Insurance Industry Makes $680 Million Off Cameras
from the how-the-process-works dept
Bob Dole, our resident hater of speed cameras, writes "A bit of UK news sheds light on the motivation behind backers of red light and speed camera enforcement. It describes how those who get one of those tickets will pay an extra $332 in insurance premiums. A second costs $870 and a third means an extra $2,405, paid every year. Now, it's obvious why cities like cameras -- they bring in millions of dollars with no effort -- but until now it has been hard to question the motivation of "safety advocates" like the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS), the leading U.S. proponent of the technology. You know IIHS: they're the crash test dummy people who ensure our cars become safer. Today's London Evening Standard, however, describes a report that calculated the amount of annual profit UK insurance companies will enjoy from these premium hikes: $680 million dollars. There are no comparable U.S. figures, but as California and Arizona both assess points on licenses for camera tickets, you can assume a similar windfall that, in turn, directly benefits the Insurance Institute. This helps explain why evidence of the ineffectiveness of cameras such as the recent UK study and other proof is often ignored in favor of additional cameras installations. This is a multi-billion dollar (and pound) operation." I don't find this all that shocking. Most people know that speeding tickets are seen more as a source of revenue than as a real effort to improve safety, and as such, it's not too difficult to follow the money trail.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
Probabilities and Groups
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Probabilities and Groups
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
No Subject Given
I don't know that. While riding a bicycle, I was hit and seriously injured by a car which I suspect was going about twice the speed limit, but I had no way to prove it. If cameras can prevent this sort of thing and are accurate, I'm all for them.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
And I'm all for a slow 'protest'
Kind of like the local cyclists who got tickets for passing stopped cars on the right. They started riding smack dab in the middle of the road. If they were going to be considered 'traffic' ala the tickets, then damnit they were going to take thier section of road.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]