profit should go to state coffers, not directly reward the local police departments. If it's really about safety and not revenue, they won't have a problem with this.
Competition Good, Monopoly Bad.
You'll have to do some googling, because I can't remember where I read this.
I remember reading study that asked drivers to say what speed they thought would be good for a given stretch of road. Then they cross referenced those numbers with both actual limits and odds of accident. It turns out, the average posted speed is in the 35th percentile (ie: the posted speed was the same or greater than what 35% of people said was safe) of what people said they felt was safe AND that roads that were in the 70th percentile had the fewest accidents/driver.
A proposed reason for slower roads being less safe was that, when speeds are enough lower than what people think is a god speed, they ignore it. If you think a road should be 55 and it's 50, you'll go 50 and it's still good, but if it's 45, you tend to go 55 and ignore the posted 45.
Personal Anecdote: Driving on I-27 through Chattanooga has a posted limit of 55 in places. If you go that speed, you will get rear ended as most traffic is doing 70-75. n this case, while technically 99% of people are speeding, the one causing the most hazard to traffic is th5 person going 55.
The Point: Cities will put these cameras on nice, big, two lane roads and then post a 35 MPH speed limit to create speeders, just like they created red-light runners by reducing yellow light time to 2 seconds.
A lack of speed also causes accidents. When the speed limit is below what most people are comfortable driving at, then the person obeying the speed limit suddenly becomes a road hazard.
Red light cameras are proven to increase the rate of accidents, not decrease them.
There's nothing wrong with speeding cameras. I don't like the article portraying it as a negative, as if the normal mode of violating the law was encouraged.
What is it with Slashdot and being pro-crime? Speeding, drugs, gambling, prostitution. This place has changed a lot since Dice took it over.
a rapid slowdown is often the cause of accidents "
No, tailgating causes those accidents.
Anyway, if they are well labeled, and don't move, it won't be much of a surprise, will it.
Really, there is no comparison between the two and data from one in no way be used to infer an outcome of the other.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
This is why we need tailgating cameras.
In other words, it isn't the rapid slowdown that causes the collision, it's the excessively close following distance ("driving on a road too close to a frontward vehicle, at a distance which does not guarantee that stopping to avoid collision is possible"). That's why hard braking is legal while tailgating is not.
People know they aren't supposed to speed, so it's really a tax on bad driving. Then people will drive more safely, and those who don't will pay more in taxes so you don't need to. That's two benefits for the price of one, and who doesn't like two-for-one deals?
Any sufficiently unpopular but cohesive argument is indistinguishable from trolling.
I also support razing any town that relies on finning non-residents to fund their government. That's literally taxation without representation.
Facts:
1) The IIHS, Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, SHOULD more accurately be known as the Insurance Institute for Higher Surcharges. They are NOT an unbiased source of data about speed limits, speed cameras, and red light cameras. In some states, their member insurance companies can add obscenely high surcharges to the insurance premiums of policyholders who get caught in speed traps run by either officers or cameras and red light camera traps where the yellow intervals are too short.
2) Red light cameras often INCREASE the total crash rates, but those in the revenue stream from the cameras including the for-profit camera companies, their for-profit government business partners, and the IIHS do NOT care if the cameras cause more crashes - so long at the high profits roll in to the partners.
3) Speed and red light cameras lose money unless the traffic safety engineering parameters are deliberately done improperly. Speed limits must be set lower than their safest levels, and the yellow intervals on traffic lights must be set shorter than the safest lengths for at least 85% of the drivers -- or the total fines will not be enough to even pay the high costs of the cameras themselves. If the traffic engineering parameters are done for safety, you will find NO cameras because they would lose too much money and no governments would use them because MONEY is the first, last, and only purpose for ticket cameras. See our website for the science.
Speed and red light cameras are money grab scams that should be illegal to use in any state, as they are in some already.
James C. Walker, Life Member - National Motorists Association
The "spot" one measures vehicle speed at a particular location that may be identified as an accident blackspot or around an institution like a school or hospital to deter local high or enforce a local speed limit.
The other type, the "average speed" camera initially appeared to deter speeding where roadworks caused narrowing of traffic lanes and the possibility of injury to road workers. This technology is now being more widely introduced to govern speeds along extensive stretches of motorway in the UK (and no doubt elsewhere). A BBC news report highlights the problems that will arise in a few weeks time when an average speed area is to be imposed on the M4 in South Wales.
With average speed cameras, its no use slowing down when you see the camera then speeding up when you're out of sight; it makes a note and sends the time you passed it, and your number plate details to its buddy at the exit of the speed trap area and if your average over the distance is over the limit, then KABOOM!!!! you get a ticket/points off your licence and if the disparity is truely humengous, a set of blues and twos in your rearview mirror.
I've no disagreement with speed cameras in general, its the blanket assumptions made in setting speed zones and the general idea that "speed kills" that annoys me. Too much is doen by means of maps and compasses...
Prove yourself: = "booked". Hmmmmmm...
When the speed limit is below what most people are comfortable driving at, then the person obeying the speed limit suddenly becomes a road hazard.
Nope. When people outdrive their vision and/or tailgate, then they become a road hazard. All else being in order, the person obeying the speed limit is doing nothing hazardous, unless the speed limit is so low that it causes traffic to back up. It's up to you to decide how to react when someone obeys the law. You can see them as a pragmatist, or you can get steaming mad, but it won't change the outcome either way.
Now, I firmly believe that people should get the fuck out of the way and let traffic come through, and I put my driving where my mouth is and if I'm in the way, I do the same. I will pull over into a turnout or onto the shoulder at the drop of a hat — any hat — because I don't personally want people behind me, I don't want people holding me up, and I don't want to be the asshole that people are upset with, while simultaneously (and positively) wanting to make the world a better place by acting like a better person. And, since I am not perfect, I often get angry with people who don't get out of the way when I would like to drive faster. But I don't kid myself that it's their fault that I'm angry. I don't imagine that the road is my personal playground, except in those moments of amazing self-entitlement.
The only time I get really angry any more is when people come into my lane head-on. That makes me quite cross. I consider it a deadly attack on my life, and it's all the more offensive when it is the result of carelessness. Usually, however, it is simple self-absorption: people outdriving their skill level, and not giving two shits about anyone including themselves.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
The technology already exists. If someone can't be arsed to use their turn signal, they probably aren't paying attention to the road. Regardless, they deserve a ticket.
In PA, ours say "when children are present" as it should be-- because I should not be ticketed for some moron having the lights flash at the wrong time, on weekends, in the summer, or on holidays.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
Oh good, a new sport!
'The tyrant will always find pretext for his tyranny.' - Aesop's Fables
When speed laws are enforced by patrol officers, very few offenders are detected and fewer are cited. Officers have discretion to issue warnings instead of citations. Fines are set high enough to scare people into limiting their speed. When a camera is used, almost every offender will be detected, and there will be little means of assessing the seriousness of the offense. In order to resolve this issue, a camera system should be required to detect some significant duration of speed exceeding an enforcement threshold before it issues a citation. It might be necessary to require several cameras to be triggered before a citation is justified.
> then the person obeying the speed limit suddenly becomes a road hazard.
That sounds like a self-justification for your own speeding behaviour.
The problem with vehicles driving at different speeds in a particular area is that drivers have an expectation that others are driving at a similar sped as they are or are within the speed limit or not much above it. If a car wants to change lane to overtake one in front then they check behind. If there is a car in that lane some distance behind then they will estimate the time available based on that expectation. For example a car A doing 40mph (behind another) in a 50mph area wants to change lane, a car B is in that lane 100 yards behind *. At 50mph it will take B 10seconds to catch up, enough for A to accelerate to the same speed (and thus B will never catch up). At 60mph (10 above the limit) B will only take 5 secs. If B is doing 70mph it will be around 3 seconds before he runs into the back of A.
It sounds like you are frequently B and that you think it is A's fault.
It is often not 'a lack of speed' nor 'excessive speed' that results in accidents, it is speed that is not expected by others.
* it is actually quite difficult to accurately judge the speed of a vehicle driving towards you.
Perhaps the cameras that detect you early on could issue a warning (but not bother issuing multiple redundant warnings if you happen to trip two cameras some ways apart but not the one(s) in between). The technology for such things has been available for years (license plate recognition and so forth).
I'd still argue that an officer who can exercise some discretion based on specific circumstances and can issue a real citation that actually has teeth (instead of a simple "speeding tax" fine), when appropriate, is still a better method. There aren't nearly enough officers given the number of miles of road though, and even an expensive and complex camera system is cheaper to procure, operate, and maintain than an additional full time officer and vehicle. As such, there's at least some argument to be made for technology if it actually improves safety, which should be the one and only goal. That has yet to be conclusively proven.
We need something more effective than tickets. I suggest spikes that pop up in front of a speeding car. $600 worth of new tires should be a good deterrent.
It's all about the Benjamins. If there was a cost rather than a net profit safety would be mostly out of mind. I have known Police Chiefs of small towns that when the community gets a little short of funds puts officers out on the highway to bring in a set amount of revenue to cover the shortfall. Welcome to the world. It's not what they say, it's what they really mean. It's the Benjamins primarily.
They are because they create hazards where none need exist but don't really reduce existing hazards. At the speeds cars travel at, they are overwhelmingly technically reliable (i.e. your car is extremely unlikely to malfunction in a way that causes you to dangerously lose control) and we may ignore the danger of e.g. your car overturning on the highway because the front tire blew out which might have been less bad at lower speeds.
Danger comes from motion, then. Speed can be broken up into the average ground-relative speed and the car-to-car relative speed. This is important, because in all circumstances where potential danger is posed by ground-relative speed the safe speeds and the hazard are clearly and distinctly marked (c.f. the "winding country road" with speed signs at every turn, sharp turn markers, rockfall warning signs, etc, etc, etc).
That leaves car to car speed. Outside events which are disastrous at any speed (e.g. falling asleep at the wheel), the threat is essentially by definition posed by the car to car speed: A line of cars following each other with no relative speed is equally safe at 10, 50, 70, or 150 mph because they're not moving relative to each other. The only way a collision can occur is if cars move relative to each other, and this becomes more likely if they are moving fast relative to each other.
This is why RLCs are bad. Why speed cameras are bad. Why the "I radared you and I'm displaying your speed to scare you" signs are extra bad. And frankly, why speed limits themselves (when a cop shows up) are bad: They all cause or create the threat of sudden braking and rapid shear across lanes and panic by previously sedated drivers.
The causes of collisions that a camera can't do anything about are there and will remain regardless: Exploding tires, asleep at the wheel, T-boned because you didn't look before pulling out, etc. But there's no reason to introduce a new danger: Making drivers panic and make aggressive moves that they end up getting rear-ended for.
I'm not just engaging in supposition - it's well established that red light cameras (and the fact that intersection timing has a mysterious tendency to turn stupid in places they're put up) lead to drivers slamming brakes and getting rear-ended. Speed cams that make people panic-brake will have a very similar effect, plus people who don't see the cam dangerously swerving while fuming about the "goddamn moron slowing down for no reason RAGE RAGE RAGE."
Likewise, if there is to be a legally ticketable speed limit (which is about safety and not just a sin tax), I would very much argue it should be more like "local traffic speed, +-5mph". If you go block the left land on the I-5 in the imperial valley going 65mph because "that's the law" when the big rigs do 70 and everybody else and their dog goes 80+ during the day, you're the dangerous maniac, not us. And if I end up on a stretch of the I-80 or I-90 between Rapid City and Albert Lea where I literally can't see another car horizon to horizon and I'm OK getting 10mpg, why shouldn't I be allowed to go 100?
That's the entire point of driving though. We want to get somewhere fast. Otherwise we could set 25mph limits everywhere and be super safe. You can easily reduce your speed to that limit, you will get to the destination without worry about breaking the law. See what I did there?
But we don't. The right question to ask is, why would people drive S L O W in the fast lane in the first place? With no one in front of them and watching with a glazed look as people keep passing them on the right. Let's not forget the law-fearing drivers who respect the speed limit to a T, actively braking and accelerating to avoid exceeding the speed by even a mile.
To quote from a comment on your "don't increase safety" link, "T-bone crashes (which were reduced) are likely to result in more severe injuries than rear-end collisions (which were increased)." The number of crashes may not have gone down in total very much, but red light cameras DO increase safety if safety is defined as the severity of injury to the vehicle occupants instead of the overall number of crashes.