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."

Comments

Oh noes!

[thegarbz]

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.

Re:Oh noes!

[iggymanz]

drive the speed limit on one of the major tollways in IL and then ask your question again after you get shaken up by a few near rear endings, those jake-braking truckers laying on their horns coming up to your trunk should do it. I'd rather be safe, thank you.

Re:Oh noes!

[Anubis IV]

Traffic laws don't exist for their own sake. Their primary purpose, above all else, is to keep drivers safe. Likewise, the entire purpose of fining someone is to encourage safe driving behavior (the only ticket I've ever received even said so right on it). Most importantly, no one should have to choose between being safe and being fined for breaking the law, nor should there be automated systems put in place that exacerbate the problem by fining drivers for safe driving habits.

Take, for instance, Interstate 10 through Houston. It's well-marked, Its lanes are wide, its lines of sight are clear, its curves are gradual, and its traffic (usually) moves at a brisk pace since the road was designed to run at around 70 mph, yet its speed limit is 10 mph beneath that for reasons unrelated to safety (i.e. city ordinances related to smog). As you might imagine, the speed limits along I-10 are routinely ignored by the vast majority of drivers, since the roads were designed for higher speeds, yet some drivers take it on themselves to impede the flow of traffic by going 10-20 mph below everyone around them, simply because that's what the speed limit sign says. The inevitable result is a less safe road for everyone as the other drivers are forced to react to the obstruction in their path.

In fact, I-10's speed limits are so out of whack with what makes sense that Wikipedia even details the changes to its speed limits over the years on the other side of Texas as a paradigmatic example of the arbitrariness of speed limits.

Besides the validity of the limits themselves, there's also the question of whether or not policing them with stationary sentinels creates a safer road. One unsafe driving habit that's common in many areas is slamming on brakes at the top of a hill because drivers have been trained to assume that there's an overzealous cop with a radar gun on the other side, waiting to chase down anyone foolish enough to go even a fraction above the speed limit. If speed traps are causing that response, are they serving the public good? Hell no! In fact, just a few weeks ago I saw an accident and was in a near-collision myself because of exactly that driving habit.

At least with cops, many of them understand the distinction between "legal" and "safe" and know that these laws are intended to serve public safety, so they'll ignore someone safely driving with traffic at a speed that's technically breaking the law. I'll routinely see good cops like those going 10-20 mph over the posted speed limit, along with the rest of traffic. A speeding camera, however? At best, it'll determine the average speed of traffic and will pick out the outliers. But who are we kidding? In practice, these will be configured to get people who go X over the speed limit, where X is some value between 0 and whatever is far enough above the limit that the politicians don't have to deal with a public outcry. They're little more than automated versions of the worst kind of cop.

They aren't keeping drivers safe. They're just keeping us in line.

Re:Oh noes!

[AbRASiON]

In Australia we have a 3km/hr threshold on speeding fines.
In a 100km/hr area, doing 104km will net you a 160$ fine.

Conversion for the Americans, doing 64.62m/hr in a 62m/hr zone will cost you 132$ US
That's only 4% faster than the posted limit.

We also have a demerit point system, you can lose 1/3/6 or all 12 points depending how much more than the limit you were doing.
On public holidays, Christmas and certain 'seasons' of the year where they want to make for 'nice holidays' - the demerit points and the fines are doubled.
Penalties listed here
http://www.arrivealive.vic.gov... [vic.gov.au]

I don't have a major issue with speeding fines in general, I have a major issue with 'permanent' speeding cameras which send you a letter for speeding, a week after you were speeding. If it's such a genuine offense, dangerous to others and yourself -then surely an officer should pull you over and explain the situation, perhaps your speedo is out? Perhaps you're in a bad mood and a warning (and fine?) will bring you back to reality.
A letter in the mail does no such thing, it's a pure tax days after the offense occurred.

In fact, our threshold of getting a fine was around 10km/hr around 8 to 10 years ago but when people got so sick of paying fines thanks to permanent cameras, they stopped speeding so much. So they reduced the threshold to this low 3km/hr due to the government 'losing revenue'

An interesting story is a tunnel which was built around a decade ago which went underneath a river, the tunnel has multiple speed cameras in it which no one knew about, this new tunnel was extremely convenient and was heavily used in it's opening month. Thousands upon thousands of people used it daily not knowing about the cameras inside the tunnel.
The speeding fine system was so overloaded from all the tickets to be sent to people that the delay was up to 30 days before receiving the fine (and demerit points) in the mail.
There are many stories of people opening their mail a month after the tunnel opened to get a letter with a fine.
Then the next day, the opened their mail to get a letter with a fine.
Then the next day (you see where this is going) people lost their licenses and had thousands of dollars in fines, clearly their incredibly dangerous behaviour which should be stopped immediately was ok to be allowed to continue for a month...

We also have a default speed limit for suburban areas, which was 60km/hr if no speed was posted, this too was dropped to 50km/hr in the state, making drivers trip duration longer, yet the vast majority of fatalities are not at this speed. I personally recall when this was introduced, (near the same time as the 3km/hr threshold) that I found myself looking at my speedometer almost religiously, so worried about getting a fine it was becoming a distraction to driving.

I've also been told of a perm speed camera installation in New South Wales (NSW) in an area where NO ACCIDENTS HAVE OCCURRED - a camera was put at the bottom of a large 'dip' on a large highway (no oncoming traffic) Many trucks and vehicles opted to 'speed up' for inertia to get up the other side of this large hilly area, it's significantly easier on the motor, fuel economy etc. Yet a camera was installed here to catch people speeding up.

Finally you can also see statistics on how significantly better the road toll is here.
http://www.infrastructure.gov.... [infrastructure.gov.au]
We've got more people on the road than ever, yet an incredibly low road toll, none the less for the sake of "safety" fines consistently are going up.

Consider yourselves lucky over there just how few speeding fines are actually issued and also how relatively easy it is to get out of them, over here it's near on impossible to get out of one.

Re:Oh noes!

[Kernel Kurtz]

The best way to remove the tax grab aspect is to always plead not guilty to any traffic tickets. You are (at least around here) entitled to your day in court. Even if you know you are guilty, taking up court time and having someone come and testify against you makes your case almost always a money losing proposition for the government.

The more people who fight their tickets the more money the government loses. If everyone opted for their day in court, tickets would only be handed out for actual safety reasons, since enforcement would cost money rather than raising it.

It depends...

[NotQuiteReal]

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.

Re:It depends...

[Imrik]

All google returns is a book that suggests that we are all guilty of three felonies a day and other results based on the book. Other than giving money to the author for his sensationalist title I can't find any way to verify whether this is true.

Speeding not always an issue

[SuperKendall]

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.

Re:Speeding not always an issue

[tom229]

You're being obtuse just for the sake of arguing. Anyone who knows even 1 traffic cop can tell you that they have, what they call, "honey holes" or "fishing holes". These are areas usually at the bottom of a hill, coming onto or off of a highway, or in places where its unclear if you've transitioned to or from a highway or normal city street.

There is no magical perfect science figuring out speed limits. They are always either 30, 50, 80, 100, or 110km/h in my area. There are many areas of my city where 50 is too slow, but 80 is probably too fast... so the limit defaults to 50. And traffic police will routinely sit at these "fishing holes" and pull over anyone missing that mark by a mere 10km/h (the lowest deviation they can write a ticket for). They also always seem to be set up at the end of the month too. What a coincidence.

Re:Are speed cameras bad?

[sjames]

So the speed limit should be zero for maximum safety, right?

Re:Are they good? No.

[Ichijo]

a rapid slowdown is often the cause of accidents (as we see with red light cameras)

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.

just exists as an extra tax on the unwary

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?