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Chicago Sends More Than 100,000 "Bogus" Camera-Based Speeding Tickets
Ars Technica, based on an in-depth report (paywalled) at the Chicago Tribune, says that the city of Chicago has been misusing traffic cameras to trigger automated speeding tickets. In particular, these cameras are placed in places where there are enhanced penalties for speeding, putatively intended to increase child safety. The automated observation system, though, has been used to send well over 100,000 tickets that the Tribune analysis deems "questionable," because they lack the evidence which is supposed to be required -- for instance, many of these tickets are unbacked by evidence of the presence of children, or were issued when the speeding rules didn't apply (next to a park when that park was closed).
False. It can clap a number on any car going by.
Problem is that speeding and red light cameras are easily abused. I remember talking with someone related to this, and even though it shouldn't be possible, he said that the red light cameras he put up had the ability to flip a green light red, pop the picture, flip it back to green, as well as just have varying yellow light timings, so one car may have four seconds... another, late at night, may wind up with a direct green -> red transition and a ticket.
Once you have a private party that can allege something that can't be disproven, it is ripe for abuse.
Well, if the signs say "speed limit is x between the hours of y and z", and the ticket is issued at z+c ... then the ticket isn't valid.
I'm not saying people don't speed (not even a little). But I will readily believe these things don't align with the law, and give tickets which are incorrect because they aren't accounting for time of day.
Often these are set up to just call everything a ticket, and collect extra revenue. If that's by policy or incompetence that's not always clear.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
(1) go to the local police station, city offices, courts, city hall and make a note of a bunch of license plates in the employee lots.
(2) print out paper license plate sized versions of the plate numbers
(3) park a car at the speed sensor.
(4) tape a paper copy on the back of the car
(5) cover a softball with tin-foil
(6) play catch in front of the speed sensor
(7) repeat for all your fake license plates
(8) ?????
(9) Profit!
I used to live in Alaska. I was traveling down a busy road one day and saw the light ahead of me turn yellow. This intersection was well know for being covered in ice. I also knew that my vehicle would not be able to stop in time on the ice. I was going to end up in that intersection weather or not I wanted to.
I ran the light.
I was promptly pulled over. The police officer asked me why I ran the light and I told him I saw the light turn yellow, knew I would not be able to stop so I didn't attempt to. I also knew that there was a delay in the winter of 3-5 seconds so that all four directions showed red. I told him I felt it was safer for me and the other drivers if I made it through the intersection instead of skidding and sliding to a stop in the middle of it, with a good chance of me facing the wrong direction or hitting traffic waiting for a green.
He advised me to keep it in mind to slow down some even for green lights in icy weather and told me to have a nice day and to drive safely.
A camera would have sent me a ticket, which gives me the perverse incentive to try to stop even when I know doing so is dangerous.
Cameras are not always the best answer, no matter what you think.
When I drove for UPS they teach you to always be wary of "stale" green lights.
That is, if you didn't see the light go from red to green, you have no idea how much time is left on the clock and should be prepared to stop.
So they taught us to take our foot off the gas and be ready to apply the brake up until about 30 feet before the light, then, if it still had not changed to yellow, clear the intersection by scanning both directions, then accelerate slightly to the other side of the intersection.
Of course, we were also taught that ALL accidents are your fault no matter percentage the law may assign to an outcome.
My eyes reflect the stars and a smile lights up my face.
A traffic engineer once explained that the American highway system was designed so that cars would be able to go 100 MPH safely (with regard to curves, etc.) And that was using assuming the tech of the time.
Your ad here. Ask me how!
Those factors combine to a bathtub graph of safety that's centered *above* the speed limit. Generally because the speed limits are set too low, often illegally so. I remember (pre-Internet, so I didn't find a cite, feel free to look it up in a library, none near me carry the Dallas Morning News from the '80s to search) when Dallas set the speed limits on the road so low that they violated state law. Eventually, Dallas changed the limits, after the DMN ran a story explicitly stating that the speed limits on a number of highways in Dallas were illegal, so no speeding ticket would survive a trivial challenge in court. The rules in Texas at the time (I have no idea if they are still the same) were that the speed limit must be based off the 85% speed, as measured by best practices. Dallas didn't do this, and instead just set limits based on what they think the roads should be marked at. And thus, the limits themselves were illegally low.
That kind of illegal activity to make our lives less safe is common. That wasn't the only case, but was the only one for where I lived while it happened.
If people stopped tailgating and otherwise driving recklessly, crashes involving slow-moving vehicles would go way down.
And if slower traffic took slower routes, or just kept right religiously, crashes for everyone would go down even more. Blocking traffic is illegal as well. Pull over all the slow cars and ticket them, and safety will be increased more than removing the fast cars.
Learn to love Alaska
> Out in the burbs your effective sight distance increases at night as you can see headlights before you can actually see the car.
Only if they have their headlights on. Effective sight distances _decrease_ for pedestrians, cyclists, dogs and much else.
In my experience, those that speed and defend the 'right' to do so, fail to notice the actual problem. The problem is that others on the road, non-speeders, pedestrians, children, have an expectation that cars will be driving at or around the limit for that area. Seeing a car at a certain distance they estimate the time available on that expectation. They step out on a crossing, or turn into the road with that expected time available. The speeder arrives sooner and there is an accident. The speeder thinks it is the other person's fault because they don't understand the problem.
> Traffic camera do nothing but further erode our civil liberties and as a hidden tax.
Speeding may be eroding _other_peoples_ right to be safe.