Posted on 01/29/2022 4:20:36 PM PST by algore
US Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg's plan to 'promote speed safety cameras' is raising the troubling specter of ubiquitous automated traffic enforcement in the style of the UK, where the cameras are widely despised.
Buttigieg's 42-page plan road safety plan unveiled on Thursday and backed by $14 billion in funding from the new infrastructure bill, contained only brief mention of the speed camera plan, but it was enough to set alarm bells ringing for worried motorists.
Fox News commentator Tucker Carlson slammed the plan as a misuse of the funds in the $1.2 trillion Infrastructure Bill, fuming that 'you're about to get a lot more speeding tickets from robots.'
'When the country applauded $1.2 trillion going to fixing the roads, bridges and buildings, a lot of us were dumb enough to think that's what might actually happen,' he said.
Speed cameras have also drawn sharp criticism from some on the left, who are angry that the fines are often directed to fund police departments, making the issue rare grounds for bipartisan agreement.
Currently, eight US states have laws specifically prohibiting speed cameras. Only 18 states plus DC have speed cameras in use by law, with the other states having no law on the books authorizing their use. Buttigieg's strategy recommends pilot programs to study and promote greater use of speed cameras
Buttigieg said new federal data being released next week will show another increase in traffic fatalities through the third quarter of 2021.
Those numbers are expected to point to a sizable increase in deaths compared with the same period in 2020, adding to a half-year traffic death total of 20,160 that already was the highest half-year figure since 2006.
'It doesn´t look good, and I continue to be extremely concerned about the trend,' Buttigieg told the AP in an interview.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
Bingo
I'm sure the cameras will feature license plate readers logging all passing traffic regardless of velocity.
Yes, buckwheat, they want to know everything about you. Only, who they are, well it's a long list nowadays.
If you're not already violating some law already; what is legal today, like freedom of religion, a logged trip to your local church may target you for reprogramming in the future. Or, if martial law is enacted, perhaps during the next attempted lock-down, they'll have a go to list of violators.
Judge threw it out. I can’t remember exactly the grounds but something to do with you cannot cross examine a camera; you cannot prove the technician calibrated it correctly - things like that. Due process issues. Plus, the cities were not running them. They cities contracted with camera operators who split the revenue with the cities. They were not city workers, they were not LEO, and had no power to issue tickets.
For a while they continued to send out the tickets but citizens were free to ignore them. And of course, more than a few divorces came from the intrusion when the wife or husband opened the mail and saw a suspect in the passenger seat. They later cropped the images to just show the driver and even then, in court they couldn’t prove it was the driver since no ID or signature was ever provided. So a ticket was just a fine to the car owner and had no impact on your drivers’ record. They couldn’t prove it was you driving. Someone who looked like you maybe, but not you beyond reasonable doubt.
We have the right to face our accuser. Just call the camera to the witness stand and ask it some questions.
That is the point....create a whole new bureaucracy staffed with thousands to go through the pictures and handle billing, collections, etc.
Meanwhile, little to no money goes to roads and bridges so they can repeat this "infrastructure bill" 10 years from now.
Tidewater Virgina, 12 to 15 K a year.
In Washington, DC, the traffic cameras are run by a private contractor. Also they fiddle with the timing of yellow lights on main thoroughfares to shorten the duration. More money that way.
similar to DC. They placed the scameras on popular commuter routes trying to fine coming into the city. They lowered the speed limit on the roads from 45-25. It has resulted in residents getting tickets at a higher rate than the commuters. They have been complaining to the local legislators and I think the residents get a little bit more forgiveness, but in DC, being poor and black and having a job that you need to drive to is now a fineable offense.
The commuters coming in from the close-in suburbs of MD ad VA adjusted their routes and the locals didn’t. So now they lowered the speed limit to 20mph on busier roads, for “safety”.
Now if only they apply the same rules to the gangs of young ferals terrorizing drivers on ATVs and motorcycles..
Worse than that, Chinese-style you will only be permitted movement within X miles of your home, depending on how compliant you are with jab, financial, political speech, and other social credit standards.
Give him a year off. “Paternity leave”.
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Its maternity, since he’s the woman ...
All of that coupled with the Trudeau sale of Canada’s phone spyware to the Brandon Admin will allow them to read your smartphone from over a mile away to make sure you have been vaxxed, are compliant with other laws and so on. They will know how fast you are traveling, even before you get to the actual traffic cam.
With the advent of the new Canadian phone reading software, they will know the vehicles that were in the area at the time their camera went offline ; you’ll have to approach on foot to achieve your aim ...
It will never disappear. We will wake up one day in a Twenty-First Century East Germany.
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More likely to wake up in Communist China which has monitored and automated cameras deployed literally everywhere. Where do you imagine this idea originated? Clue, it was not in East Germany.
Drive 12 -15 thousand miles a year
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That’s a low average, you know.
Harassment.
It is the typical liberal goal to make the average six pack Joe’s life miserable.
A pretty consistent characteristic of the left, to bring about their socialistic hell on earth.
Alfred E. needs to be given reasons to worry. This can’t be allowed to happen.
bttt
With no cell phone or other electronic device on your person.
But this is all retail. These traffic signal cameras have to be hooked up either by wifi or wires to a central relay or a satellite. If you can find the relay and either jam the wireless connection or destroy the relay physically, it’ll take forever for them to find you. If you can implant it with a virus that they don’t speedily detect and have no remedy for, icing on the cake. Give Houston some problems.
Speed cameras are racist because they can’t determine the race of the driver when they send the ticket
not if your retired and don’t have to commute 5 days a week
Then you don’t qualify to talk about mileage that others regularly double or triple.
Your smart phone will still be read by local law enforcement with their new Canadian software to make sure your are properly vxxed and up to, whatever they consider, snuff at the moment.
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