SSP

FWIW, here's the conclusion of a study entitled "effectiveness of red-light cameras: a meta-analysis of the evaluation studies":

lima_bean

So if there any point in even having this discussion, if your just going to resort to outrageous strawmans in every post? Yup, everyone who disagrees with you loves wiretapping, the patriot act, and hitler.

N_C

Maybe I should have posted this in the Politics & Religion Forum & not here. Sorry this turned into a political debate of sorts. Or am I wrong on this? I never intended the thread to take the turn it has. This one seems to have taken on a life of it's own. Again my apologies.

jwc

I always liked people who bring up the "strawman" defense. Seems you can't make a point on principle anymore without that accusation coming forth.

jwc

No, you're right and I was wrong to participate in such discussion that it misled the post. I just get peeved at people that believe government revenue making tactics and suspect regulations are OK in the name of safety.

I'll bow out.

SSP

Not to worry...this sort of thing happens fairly frequently in A&S.

It's all part of the give and take of ideas...and, for some, egos (fortunately, I'm always right so my ego never gets involved ).

JeffS

That's an interesting example, since parking tickets are primarily for revenue generation as well.

I'll try to avoid another political rant, but in short, I am in favor of a flat tax. All other forms of revenue, especially penalty taxes (parking tickets, cigarette taxes, many moving violations) would be considered redundant and unnecessary.

Laws that are not fairly and consistently enforced should be removed from the books.

-----

Back to the subject. If you're speeding and the police identify your car, but not you, any ticket they write after the fact will not be upheld in court. The "solution" of making a camera ticket different from an officer ticket doesn't make sense to me.

[extreme example] Maybe we should have a murder fine. If your gun is used to kill someone, but they can't prove you did it, we can impose a fine of say... $5000. Hey, it's money in the bank, and we're ALL against murder right? Most in this country are quick to relinquish the rights of "them", based on some false sense of moral superiority.

Yes, I'm on the losing side of this argument, with European countries already having automated speed ticketing. I wonder how long our "right to drive" will keep that at bay.

twahl

Irrelevent. That's international, and we're talking about a specific location in the U.S.. We have examples that can be called on in the U.S. to draw conclusions from. I'm not saying that U.S. drivers are better by any means, but I am saying that if you are looking for studies to see how effective and how safe red light cameras in the U.S. are, you need only look at past experiences in the U.S.. For that matter, you should only look in similar areas. Around here, they've proven to cause more injury producing accidents. I don't think you have to be brilliant to understand that is a bad thing.

Dchiefransom

It's not an urban legend. One of the drivers that got a ticket in Fremont, Ca, somehow checked out the timing of the yellow light. The duration had been reduced, and they had to set them back. Unbelievably, in Union City, Ca, next to Fremont, they discovered the same thing the next year, and had to dismiss all the tickets during that period of time, and refund any fines paid.
These cameras don't take a picture if the light changes to red while a car is still in the intersection, they are timed so late that the light must actually be red before you cross the crosswalk as you enter the intersection.

For those that wonder, ALL windshields now have some amount of tint. If the one on my Wrangler ever needs replacing, I'll have them cut one out of plain windshield glass.

Cyclepath

Whither goest thou in thy shiny car in the night, America? --Jack Kerouac, ON THE ROAD

Roche

I think they're great.

Nobody would complain if a cop sat at the intersection making sure people obey the law, so why should they complain about traffic cameras?

Here in Southern California we have WAY too many red light runners. Especially in left-turn lanes, one or two cars always try to sneak through after the light turns red. Apparently these people are more important than the rest of us.

noisebeam

I totally support them.
I've never had a problem stopping for a red light, all one has to do is not speed and pay attention.
I live in a metro area and state (2x other states) that is #1 in the US for red light fatalities. Red light cameras have helped bring the rate down.

Top cities/states:
Population Deaths Rates per 100,000
[City, population, # deaths, deaths per 100,000]
Phoenix, AZ 1,125,599 122 10.8
Memphis, TN 614,067 49 8
Mesa, AZ 333,756 26 7.8
St. Petersburg, FL 237,480 18 7.6
Birmingham, AL 256,386 18 7
Dallas, TX 1,047,816 73 7
Albuquerque, NM 412,625 28 6.8
Louisville, KY 260,572 17 6.5
Detroit, MI 998,523 65 6.5

Population Deaths Rates per 100,000
Arizona 4,280,998 305 7.1
Nevada 1,529,841 59 3.9
Michigan 9,655,540 355 3.7
Texas 18,677,046 663 3.5
Alabama 4,255,686 143 3.4
New Mexico 1,670,580 56 3.4
Florida 14,197,723 434 3.1
California 31,645,023 956 3
Delaware 717,499 21 2.9

The cameras take pictures of the driver - this lady didn't even have her hands on the wheel while running a red light:


Stuff:
https://www.azgohs.state.az.us/redLight_cameras.html
https://www.azgohs.state.az.us/redLight_enforcement.html

https://www.azdot.gov/TPD/ATRC/public.../PDF/AZ550.pdf
This above study should be read by all - it is dense and a quick scan does not tell all.
Al

Wogster

If a car slamming on it's brakes, results in a collision, then the car behind, was following too closely, and the driver of the following car should be charged accordingly. However there are many places where nobody leaves enough distance. Realistically, you need at least 3 seconds of following distance (it was thought that 2 seconds was sufficient, not any more) in ideal conditions, heavily loaded vehicles or wet roads need more. When stopped at a light, you should leave one car length, between vehicles, if driving a car, you should be able to see

As for not entering an intersection, until it's clear you can get through the light, that is what you are supposed to do. This includes when making a left turn, which may mean, if there is no turn signal, that only one car can turn left on each light cycle!

geo8rge

It might be interesting to compare the ratio of tickets given by the robots to the human police for various groups of drivers. For example do the robots give more tickets to certain races, females, to off duty police, celebrities, ect than humans.

twahl

Of course they are following too closely. Of course they should be charged accordingly.

The person that got hurt because of that couldn't give a rat's ass about all that though. They wish they hadn't been involved in an accidnet. Regardless of why the accident rates have increased when red light cameras are present (in the U.S.) the fact remains that accidents resulting in injury have increased. The purpose of the cameras, and other traffic law enforcement tools, is to make the roads safer, although obviously in some cases they are used to generate revenue. If they make the roads more dangerous, even through the lack of respect of the law by some drivers, the end result of more dangerous intersections means they should be removed.

The concept is a fair one I think, but in some conditions, including the driving habits of local drivers, they may not serve the intended purpose and in fact my make the situation worse. I think they should be given a chance in areas that are similar in circumstance to areas where they have been proven to help, and not considered in areas similar to those where they have proven to hurt.

N_C

I forgot to point out that Sioux City only has 85,000 to 90,000 people living in it. If you include the surrounding communities that share or are very close to Sioux City & very often the people in those other communities use Sioux City's roadways: Sgt Bluff, Iowa, Dakota Dunes & North Sioux City, South Dakota, Dakota City & South Sioux City, Nebraska we have about 105,000 people living in the area. Hardly a major metropolitan area. No where near Des Moines, which alone has over 300,000 or Omaha which I think has around 500,000 people.

What will be interesting to find out is if someone from Nebraska or South Dakota runs a red light, the camera catches them will the system that is used here in Iowa be compatable to find their address to mail the ticket to them? Also if I am not mistaken when the red light camera snaps the photo a search is often done to see if there are any warrants out for the owner of the vehicle. Again I am curious if the law enforcement in Iowa will be able to find that sort of info. on someone from Nebraska or South Dakota.

11 particular intersections are problem areas for red light runners. So the cameras will be installed. I do not yet know who will be responsible for their operation or which intersections they will be installed at.

I do hope they are installed at some or all of the intersections I have to use on the regular bike & commute routes I use.

tt1106

Everybody is presumed innocent until proven guilty. If you pay a ticket it is an admission of guilt and frequently goes on your record as guilty. Because most citations are infractions, it is presumed that you may also want to avoid taking a day off court to fight an infraction, that is why there is a fine imposed. You may certainly fight it and exercise your right to due process, should you wish.
The cost of losing is of course, court costs.
Red light camera intersections increase rear end collisions. .
Wasn't it Los Angeles that repaid millions of dollars to citaiton recipients, because someone proved the camera actually clicked a fraction of a second before the light turned red.
I really don't care about them one way or another. I generally try to drive safer than everybody else out there. I generally assume everybody out there will cut me off or rear end me, so I keep larger distances and avoid heavilly traveled roads if I can.

Jeprox

I know why some married male drivers wouldn't want to be caught by red light cameras. They may end up in a picture with a female friend in the other seat, other than their wife.

N_C

To help make sure the right person receives the ticket, the person driving why not have a camera take a picture of the drivers face, then use face recognition to search the DOT data base to issue the citation? The DOT data base probably already has our photo's stored from when we got our liscense. It probably would not be a stretch to do this. Or would the ACLU have an issue with it or is it still considered using hte cameras as as tool to help prevent wrong doing?

N_C

The project in Sioux City has been put on hold because, & get this horse****, of a class action law suit in Davenport, Iowa regarding the cameras until more research has been done. Davenport is clear across the state from Sioux City. I just love how something in an entirely differant area affects the decisions of the alw makers & city leaders in my area.

MarkS

I forgot the other thing wrong with them. Although there's a picture of your license, and of your face (in some systems) there is NOT a picture of the light being in red mode. So they can snap a picture of you flying through a green or yellow and say its you going through a RED and you have no recourse. An officer on duty would have to perjure himself to issue a false ticket like this, but the soulless machine can do it all day with no remorse.

Sort of reminds me of the first scenes in the classic movie "War Games" in which all the "human" stuff is stripped out of the atomic bomb launch control sites. Just trust the machine. Machines never fail ...

MarkS

I'm guessing that they blur the image of any other occupant in order to avoid privacy infringement issues.

MarkS

Driver's license photos are already the butt of late-night talk show jokes ... can't imagine trying to accurately and automatically id anyone off of them. Anyway, I always drive with my groucho-marx glasses, nose and mustache.

slagjumper

I live in Pittsburgh. Right now commute times are pretty short for a medium sized city, we are ranked third shortest commute times of the top 100 cities that size. Next year we will get a casino and that is predicted to increase traffic astronomically. So there is a proposal from a councilman to install red light cameras. He has said that this would net a million dollars a year. So if we forget about the overhead of the gear, that means that they would have to give 20,000, $50 tickets.

As a biker and pedestrian, I like the idea. We live near a busy intersection that boarders a large park. Our kids get the bus there, and something like 50,000 cars go by a day. Almost every car that approaches from the south, makes the illegal right on the “no turn on red”. You could get a hundred tickets in 2 hours during the morning rush on that one.

I think that as gas prices have gone up, local police forces are logging less cruiser miles. My reasoning, (which might be totally wrong), is that gas is a “fixed cost” budget item, for the city and something that can be reduced without too much pain. In short the city police could never issue 8000 more tickets a year without adding more staff or adding more to the workload.

Still the personal freedom arguments against RLC are compelling to me. It could be and no doubt soon would grow to a being potentially a spy on every block that could be used by internal workers and subcontracting entities and hackers to track people. Now it takes a picture only when there is an infraction, next year the cam will be on 24/7 with advanced license plate tracking. This unfortunately is too weak of an argument to repel most revenue happy, police short, municipalities. The reason is that you have no right to privacy when you are outside, hell you don’t even have a “right” to drive. If I am having an affair in the park and my wife’s friend sees me and tells my wife, there is no legal violation of privacy.

I say put the red light cameras in, put cameras at crosswalks too, where cars also routinely ignore state law and fail to yield to pedestrians in the crosswalk. The survey numbers below seem to point to some guilty Pittsburghers, (or city drivers who don’t live in the city). I would like to see the gambling idiots from out of town, (once they start flooding in) start paying, while also perhaps calming their driving.
https://www.kqv.com/opinionpoll.php
December 11, 2006
Do you support Councilman Peduto’s proposal, to install red light cameras?
Internet Results
Yes: 294....49%
No: 302....51%
Total: 596...100%
Phone Results
Yes: 174....38%
No: 289....62%
Total: 462...100%

sauerwald

A couple of random thoughts on Red Light Cameras:

Here in Portland Maine, they have difficulties with maintining the loops in the road that detect cars to trigger the lights, and are replacing them with cameras which look for motion near the limit line. I have been told that this system will work much better for cyclists - not sure if they will integrate the red light running thing using the same cameras or not....

I used to live in a town where they contracted with a private company to install red light and speed cameras. The private company got a percentage of the revenue generated by the cameras. The tickets are always sent to the registered owner of the vehicle, and if you show up in court with a ticket showing your car and someone else in it, the ticket is automatically dismissed. I had a friend who registered his car in his wifes name and vice versa - therefore neither one of them would have to pay for a ticket issued by a camera.