And I speak from personal experience.Posted on 12/28/2014 9:36:52 AM PST by Kaslin
Like the good people of Arizona, I despise speed cameras.
But not because I want reckless driving. Instead, my disdain is based on the fact that governments set up cameras where speed limits are preposterously low in order to generate revenue. And I speak from personal experience.
Like the good people of Houston, I also despise red-light cameras.
But once again, this isn’t because I want jerks racing through red lights and endangering innocent people. Instead, my opposition is based on the fact that greedy governments – operating recklessly – use such cameras as tools to fleece drivers.
Holman Jenkins has a column in today’s Wall Street Journal, explaining how the industry was supposed to operate.
A promising industry betrayed by the behavior of its customers—that’s the story of the red-light camera business. …Redflex Traffic Systems, leading practitioner of the once-sparkling business of setting up automatic traffic-enforcement systems for municipalities. The company and its industry were set to grow. The product improved traffic safety, freed up officers for more important work, and paid for itself. Towns and cities didn’t even have to budget a dime upfront because Redflex assumed the costs and risks of setting up cameras at designated intersections.
But in the real world, that’s not what happened. Politicians all over the nation used cameras as revenue-generating devices.
…serial revelations by the Chicago Tribune about the city’s buccaneering ways—running its camera system for profits rather than safety. …New York state conspicuously authorized cameras at various upstate locations in 2010 to close a budget gap. When New Jersey last week let a five-year experiment lapse amid a voter backlash, Moody’s called the decision a “credit negative” for local treasuries. In California, public acceptance steadily eroded as politicians kept piling on “surcharges” that turn a hundred-dollar traffic offense into a $500 fine in the mail. …the Trib cited the city’s “long-standing reliance on using the lowest possible yellow light time” to maximize revenues even at the cost of encouraging more accidents. …a universal peeve of motorists, being fined for a harmless rolling right on red.
At this point, some people may be thinking that this is no big deal. After all, they might argue, at least the cameras make the roads safer.
But according to research commissioned by the Chicago Tribune, the cameras simply replace one type of accident with another, at least in part because the city government rigged the system to maximize revenue rather than safety.
Here are some excerpts from a report published by Reason.
Chicago’s red light camera program hasn’t made driving in the city any safer and has replaced one type of car crash for another. The cameras are there obviously to make money for the city, not for the benefit and safety of the residents. The Chicago Tribune commissioned a study to break down the city’s claims that cameras have reduced right-angle crashes at intersections by 47 percent and calls the number nonsense. They calculate that it actually dropped the rate of crashes that caused injuries by only 15 percent. That wouldn’t be such a terrible number if engineers hadn’t also calculated that their cameras didn’t also cause a 22 percent increase in rear-end collisions that caused injuries. …the Tribune story makes sure to point out how much revenue the city has gotten from the program—$500 million over 12 years. The Tribune also reminds readers of the many, many, many scandals and issues the program has faced, like tickets handed out for lights that had yellow signal times below the national standard, unexplained ticket surges, and outright bribes from a company operating the cameras to city officials.
By the way, this data from Chicago isn’t an anomaly. Radley Balko has reported on similar accident-causing scams all over the nation.
So now, perhaps, you’ll understand why I wrote more than three years ago that Jay Beeber is a hero.
In the UK, that's exactly what people were doing. In response, they kept hardening the cases, but the people just got bigger explosives. They were blowing them up with quarter sticks of dynamite at one point.
“It is clear when a person decides that they are to drunk to drive so they sleep in their car at the bar. If they turn it on to stay warm they are ticketed and run threw the money making system.”
Yep, the term is “operational control” and it doesn’t have to be at a bar, it can be in your driveway. And your car doesn’t have to be road-worthy either. One guy got a DUI because he ran his car in his driveway, rev’ing it up, without a muffler (neighbor complained). Yes he was drunk, but the car had its tires removed and was ON BLOCKS. He still got the ticket, and then a lawyer. I don’t know how it ended, but I assume a judge threw it out. But the ticket was STILL valid.
There’s a website (not sure where) that talked about this case and many others...you are RIGHT, it is a money scam.
In my little NJ town, a policeman (and former Marine) was killed this year generating revenue. They had him park, lights out, on a dark shoulder, just over a rise on a major highway, clocking speeders. His car was crushed like a soda can when an eighteen-wheeler rear ended him without ever hitting his brakes. Died instantly.
The driver of the truck tested negative for everything, but was still charged with vehicular homicide. Trial pending.
“I don’t like cameras either but I have a difficult time in principle finding a reason to oppose them.”
I have the right to confront my accuser in court. In this case I do not. Enough principle for any American.
The biggest problem is that motorists who are ticketed through these cameras aren't treated like any other motorist who is cited for a motor vehicle violation. In a red-light camera case, the private company that runs the cameras is, in effect, the plaintiff in a legal action against the motorist. That's why the ticket is sent from the private company, and that's why a company representative has to show up in court if a motorist contests the charge. The local police may sign an affidavit certifying the accuracy of the camera and the identity of the vehicle's owner, but unlike a typical motor vehicle offense the local police are not the "complainant" if the case goes to court.
I can't think of any other situation where a municipal government would take it upon itself to hand over its law enforcement duties to an outside party like this. That is the most principled argument that can be made against these red-light cameras.
That's really a silly argument. That's like saying that the best way to eliminate red-light runners is to remove traffic lights entirely.
Yellow intervals for traffic signals aren't just pulled out of thin air. The yellow interval is computed based on engineering principles, with the travel speed of the roadway as the main factor in determining the minimum yellow time for safe stopping.
You may think the driver of the truck "tested negative for everything," but it sounds like he failed one important test: He drove his truck outside the travel lane of the road.
That doesn't justify the idiocy of having a police car parked on a shoulder for the purpose of generating revenue, but it does explain the vehicular homicide charge.
In my state you can.
This is what is ultimately going to put an end to these stupid cameras anyway. If enough people contested the charges and forced the company to send someone to court to testify, then the company would have gone out of business just from the extra costs of doing business.
I can’t recall where I read the statistic (might have been here in an article), but it basically amounted to “you will have at least one run in with law enforcement over the course of your life”. When we have tons of laws on the books that in essence penalize you for what “could have” happened, not actually what DID happen, it is safe to say most of our laws are for nothing more than fleecing the citizenry.
I know a couple people who have had this happen to them. Again, it was what "could have" happened, not what did happen. The Cops and DA (in your case, kudo's for the dismissal) are acting as soothsayers reading a future that never even took place all with laws provided them by politicians enacting feel good legislation and fleecing wallets along the way.
Evidently your goal isn't safety, but control over people you don't like.
Urban legend I’m sure, but while running the light with a camera, we always use to talk about covered license plates, dropping trou and shooting a bare moon out the rear window. (A BA against glass is called a pressed ham)
Red light cameras are an abuse of government power.
If a light changes that fast a judge will most likely throw the traffic ticket out, because not only is the ticked ridiculous, a light changing so quick is also dangerous and can cause deadly accidents
I had a USEUR drivers license when we were stationed in Germany during the late sixties and 1970 and I didn’t mind driving. However when we went back again in 1977 and husband was stationed in Mainz, I refused to get another USEUR drivers license. The people were driving much to crazy for me. Besides if you wanted to go into town you could always take the bus or the streetcar. If you had to travel a little farther there was always the German Railroad
I got a camera ticket making a right turn on red (no stop) because I was *directed to* by a traffic cop moving local traffic away from a football stadium.
I beat the ticket in “camera court”, but I had to waste an entire morning doing so.
So if these municipalities are really using the cameras for safety, not revenue, what they should do is put all the “profits” into a special fund, and then split up that excess revenue among any and all citizens unjustly ticketed in a given year (including everybody who got burned by shortened yellow lights).
Best of luck.
Love your tagline BTW.
Are you joking? Look at every large intersection and every turnpike entrance and exit.
In my father’s time the men of the neighborhoods would have all gotten their guns and shot down the cameras the first day they were installed. And they would have done it over and over.
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