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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."
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?
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
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?
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?
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.
We are typically guilty of three felonies a day due to ignorance, not due to wilful disregard.
The problem with automated speeding tickets is that, many times (i.e. no other traffic) there is no safety issue to speeding.
And you're the best judge for a maximum safe speed of a road? What about some 16 year old kid coming up behind you with no experience? Are you fully aware of your surroundings at all times? Do two identical looking roads have the same chance of someone running out, or you coming in contact with an animal? Nearly always the speed limits are set on common standards for safety, those standards taking into account many things including the fact that not all drivers are graced with your powers of risk assessment.
I also find it funny how you can consider any action that makes a road less safe appropriate given that driving it about the single most dangerous thing we do, and the vast majority of the people on the roads seemingly do it on autopilot.
For the record I do actually agree with you. The risk changes depending on traffic and the time of the day, but it's very hard to make the speed limit variable to meet the conditions (presently I get the royal shits with people who do 40 through a school zone. It's school holidays here and those zones are not in force). Instead the speeds are set for the lowest denominator. That also said, I have yet to see the police being arseholes and putting speed cameras anywhere it didn't make sense. I don't think I've seen a speed camera after 8pm in my entire life, which is good because that's the time I would be giving my donation to the government.
Sounds like another money grab for the overpaid government employee system.
I did say voluntary tax. Consider it a donation. You are 100% within your power to not pay. All you need to do is follow the road rules.
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!
Speed limits should be based on science, not on, "Whatever speed the driver feels is safe enough."
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.
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.'"