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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).
word of the day
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.
The computer doesn't lie about the speeding. People are afraid of these traps exactly because they work so well. (and they drive like a-holes)
When the sign says "Speed limit 25 when children are present" then it's not speeding to go 30 when no children are present. People are afraid of these traps because they don't want their money stolen from them by government thugs under the pretense of "safety".
Doing exactly what the article states. Cheating people from their money with questionable tickets..I believe you should be able to fight them, and either A: Get monetary damages or your attorney fee's paid by the state if you used one and you win the case..that will solve a lot of issues right there.
~~"Of course, that's just my opinion. I could be wrong." ~~Dennis Miller
I would like to suggest that our right to face our accuser is being usurped . Some things just shouldn't be automated, even if we are able to.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
These cameras are a scam in almost all cases. Speeding in-of-itself is rarely a safety concern. Speed-limits are artificially too low.
Care to cite your source on this information? I mean other than your rectum.
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.
Absolutely! I, for one, welcome camera-based and other automatic enforcement of speeding and other traffic-laws (such as based on the toll-road receipts). The complaints against the particularly-effective enforcement techniques are misguided and stupid — the laws need to change instead.
I drove on a German "highway" in March. Compared to America's interstates, it is, actually, a pathetic road — mere two or three narrow lanes. But they don't have a speed-limit on many of them anyway... BMWs and Mercedeces were passing me like I was standing — because my rental Jetta could not exceed 200 km/h.
I don't know, why the Germans are so lucky in this regard, but for American elected officials and electorate to get to that, the laws have to apply equally to all — a heartless computer will not "go easy" on a big-busted girl or a resident of the same town (who may have influence on the local police department). It is not going to be racist — nor even accused of being such.
One's "prosecutorial discretion" is another's "selective enforcement" — whatever you call it, it is what allows bad laws to stay on the books... Once all citizens — however upstanding — start getting these tickets, the rising concern will up the limits and cause other sensible changes.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
(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!
http://www.mto.gov.on.ca/english/publications/pdfs/ontario-road-safety-annual-report-2012.pdf
Read the reports, especially page 35 of the PDF, sum the total of accidents and the reason for them, realizing that "speed too fast for conditions" means going at or below the speed limit when the road is not safe for that speed, typically due to ice or heavy rain (ie: For conventional speeding, focus on the "Speed too fast" statistic). Tell me where speeding fits. Well, I'll do it for you. It is the third LEAST likely cause of a collision. The only items ranking below it are, ironically, speed too slow, and driving against traffic.
Those stats are from the government itself, and the government of Ontario along with police officers is working to lower speed limits ostensibly because they are too high and are the largest cause of accidents. Yet their own evidence suggests the opposite.
Now have a look at the most likely cause (other than driving properly), following too close. Ask yourself *why* that happens. Because someone is pissed off at someone driving too slowly for them! Psychologically, excessively low speed limits are increasing the number one cause for accidents.
It seems that most jurisdictions have got around the right to face our accusers and cross examine them in court by modifying the statue and removing the criminal penalties for moving violations which makes it strictly an administrative/civil matter. Since there are no longer criminal penalties all of those pesky constitutional guarantees fall to the wayside.
Oh, you didn't pay your ticket? Well the vehicle that the ticket was issued against can't be registered and will be impounded on sight - and the owner driver's license can't be renewed either until the (increasing amount of) fines are paid in full.
I don't know the case for Chicago, but Seattle's traffic ticketing cameras are run by a private contractor. It works like this: the city doesn't have to pay to install or monitor or maintain the equipment and doesn't even own it, but is assured of its accuracy and, of course, a substantial cut of the revenue. Reports roll in of notably increased 'safety' at the monitored intersection, (yet it's not clear who prepares this data). Does a private interest which understandably wants to maximize its profits being able to assess violation fines from the public concern you? it sure as hell does me.
Contrary to popular belief, whether or not something can be sourced has no bearing on whether it is actually true.
So, you're just making facts up and when someone calls you on it, you dismiss it with a pithy (and profoundly stupid) remark? Might I suggest a career with Fox News or the Daily Mail?
A couple of seconds spent on an internet search shows that speeding is, in fact, a safety concern. Apparently a big one. There are literally reams of data showing that speeding contributes to a significant number of accidents.
Not to mention the fact that for anyone who's ever driven a car, the notion that speeding is dangerous IS COMMON FUCKING SENSE.
I would like to suggest that our right to face our accuser is being usurped . Some things just shouldn't be automated, even if we are able to.
It exposes the highway robber nature of government, as opposed to the caring safety monitor meme it is wrapped in.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Yeah, one of the things we've heard cities do is make the length of yellow lights shorter so they can maximize revenue at the red-light cameras.
I once got an automated ticket for running a red light.
Essentially I was doing the speed limit (it was a 4 cylinder Jeep, speeding wasn't really an option) ... when the light went yellow I was close enough to the intersection I had to decide if I would slam on my brakes and make a panic stop, or acknowledge no way in hell I can stop.
At the time I decided in the remaining 30 feet or so no way I could safely stop.
By the time I'd got 35-40 feet, the light had already changed to red. That triggered the threshold for the red-light camera ... it doesn't care, you passed the line after it went red. There was less than 3 seconds between the yellow coming up and the red coming up, and not nearly enough space to stop in.
The problem with law enforcement by automation is there is zero room to say anything about it, or point out how the light was impossibly short.
And then people are left trying to explain how it simply wasn't getting the whole idea of what happened because it's a simple binary decision.
It's actually scary to see how short some yellow lights are, especially when there is a traffic camera involved. It's like they know damned well you have no chance in hell of stopping, but since it generates more revenue they should keep doing it.
With a human police officer I could say "look, I was here, I was going this fast, stopping would have been unsafe and dangerous". Instead you have a computer which spits out something which says you're guilty, and has no context for anything else.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Even this won't help that... First, it is the City of Chicago that's collecting the fines and they won't share with the state. Second, the state claims to have the money but until the state has a budget so it can buy the blank checks, the envelope and the stamp to put on it (not to mention pay the person to print it, stuff it and drop it in the mail) NOBODY except the state legislators will a check from the state....
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
Speeding fines were set back in the days when it required a cop to catch them. The fines were considered fair back then. Deterrent math works out like this:
Deterrent factor = (Likelihood of getting caught) X (fine when caught)
Another reason for fines might be to pay for the cost the society must bear for the fallout from the transgression. This math works out to:
Money available to fix mess = (fine amount) - (cost of catching and processing violators)
In both cases, automating the process of issuing speeding tickets should result in lower fines. If the fine is being used as a deterrent, the likelihood of being caught went up, so the deterrent capability of a given fine amount is greater. If the fine is being used to compensate society, automation should reduce the cost, therefore reducing the amount that needs to be collected.
Here's where your attitude comes in: if the fine amount was acceptable twenty years ago, then it is outrageous in areas with cameras. We should all be fighting against them.
Another thing - these traps don't actually work so well. Violators have much less recourse to address mistakes in the system, and every time someone looks into one of these systems, they are rife with mistakes. Also, they tend to hit the same people over and over again. If they put a camera on your path from home to work, you are thousands of times more likely to be caught than if your path to work didn't happen to go by a camera. Where to put them is a political process, not an engineering process, so it is always abused. Also, going ten mph over the speed limit doesn't raise reduce road safety very much. Almost all of these tickets are bureaucratic victories, not safety victories. Finally, because the same people tend to get hit over and over again, there has been a recent trend of people simply letting the state take their license instead of paying the fines. Once they are driving without a license, there is really not much to hold over them. It's either let them go or put them in jail. Letting them go is admitting that the fines aren't worth it, and jailing them costs way more than the societal cost of speeding was in the first place, so everybody loses.
It is government's job to prove the law is useful, not just assert it while mandating ticket quotas.
"But they aren't quotas! They're Minimum Recommended Cash Flow Activation Vector Data Points To Continue Supporting Government In The Manner To Which It Has Become Accustomed!"
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
While accidents at higher speeds are likely to be worse simply because more kinetic energy is involved, there's a difference between speed limits being low and speeding causing accidents. It doesn't matter what the speed limit is if they are vehicles that aren't adhering to it (either going too fast or too slow) as that's what tends to disrupt traffic and cause accidents more than the speed itself.
It could also be that if you set the speed limit artificially low, that it makes the problem worse as there are more people willing to exceed it than there would be if it were raised slightly.
They're betting on the fact that it will usually be more expensive for you to challenge the ticket than to pay it. Even if you convince the judge to throw it out, you're still out the time spent fighting it, which is the better part of a day if you're lucky (worse if not).
Furthermore, they really don't care at all about safety. Studies have shown that while this sort of thing reduces T-bone incidents (which were rare to begin with), they cause a much greater increase in rear-end accidents because people wind up slamming on the breaks to avoid the sudden red light. Studies have also shown that there's a much more effective way to increase intersection safety, such as longer yellow lights, and/or a 1 to 2 second "all red". Of course, neither of those generate tons of money for the municipal government, let alone the camera company.
So, if you actually bothered to look into the laws of Illinois, you'd find that a school zone sign says the following:
"SPEED LIMIT 20 ON SCHOOL DAYS WHEN CHILDREN ARE PRESENT"
No flashing lights indicating when (e.g. in Ohio, it's a school zone when the MPH is lit and the yellow lights are flashing), and so on. To add to the confusion, good luck finding "regular" (non-school zone) signs in Chicago. Supposedly that's 30 MPH when no sign is present, but unlike the suburbs, they don't have that info on signs at the city border...
To add, back in the early 80s, due to the confusion over this sign, a state attorney general put out some guidance saying that a police officer needs to see a "student" (e.g. a child under 18) within eyeshot, when school is in session. These speed cameras don't do that. (Of course, state law could be changed to have times or flashing lights, but that hasn't happened). Then, Rahm & the camera companies wanted to put wide-angle lenses to see what "children" could be found, but then parents started filing lawsuits about faceless red-light camera companies taking pictures of their children, for the benefit of the camera companies. (Not sure what happened with that...)
To add, about a year ago, a lawyer filed a class action on these cameras, because people got school zone speed camera tickets on a Sunday evening in July...
So, sooner or later, a court will rule against the city, and quite badly... Heck, refunds are already happening en masse...
Windows 3.1x calc: 3.11 - 3.10 = 0.00
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.
One of the best perks of living in MN: :)
These got their day in court a number of years ago and LOST! Photo traffic enforcement is unconstitutional according to MN's version. A real cop has to do his job for you to get a ticket.
True, but if you'll recall, the claim was, "Speeding in-of-itself is rarely a safety concern." Safety is determined not just by the frequency of crashes but also the severity of the crashes. The severity is proportional to the kinetic energy, which in turn is proportional to the square of the velocity. So the original claim is obviously false.
If people stopped tailgating and otherwise driving recklessly, crashes involving slow-moving vehicles would go way down. Traffic cameras can help, if you believe the fines are a deterrent to speeding.
Any sufficiently unpopular but cohesive argument is indistinguishable from trolling.
I live next an elementary school, posted speed limit is 20 mph between 7:00 and 5:00. A few months ago they installed a sign that displays your speed and flashes a bright strobe if you exceed 20. 24/7. You'd think it would be trivial to add a timer to a device that contains a plethora of LEDs and a radar gun, but apparently not.
Never let a lack of data get in the way of a good rant.
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.
It only took 1 ticket to convince me to keep the bike rack on my car at all times...
Yeah, I got nailed in a neighboring town which couldn't be bothered to do any more than the "when children are present" hiding-in-plain-sight signage. And the school in question was not visible from the road you're on, given it's laterally a full block away, but was apparently close enough to justify the sign. I simply had no idea it was a school zone, and no idea when the school zone hours are enforceable even if I had known. Despite the hard-ass reputation of the local cops for that town, he let me off with a warning.
In the end I had to go look up in the town's by-laws (fortunately web-accessible) to determine what that town's ordinances are for a school zone and what the hours they are in effect. Even with only getting the warning I was feeling entrapped and pretty annoyed.
I'm more and more noticing that my own town seems to actually care about child safety, as the school zone signs are large, with two lights (one above, one below) that alternate in their flashing. It's pretty hard to miss. And all the ones I've seen are actually within sight of the school in question. They do occasionally post a cop at the school to crack down on the inevitable "I'll slow down but not close enough to the school zone speed limit" offenders, which I take to be a good faith effort to demonstrate that they are serious about enforcing speed in the zone.
I had another case where I wasn't let off the hook. Again, this was another "main road, not enough indication the speed zone is in effect", and in this case the zone was so small and the sight lines so short that you all but had to slam on the brakes if you didn't know it was coming, otherwise you were over the limit and they got you. Initially I passed it off as bad luck being in an unfamiliar area during a crackdown period. But I happened to be back that way the next week and saw another unfortunate driver pull over in the same spot. That tells me that particular town is more interested in revenue than child safety.
The most effective way to improve safety is to do what Austria does - a blinking green light indicating it is about to turn yellow, and an appropriately timed yellow for the speed limit of the road. Note that Austria also has no "All Red" lights. When the light turns yellow, those waiting also get a yellow, like the countdown to green for a drag race.
The one thing I'll note - very very few red light runners in that area of Europe. Oh, they also use red light cameras, and the "entered on a yellow" is not an excuse, but an admission of guilt.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
Fun story, I lived in crook county for a time, whilst going to school. One day I received a letter informing me of a parking ticket, alleging a vehicle with my plate number blocked a receiving dock at some theater I've never been to, and that they were going to send it to collections for being unpaid. I called the campus cops to dispute the ticket, and they wouldn't have any of it.
Fortunately, I was at work l that day, and had my time sheet as evidence. They still gave me shit.
Also - not everyone that drives fast is an ahole. And not everyone who drives the speed limit is NOT an ahole.
Agressive and inattentive drivers are the problem - slow or fast. Speed cameras and other forms of photo enforcement, however, are just safety theater that happen to make a buck or two for the camera companies.
On Arizona's ugly history with speed and red light cameras (short, short version):
Former governor Janet Napalitano signed a contract for Redflex to put up cameras (fixed and mobile) everywhere in 2008. Janet actually labeled her statewide speed camera system as a revenue source in one of her AZ budgets - but still claimed it was all about safety. Peace didn't ensue, however, and accidents didn't suddenly drop way off (they dropped, but that was ultimately proven to be because of the recession dropping the number of drivers). While some drivers noted that it was "a nicer drive" and not as crazy on the roads, other drivers just accelerated and slowed down between cameras. Angry pro-camera people started driving like self-righteous assholes - refusing to "bow" to speeders. Some of them set their cruise control to just over the speed limit to avoid tickets, while blocking all lanes ("Move over for faster drivers? WHY? JUST SLOW DOWN!"). Anti-camera and/or aggressive drivers got really pissed off and were madder and more aggressive than ever. The rest of AZ just ignored the whole thing - unless they suddenly got flashed in the "high revenue" locations where they weren't "speeding" in their minds. (Cameras were being placed in locations to maximize revenue (where 65 dropped to 55 on interstates, at the bottom of declines/hills, etc.) Soccer moms and grandparents who loved the cameras early on would suddenly turn on the system when they got a ticket they felt like was nothing more than a speed trap. The public debate on and offline turned ugly, with vandalized cameras (including an axe wielder on an interstate), monkey mask rebels ignoring cameras, freeway and local/city protests, court backlogs (years behind), dodged process servers, etc. There was even a fatal freeway shooting of a camera van operator by a really angry "patriot" (he's still in prison, AFAIK). When the CEO of Redflex wasn't bribing city councils, she was weaving tales of blood and gore on the highways if the cameras were ever turned off.
After Janet bailed on AZ in late 2008 to cash in her chips in DC, any attempts by certain GOP state legislators to get a bill on the Gov. Brewer's desk to ban photo enforcement were blocked by camera company lobbyists and a GOP state house speaker that loved photo radar. The tech was seemingly here to stay.
Then Gov. Jan Brewer - yes, the Obama finger wagger and racist-sounding SB1070, "unshackle the police to catch illegals" signer - did the right thing and refused to renew the statewide contract with Redflex - effectively pulling the plug, and turning the heat down. One group (Camerafraud) was coming close to getting a ban on the ballot as a proposition for statewide vote, but after Brewer's contract cancellation they came up about 40K signatures short (120,000 were gathered) because removing the state speed cameras seem to calm enough people down as a compromise. It never ONCE came to a full vote.
Now the state is seemingly in a ceasefire state on the issue. Most people don't care about it anymore - at least as long as the state speed cameras don't come back. At the city level, certain municipalities have stubbornly held onto them for revenue, but most AZ cities got tired of getting screwed over by Redflex and ATS contracts where they actually lost money while the camera companies made serious coin.
Amazingly, after all of that occurred, there are STILL plenty of Arizonans who believe their short-sighted, 90IQ beliefs about photo enforcement, like: "if you don't do anything wrong, you won't get a ticket," "I don't speed - so who cares?",
My guess ... from a certain angle it blocks the license plates -- no plate, no ticket. ;-)
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
> 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.
In Montgomery County MD they use traffic camera vans that they drive out and park on the side of the road. Locals obviously know but outsiders do not. Any ways, out in Poolesville, MD they took the plate off of the traffic camera van, put it on a similar van, and sped past many times racking up huge points and fines.
Chicago is the "Fuck you! Give us our money!" capital of Illinois, the "Fuck you! Give us our money!" state.
Contrary to popular belief, organized crime in Chicago wasn't stamped out in the 20's and 30's.
Nope. All the crooks went into local government because there were more (and more lucrative) opportunities to steal, legally.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Not in California then? California has laws that specify the minimum time the yellow light must be active, based on the speed limit in force at the intersection. A city near me had to refund thousands of tickets when it was caught operating a set of traffic lights with the yellow light time too short.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
And all the farmers driving their tractors on the road. And bicyclists. And the Amish.
All of those are banned from the interstate. They are limited to slower and smaller roads, ones appropriate to that type of vehicle.
Do you think the fastest 15% of the people on the road (the speeders) should determine the speed limit? That sounds like an extremely bad idea to me.
I'm telling you what the traffic safety experts recommend after years of study. That you object to reality will not change it.
Common sense is rarely right when applied to a subject you don't have actual knowledge of. That you think it's a bad idea is proof that you are both ignorant of the topic, and arrogant about your ignorance at the same time. A lethal combination.
I'd like to look at the data. Could you provide a link to this information?
You obviously have no idea what you are talking about. Where to start? Go to http://www.nhtsa.gov/FARS and run 1000 or so search queries on every topic you want. Most of the "studies" are re-statements or analysis of FARS data, as it's one of the most complete databases of its kind in the world (yes, much of the rest of the world builds local law based on US-only data, as it's the best source for the data). Then go to https://www.motorists.org/ and see what they have on how to set a proper speed limit. The NMA will have lots of cites, no need to repeat them all here for someone that's demanding "citation needed" as a dismissive, rather than an honest query. If it was and honest question, why did't you google https://www.google.com/search?... or https://www.google.com/search?... ?
The answer is, you don't actually want an answer, you just want to argue. When the two most obvious search strings I think of give first links to TXDoT and USDOT manuals recomending setting the limit at 85% for optimal safety, why would you question it? Where did you get your traffic engineering degree? TTI, as an engineering extension to Texas A&M is a good place to start.
There, cites, and hundreds of hours of work to educate yourself. Thousands of hours of work if your mind is as closed as it appears.
Learn to love Alaska
First, there is a difference between going at a speed appropriate to road conditions that happens to be above the speed limit (often the safest speed, depending on how fast other traffic is going), and going at a speed inappropriate for conditions.
Second, is this an account of what the people in accidents are doing? Driving slower than prevailing traffic disrupts it and increases the chance of other people having accidents.
Third, this looks like totals of accidents caused by X, not how safe or dangerous X is. I'd imagine that driving the wrong way on a one-way road would be pretty dangerous, but very few people do it, so it's low on the scale. If many more people exceed the speed limit than drive below the minimum speed, there will be more accidents while speeding than going slow even if it's safer.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes