So, these retarded offspring of monkeys who had buttsex with a fishsquirrel figured that it’d be easy to make a little extra money by tampering with traffic lights. How nice of them. At least one judge has the balls to do the right thing.
Now, of course, because word of this has gotten out, you can bet that more folks will be challenging their tickets, thus eating into any of the ill-gotten profits and causing the cities involved to have to shell out more money, as no doubt there will be a class action lawsuits filed (as well there should be). Ideally, come election time, the voters will clean house, but I’m not holding my breath.
I sympathize with your rage about the municipalities that have used these to generate another revenue stream, I do want to say that from your second cite - it seems that it could be a reasonable trade-off to reduce fatalities or injuries by nearly 20% at the cost of a 4% increase in property damaging accidents. That study alone is not sufficient, I don’t think, to convince me that stop-light cameras are a bad thing.
And the potential for abuse of traffic violations is going to be there with any enforcement program. Look at the history of the New Rome, OH speed trap. The problem wasn’t the tools that they used there, but how they were used.
I have mixed feelings about the various ticketing cameras. But my reservations have a lot more to do with the uncertainty with associating a specific driver with the specific violation, than with any concerns about secondary effects from the cameras, or the potential for abuse.
You’re supposed to stop at red lights. Cameras don’t cause a single accident, don’t be stupid and fall for that nonsense. Those accidents are caused by the tailgating idiot behind you that doesn’t have enough room to stop. It’s caused by the jackass driver going 25 over the speed limit who can’t be bothered to get off the gas when the light turns yellow, and if he decides to stop at all, he has to stomp his brakes to avoid stopping in the middle of the intersection. Those are the people who cause the accidents, not the cameras. How dare you expect me to stop at a red light?! I’m too important to be bothered to stop at all, get out of my way!
Pretty much it. Do the speed limit, maintain safe following distance, and PAY ATTENTION. Four accidents in the last 15 years. I was stopped or stopping and was rear ended each of those times.
Traffic fatalities have been steadily dropping since they started keeping records, with improved medical technology and safer cars beng the prime reasons for this. To say for certain that red light cameras save lives, one would have to see how the decline of fatalities at those intersections compared with the general trend of decreasing fatalities. If you read the article I linked to in the OP, you’ll also note that it was only a limited area where the fatalities dropped so dramatically. In other areas, the results were a bit different.
One, yellow lights are supposed to be sufficiently long to give enough warning - and eliminate the “zone of indecision” we have all felt - where we have to decide between running an “orange” light or perhaps having the idiot behind you plowing into you at speed.
Make the yellow lights longer, and you’ll cut the zone of indecision down to nothing. Then the only people running the red lights will be the true scofflaws. That’s how it is done here in Prince William County, and we found it refreshing when we moved here.
I believed in traffic cameras too once - until it was revealed that cities weren’t putting them in intersections that were the most dangerous, but ones where they could get the most fine revenue. That’s a pretty cynical game to play, and I can’t support that.
You’re supposed to stop on yellow. Failing to account for stopping on yellow and then also stopping too quickly for a red is just plain stupid. I do it on occasion, however.
While I don’t agree with all of what EsotericEnigma said upthread, I have to say that the boolean nature of brake lights wouldn’t be nearly as much of a problem if drivers would actually leave safe distances between them and the cars ahead of them. I don’t doubt that panic braking is part of the problem.
I’m equally sure that it’s not the sole cause of the problem.
And yet, I’ve managed to drive for 23 years without ass ending anyone. Maybe I’m a mind reader or something. Or maybe I leave enough room and pay attention. (this isn’t directed at you Tuckerfan, but at John Hennage of Montross, Va.)
[math/stats peeve]
This really depends on the actual sizes of these quantities, no?
5 injuries down to 4 injuries is a 20% drop.
$1 trillion to $1.04 trillion is a 4% rise.
Is one injury worth $40 million for example? Especially if this is only a scratch?
I really hate that we were only given these percentages. Sometimes journalists can be so fucking stupid about maths.
[/peeve]
Exactly the point I was going to make Jamaika a jamaikaiaké. It’s been my experience when someone is throwing around percentages without providing the numbers behind them that there’s a reason. Usually that the actual numbers contradict the point they’re trying to make, or that the data pools are so small or so large that the percentages given aren’t an accurate representation of anything.
Which is one of the reasons that I only said that the stats provided in the quote the OP provided could support the exchange as being a good one. By themselves they aren’t enough to support, nor to condemn traffic light camera enforcement.
We were rear-ended once in which the woman that hit us actually indicated to the officer that while she saw us slowing down, she didn’t expect we would actually stop at the STOP sign.
She hit us pretty hard, too and I had my kids in the back seat, the youngest is an infant carrier. We all made it out okay, but it was scary. Our car never worked the same though.
Right, but dances’ reasoning is the only logical way to make policy decisions. Who cares whose fault it is? All that should matter to policy makers is which policy results in fewer bad things and more good things. Yes, the asshats are at fault, but how does that help us prevent accidents?
