This would be a reasonably valid argument if cameras were designed to replace police officers. They’re not. they’re designed to supplement the police officers who are already on duty.
Sure, getting caught by a camera does not have the immediate level of deterrence that getting caught by a cop does. But, once you know you were caught and have to fork over the fine, you might be a little more circumspect in the future.
I’m not saying that cameras aren’t, in many cases, designed mainly as revenue raisers. I believe that they often are. But, even when they are, i still think they can have a deterrent effect.
I should add that, while i’m a bit on the fence about speed cameras, i have no such ambivalence about red light cameras. If you’re the sort of person who blows through red lights, then it’s only a matter of time before you kill yourself and/or someone else. These assholes need to be removed from the road.
I tend to agree.
The whole obsession with an easily-measurable aspect of driving like speed ignores the fact that some people can stay within the speed limit and still be very dangerous drivers. Some of the most dangerous drivers around are the type of oblivious morons who toll around below the speed limit, never using indicators, and generally making life difficult for other drivers by being unpredictable.
Because, for me at least, predictability, is the key in dealing with other people on the road. It’s when people do unexpected things that trouble often occurs.
I agree. And when someone comes down a 25mph road at 40mph, or approach me from behind with a relative speed of 10mph while I’m driving at the speed limit, those are very unpredictable and unexpected events.
But you do have to consider the flow of traffic. There are many highways (mostly interstate highways) where if you actually go the posted speed limit (or less,) it can be dangerous for you and other cars, at least if you do it in the middle/left lanes.
This video demonstrates part of that. Ignoring the pretentious college-student attitude, there is a good underlying point to the video, that not all speed limits are appropriate to the locale. One can easily see the effects of obeying the law and going the speed limit so that “Everyone is safe.” :rolleyes: There are cars passing on the shoulder, and one even clipping a broken-down car on the side of the highway. People were close to dying because of other people obeying the law and being “safe.”
The thing is, a lot of speed limits were set many years ago, when cars, as a whole, were less safe to operate at higher speeds. With more and more cars having better power steering, stability control, etc…, it is a lot less dangerous to drive at 75 MPH than it was twenty years ago. It’s just another case of the law not catching up to the technology, IMO.
Which isn’t to say that gives everyone a right to bitch when they get caught speeding, though. If it’s a residential area, and the highway goes from 55/60 to 30, you have no reason to bitch, unless there really no warning before the speed limit sign itself, and you get pulled over before you have time to slow down for it, which is probably in the minority if cases.
Well, i can’t speak to how people drive in Alabama, as i’ve never been there.
But you could not make this claim in or around any major US city without, IMO, being a either a liar or completely oblivious. Because, like it or not, traffic moving at 10mph over the speed limit (especially on freeways) is neither unpredictable nor unexpected by anyone who drives in major metro areas.
I’m not saying it’s right or wrong, merely that your characterization of it as unpredictable and unexpected is completely misrepresentative for many parts of the United States.
So you don’t think “speed trap ahead” signs encourage the perception that “sign = speed trap, no sign = no speed trap”?
I suppose you’re right. That’s why I keep telling myself I shouldn’t go into these traffic-related debates: every time I come to the realization that people just don’t give a damn about other people’s safety or the rule of law.
Off, yes, but not by a huge margin in my experience. My car has a digital speedometer, so it’s easy to compare with the speed readout on a GPS unit. At an indicated 30mph on the speedo, the GPS reads 27-28mph. At an indicated 70, it’s about 65mph.
So I figure that, allowing for the 10% legal wiggle room, I’m not going to get ticketed at anything below an indicated 82mph, in a 70mph limit.
I am a stickler for respecting 30mph limits in urban areas, though (and 20mph zones, where they exist). If you hit someone, it’s not the speed that matters, it’s the kinetic energy. Double the speed and you quadruple the kinetic energy. Even just driving at 40mph, you have close to double the kinetic energy you would at 30mph (the factor is 16:9).
But they can stand on the corner and if I walk outside my house and deal in plain sight, they’re allowed to notice it and act accordingly.
Speeding in a car on a public roadway is not a private act. It’s much more analagous to waving the drugs around in the air than to having them in my pocket. It doesn’t invade my privacy to notice how fast the car is going whether that noticing is done by human or mechanical means.
Well, I can understand people getting peeved in certain situations. If the speed limit is 50mph and you get caught doing 70–when you’re just going with the flow of traffic, and everyone else is doing it, then maybe 50 is too low for that road under optimum conditions. The law should probably be changed, rather than having a revenue generating device pick off one and another like ducks at a shooting gallery.
But as for people who complain about getting caught by red light cameras, that’s a different kettle of horses. I’m with the OP on that one. If someone got caught in a murder by a surveillance camera, would anyone sympathize with the murderer? Well, being caught running a red light is the same thing, except for the seriousness of the violation.
No. So long as not every speed trap has a sign, the perception would be “sign = speed trap, no sign = might have one, might not, you’re taking your chances if you speed.”
I think that’s a little extreme. I care about safety, I just think safety regulations sometimes go overboard. And I care about the rule of law, but some laws are flawed and don’t deserve the same rigorous obedience as others. Different people have different perceptions of where to draw the line.
I live in the middle of a block. It’s probably a violation for me to walk directly across the street to my neighbor’s house. In order to not be guilty of jaywalking, I’d have to walk half a block to the corner, cross the street, and go another half block to get to a point that’s 25 feet from where I started. But come on, if I can see there’s no traffic on the street, there simply isn’t a safety issue, even though it’s a safety-oriented law. I’d bet that 99.9% of the population sees it the same way. Maybe only 60% (WAG) see driving 5 mph over the speed limit the same way I do. Probably less than 1% agree with the gangbangers who think it’s okay to ignore murder laws if someone insults them.
One way to approach such issues is to take the simple stance that no law should ever be violated under any circumstances. I don’t think that’s feasible. Certain laws, under certain circumstances (like my jaywalking example) don’t require total obeisance, in my judgment.
I think that photo radar and ticketing can be both about funding and safety.
In Scotsdale Az. on Loop 101 they had a photo radar test run last year that went on for 9 months. They made a bunch of money off of it but also reduced the amount of speeding on that strech of the freeway.
They then reinstated it again this year on Feb. 22nd and on the first day after extensive warnings gave over 500 tickets, one for someone going 127mph.
I would say reducing the number of speeders on that section of road from an average of 9000 a day to 800 a day does increase safety.
I don’t have the articles in front of me but there was also a coresponding reduction in the number of accidents.
You try driving 35 on a street where everyone customarily does 50. You will (a) get flipped the bird by the people stuck behind you, and (b) you will create a hazard as those drivers try to merge into adjacent lanes as they try to get out from behind you.
My problem with the red light cameras is in the implementation:
-The lights are timed with short amber durations. cite In my city, the cross traffic does not get a green for approximately 1.5-2 seconds after the light changes from yellow to red. Just “pushing the yellow” is not at all dangerous.
-The fines are totally out of whack. Though asterion is, I think mistaken, the fine for the traffic infraction of running a red light is $15 rather than $10. Yet the fine for the same action established by the camera is $100, $200, $400 for the first, second, third offenses.
We are told that this is to pay for the cameras. Yet we are also told that the cameras replace 8-12 police officers worth of enforcement. I fail to see how those 8-12 officers can be supported for 7-15% of the revenue generated by the cameras. (I’m assuming some repeat offenders to come up with that #) Because there is a compelling public safety concern, it is not expected that the fine compensate the city for the expense of maintaining a police force, yet somehow that same concern can’t justify the expense of a few cameras.
The answer, of course, is that the city is paying a private contractor $70 per ticket to run the camera program. Each ticket is zero cost to the city, and at least $30 profit.
Every day I do 18 mph on streets where the speed limit is 40. On a bike, taking a lane. Of course I keep one eye on the mirror all the time, but nobody seems to have trouble slowing down and/or merging way ahead of time.
You’ve forgotten about the most important variable in this equation, the loose nut behind the wheel. Drivers are no better now than they were many years ago; in fact, I would argue that they are worse. The United States and Canada are two nations full of entitled drivers who treat driving an automobile as a right, not a privilege, and for some reason (I suspect economics), our governments don’t force us to to take proper training to operate these incredibly dangerous vehicles*, and nobody takes the staggering amount of preventable deaths and horrible injuries on the roads seriously. People getting killed and permanently injured daily is just business as usual.
In other words, I agree with the OP unequivocally, with no caveats - you don’t like tickets for breaking laws, don’t break laws. The driving laws we have are an ass-backward way of keeping people safe, but it’s all we have right now.
*This may vary, but anywhere I’ve lived, you only had to pass a written test and a road test to be a licensed driver. You were never required to take any kind of training.
It may not be right, but there are times and places where I believe that insisting on maintaining the speed limit, against the flow of traffic, is going to be far, far more dangerous than simply going with the flow of traffic.
The best example of this I can think of is the section of Rt. 2, in Concord, Massachusetts, in the vicinity of Walden Pond. For the majority of Rt. 2 in Eastern Mass it’s a divided highway, with six lanes normally. For this approximately half mile section of the road, however, it’s four lanes. No division. No shoulder. And a nominal 45 MPH speed limit.
Traffic goes along at 65 MPH. And if you let so much as three car lengths between you and vehicle ahead of you, someone will use that space you’re wasting. If you try to go 45 MPH, I believe it’s fair to say that with the amount of passing that would be going on, remember there is no division between the opposite driving lanes, the chances of someone swerving over into oncoming traffic seem pretty high.
I’m prefectly willing, in most cases, to be a jerk by refusing to go faster than I wish, no matter what traffic may be doing. I’ve never had the courage to do it on this stretch of road.
Well, this is a question of how the lights and the camera are set up.
My point was premised on the assumption that the duration of the amber light is long enough for cars doing the speed limit to come to a comfortable stop, and that the camera would not activate until after the red light is on. If the light/camera setup isn’t fair, then it should be made fair.
Once it is made fair, however, there is no excuse, IMO. In my time here in Baltimore i’ve seen literally hundreds of people accelerate through red lights. Not just amber, but genuine, bona fide red. I also lived near a busy corner for a few years, and saw a whole bunch of accidents caused by just that sort of thing. People who blow through the red, or who don’t make a genuine attempt to stop when they have plenty of time to stop, are a menace on the road, and should be treated accordingly.
I agree that the fines are out of whack. But, if i were in charge, i would correct this not by reducing the camera fines, but by increasing the regular fine for running a red light.
Again, i’m assuming a fair system, in which we’re talking about genuine negligence or inattention, not borderline amber/red infractions where stopping might have been hazardous.
As for enforcement and running the cameras, this is an area where i’m adamantly opposed to private contracting. Something like this should not have revenue as primary motive for the people operating the system. It should be a safety issue, first and foremost, overseen by safety experts and run according to the parameters they set. Revenue raised should be incidental, and the fines should be designed to discourage dangerous behavior, not to compensate for inadequate revenue streams elsewhere.
I have no problem with a legitimate speeding ticket but the last town I lived in lowered all the speed limits the day of incorporation. The worst example was a 4 lane divided higway that went from 60 to 50. that’s 5 mph below a 2 lane country road. And yes, they sit there collecting money at the bottom of the hill. Whatever they think they’re getting in revenue is lost in future business. I take the amount of the ticket and divide it by the city tax rate and spend twice that amount elsewhere.
Laws are there to serve people, not the other way around.
