Cowards are quick to hide, sniveling, and spineless, behind government authority without considering if it’s a justified use of power. Like you, for example.
The DC cops were using traffic controls as a revenue generating device. Collecting a billion dollars from 2005 to 2008, or 10% of all traffic control revinue collected in the country.
Meanwhile the app actually makes people slow down, in compliance with speed laws. Where as a ticket just collects money from them as they speed along. You’d think if the DC cops were interested in enforcing speed laws for the public safety they’d be happy, but instead they get pissed off about budget time. They just wanted the money.
In Dallas a couple years ago (it might have been talked about on this board), they had a real problem with all the red light cameras they had installed because they were too successful in making people slow down and not run red lights, thus making the streets safer, but they ended up removing a bunch of them because the city was losing revenue from traffic citations.
How do you know you’re speeding? Down on Pacific Coast Highway, the limit dropped from 45 to 25 with one small sign, which was hardly visible at night. I didn’t see it. Part of the bit with a speed trap is to not make the new speed limit all that clear.
When I drive, I drive to be safe- which entails looking out for a lot more than speed limit signs. Traffic, pedestrians, and many other things take a higher priority. I want to drive at the safe speed first, the posted speed is a lower priority. Often in speed traps the posted speed is not the safe speed.
Is it right for a area to reduce the public safety to garner some more fines?
Come to think about it , the iPhone has not been around that long enough to dilute the DC rev stream, and while DC is fed city with more black berrys than you can shake a stick at , Im pretty sure the bulk of the avoidance has been with TomToms and Garmins.
A question for a non 'Merican - just how common and how much is this “slammed by insurance companies” you are talking about?
Round here we get a 5% discount on insurance as a “safe driver bonus” if you maintain a points free record. For the occasional ticket it makes not difference to renewing your insurance. If you wanna change insurers they do ask about tickets - but again unless you are a particularly nasty offender it won’t make much difference.
Ticket revenues from all towns and counties in an entire state will be pooled together. At the end of the year, the sum will be distributed between them based on population, regardless of how much each police department contributed to the pool.
This way, they’ll still get their money, but the individual departments will have less of an incentive to work too hard for it. Because as the situation stands, it isn’t much different from tax farming.
That’s not a horrible idea but it does have a possible problem. Cities like Dallas, Austin, and Houston really do need to have a mechanism to keep people from speeding (ha!), and, so far as I know, they aren’t really known as speed traps in the sense that is being used in this thread. That means Dallas, Texas is going to be spending more than Paris, Texas in traffic enforcement (speeding tickets) but Paris is going to generate more revenue simply because they don’t spend as much to begin with. i.e. it sounds like a great deal for Paris because they’re going to profit from it whereas Dallas is going to lose money. I could be completely off base though because I don’t know how much it cost either city.
Of course you also run into the whole problem of citizens and politicians who want to retain control of what goes on within their own counties and municipalities.
In the UK that would be enough to invalidate the ticket. I’m amazed it’s not also the case in the USA. Are there not DOT-mandated requirements for sign size and illumination etc?
See, this is where I have a problem. You, and others, talk about all these places where you cannot easily know you are speeding. I, and others, talk about never having an issue with such places. And I’ve driven a LOT around the country, including a lot of California (including a lot of the PCH), both on freeway and off. And somehow, I, and the others like me, don’t have these issues.
But most of those who complain about such things (I’m not saying this is true of you, since I’ve not reviewed your postings to see), when you review what they are saying, fulminate about the whole idea of speed limits in general. When the rhetoric is stripped away, the argument resolves to an assertion that there is something basically wrong with having speed limits that don’t match what the person personally believes is “safe” for a given area. Which, to my mind, means that the issue they have with speed limits, and “speed traps”, is really all about wanting to do what they want, unencumbered by outside restriction.
If you approach driving as I have learned to do (and it took two accidents which were not in any way my fault, one a T-bone from someone running a red light, one a mild highway accident from someone pulling out in front of me from a side road on US 101), you understand that it requires regular vigilence. Town coming up along the road? Probably gonna ask you to drop your speed; don’t wait until the sign to do so.
No one is arguing that a true “speed trap” (and yes, they do exist in places) should be allowed to exist. But, amazingly, some people do manage to avoid their effects; perhaps this should suggest a course of action for those as can’t.
Just wanted to add that it has been well documented that many roads are engineered to support speeds much higher than their posted speed limits. You don’t see a contradiction in widening lanes, cutting down turning rations, etc. and then posting a 30 mph speed limit?
There are not a lot of real Speed traps out there. You’d have to have driven through Hermosa Beach in the 70’s to find mine on PCH. As was clear from my Judges ruling, the Courts had gotten tired of that particular Speed trap, and were ruling against it. I think an injunction was issued some little bit later, in any case it went away.
In my case I have no trouble with speed limits. I drive 5-7 mph over the limit it’s it’s clear, safe and going with the flow. In CA, this almost never gets you a ticket, and so I have not gotten a speeding ticket in like 20 years.
Town coming up along the road? PCH in that stretch is solid urban area. There’s little way to know you have left Redondo Bch to enter Hermosa Beach then to enter Manhattan Bch. Or Torrance or Lomita or El Segundo.
Some people avoid them as they are locals in the know or they just weren’t the one in a dozen the cruise picked out who were all going the same speed.