We had a speed camera here (Albertan city) that was put out of commission by a rifle shot. That was some years ago, and charges ensued. Regardless, it was on a straight stretch of road, with very few intersections or pedestrian crossings, and an unreasonably low speed limit. Gives a lot of credence to your earlier assertion that speed cameras are more for generating revenue than they are for traffic safety.
The thing is, though, this camera is right in my neighborhood and especially on the northbound lanes it was getting lethal out there before the camera went in. People turning off a major arterial, then two travel lanes that invite speeding, a downhill slope that makes it worse, then a very trafficked bike trail crossing. Right where the camera is now I’ve clocked cars hitting nearly 60mph and the level of accidents was getting insane so I’m reluctantly in favor of this particular speed camera, it’s doing good work.
You will get a pretty clear correlation of opinions about revenue raising with people who have been pinged.
It is a hard call. Fines are a clear deterrent, and there is no doubt that, done right, cameras do reduce bad behaviour. But the allure of revenue sees some cameras placed where they raise the most rather than do the most good. Even then, nobody is forcing drivers to break the law.
Not a great deal different to taxes on tobacco.
UK the slck is 3 MPH + 10%, so in 30MPH zone, it is 36 and in 60 MPH zone it is 69.
But it also depends on the time and place, for example, outside school the authorities are strict during school times. (I drove passed a school at midnight well over the speed limit and the speed camera flashed, but I got no ticket).
The UK seemed to me to be very inconsistent. Motorways seemed to require 80mph otherwise you got mown down by traffic. The fast lane was even faster. I got passed by police cars when I was doing 80 in the middle lane. I was just keeping up with traffic. Was a while ago however.
OTOH, speeding in a school zone is probably a hanging offence.
Not really, the slow lane is usually under 70.
Quite a lot of very busy motorways now have cameras positioned along certain stretches, often for several miles, so everyone has to do 70. Note that cameras are never hidden in the UK - they are big yellow boxes, well signposted, as they are designed to actually slow you down rather than make money.
I got caught doing about 35 in a 30 zone, and was invited to attend a half day ‘speed awareness course’ to avoid getting points on my licence*. Once there, they revealed that these courses were only for drivers who got caught just going over the speed limit, and these tended to be experienced drivers who had just got a bit slack. If you were caught doing 10mph over or more, it was automatic points and a fine.
*a fairly average speeding offence carries 3 points, which will live on your licence for 4 years (and result in higher insurance premiums). Collect 12 points inside 3 years - not that hard to do - and you’ll get banned for at least six months, without mitigating circumstances. If you get caught doing 30mph over the limit (so 100mph on a motorway), it can be a straight ban.
This is what I came in here to talk about.
Many of the speed camera radars (not the inconsequential radar boards) are set up at a slight angle. Even if you don’t notice the angle they still are. This is to help assure that the speed obtained is the speed of the vehicle on the photograph and not a larger, faster vehicle coming up behind it.
But even a slight angle can reduce the reading by 5%. So if you’re going 82 in a 70 and the camera snaps at 10 over you might still be safe depending on how the camera is aimed.
I vehemently oppose speed and red light cameras and am glad they are illegal in my state. They are nothing but a ruthless shakedown for money. Study after study have shown they in no way enhance safety nor compliance..
And as far as Due Process and the right to confront witnesses, I’m shocked that state and the U.S. Supreme Courts haven’t kicked the shit out of them.
We had a problem in the Providence area (aka Rhode Island) with an increase in rear end collisions as a result of drivers jamming on the brakes when they notice a radar camera.
I recall an item in Techdirt years ago, which mentioned for example that -I think it was San Diego - had reduced the yellow light times by a second or two in order to boost revenue. In many cases, accidents went up since some drivers would slam on the brakes at a yellow light to avoid tickets and get rear-ended by the person behind hoping to speed up and make the yellow.
Many years ago when Ontario had photo-radar, the local paper documented the fun facts about it - for example, if more than one vehicle appeared in the photo, the picture was useless for evidence. As a result, the taxis coming to and from the airport learned to tailgate each other very close in convoys at 85mph on the expressway to avoid tickets. Driving the right behaviour, so to speak… With the radar vans parked on the main expressway, the number of actual traffic patrols were significantly reduced, creating an environment where other dangerous driving was less likely to result in a ticket.
You’re talking about “short yellow lights”.
Yellow lights should be between 3.5 to 5 seconds depending on the road they are on, the speed limit, etc…
Some red light camera communities set the yellow light to switch to red at 1.5 seconds. Regardless of the speed limit it’s difficult for even speed compliant drivers to make the light or stop in time.
This is horseshit and nothing more than a shakedown.
Then these communities have private companies administrate the program, completely violating due process of the acused.
I am a LEO of 40+ years and I assure you this is just a money operation. It has nothing to do with traffic safety.
Isn’t 3.0 seconds the federal minimum? I got a red light ticket here in Chicago decided in my favor because the “amber time” on my ticket was 2.9 seconds and I brought that to their attention, having looked up the minimums.
.I don’t think it’s federal law, but federal guidelines have been adopted by most states. 3 seconds seems to be the minimum at 25MPH or less, and then goes up with the speed limit. It’s a tough balance, a long yellow encourages people to run lights, too short and they can’t stop in time. I think they could be a little longer.
Yeah, you got the wording right. Three point oh seconds is the minimum recommended by federal safety guildelines.
Well that’s as may be but as someone who lives three blocks from a set of speed cameras I can assure you that what used to be an insane speeding problem (leading to a number of crashes and not a few deaths, including a few of bicyclists pasted in a zebra crossing at the bike trail/street intersection) has become a nice quiet slow and orderly flow of traffic. That eye that sees all has people slowing the fuck down and it sure makes it a lot easier and safer for me to turn left out of my residential street. The cameras have been in place a couple years now and seldom do they catch anyone but traffic at every hour is slower through what used to be a very dangerous stretch of road. You can hate on the things all you like but to say they don’t do any good at all is absolutely false. As for your 40+ years experience as an LEO, all I have to say to that is to offer this Japanese proverb: “Do not make the error of claiming twenty years of experience when what you have is one year repeated twenty times.”
The irony of this is that just yesterday - subsequent to my starting this thread - I just got a red light speeding ticket in the mail. They claim I was 16 MPH over (41 in a 25 zone). I’m skeptical if this is correct, but futile to fight it. $50, no points.
IMHO that is what they should be doing. Good for your municipality. Instead, they are usually placed where they generate the most revenue, and safety is irrelevant. Then city council gets antsy when they no longer generate the expected revenue because people wise up to them.
(Best speed control I saw was on an Indian Reserve on the highway north of lake Superior. You come over the crest and there’s long steep straight downhill to a small village where the speed limit drops. Quite visible at the bottom of the hill is a black-and-white cruiser with a red light dome on top. All the tourists slow down. When you get closer, it’s a derelict vehicle with the doors painted white and a red plastic bucket on top. It works because the majority of people are travelers only passing though that once. )
And this was one of the other points mentioned in the article on the shortcomings of photoradar in Ontario years ago - since the ticket is issued to the vehicle, not the driver, bad drivers no longer accumulate demerits as they used to and are more of a danger on the road.
I and four co-workers experienced something like this in Winnipeg on a business trip. On our drive from our hotel to our workplace we had to drive down a road that looked like an arterial but had an invisible speed limit sign.
So one guy became our driver and drove at what seemed to be a reasonable speed for an arterial. Unbeknownst to us we were speeding, and captured on a speed cam. Except the city’s notification and fine first went to the car rental, and didn’t get to us until we got back from our trip the following week, after we had been caught three days in a row.
It was a complete scam - a wide four lane commercial Street that just happened to have one school somewhere in the middle of the block - and a few hundred dollar fine.
Btw, if you Google “Winnipeg is a”, the first few selections are accurate, and this speed cam thing didn’t help.
So your municipality is one of the few that actually succeeds in using the system to enhance safety. Splendid. Bravo for them. I mean that.
In reality studies have shown speed and red light cameras do not enhance safety in most of their applications. In the beginning someones heart was in the right place and they intended for things to work like it appears to be working by you. But eventually local governments get abusive with them and they become nothing more than a revenue making scheme. Yellow lights are many times shortened and speed limits posted slower than what the road was constructed for. Fighting those citations is often very difficult. Trying to get maintenance and calibration records during discovery is mostly an exercise in futility.
These abuses are the reason many jurisdictions have abandoned using them, or have outright prohibited them in the first place.
ETA: There was no reason to insult me in your post.
I kind of have to hand it to Portland for this because my area, outer southeast, used to be the forgotten abused red headed stepchild of the city and there have been a LOT of improvements to fix traffic safety out here. In addition to the aforementioned speed cameras they placed numerous pedestrian crossings with flashy lights and that has cut down amazingly on how many crazy jaywalkers get hit. They’ve been systematically placing traffic calming devices like roundabouts, building bike lanes and sidewalks along what used to be some very dangerous roads for anyone not in a car and have put a lot of the big arterials on “road diets,” taking four lane roads that encourage speeders and making them two lanes with a dedicated left turn lane and bike lanes on both sides while lowering the speed limits. The commuters are pissed but those of us who actually live here really appreciate it.
I think you might find that less absolutist language and random appeals to authority might serve you well if you wish to avoid such in future.
Get a room!