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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
http://www.ct.gov/dot/LIB/dot/documents/dresearch/JHR_09-321_JH_04-6.pdf
Drivers pick a speed based on how the road is built not the speed limit. Travelling above the speed limit has no correlation or often an inverse correlation with accidents. Try Google you twit. That was in the first page as well as similar statements from the Wisconsin DOT and some wankers from Canada.