Cities Put Revenue Over Driver Safety
from the looking-out-for-us dept
Several studies have shown that red light cameras, designed to catch people who run red lights, are in fact dangerous themselves. Drivers approaching yellow lights instinctively slam on their brakes when they see a camera (just to be on the safe side), which then leads to more accidents. Of course, this hasn't stopped cities from installing them, particularly since they represent a lucrative source of revenue. In fact, the pursuit of more revenue has led some places to shorten the length of yellow lights to increase the chances of someone getting caught running a red. Disturbingly, this practice looks like it might be somewhat common. In Lubbock, Texas, it was found that most of the intersections where the city was planning on installing cameras had shorter yellow lights than safety guidelines suggested. And this doesn't appear to be a coincidence. The city engineer actually told the city council that he would not increase the length of yellow lights, so as not to eat into the city's ticket revenue. There's really no other way to view this than to say that the city doesn't mind if more people die in accidents, as long as its ticket revenue stays high.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.
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I am Jack
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Let's Watch the Hyperbole
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Re: Let's Watch the Hyperbole
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Re: Let's Watch the Hyperbole
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Re: Let's Watch the ANTI-Hyperbole
Your flippancy regarding it being an economy boost all around is offensive.
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Re: Let's Watch the Hyperbole
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Easy...
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Of course, don't let safety or honesty stand in the way of government funds... oh no..
True enough Mike - if one could get proof of that, I suspect you could indeed sue successfully.
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Of Course
When will they figure out that the goal of "public safety" should be public safety rather then generation of revenue? In the case of these cameras, they are actually contributing to the problem.
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Yah... and?
I'm one of the few who refuse to agree with the notion just because your in a 'public' place you have no expectation of privacy - this in my opinion is ridiculous and simple wrong. While you obviously do not have as much privacy as you would, say in your house, I think you do have the right not to be photographed, videotaped, or otherwise subject to surveillance without giving your permission (or a court order/warrant to gather such material). I'm finishing up law school - so yes I know the legal and constitutional implications and the word "privacy" doesn't appear in the const., but I'm tired of being told and people thinking a public area immediately means you have to expectation to not have others gawk, photo, or eavesdrop!!
oh... and finally # 1!!
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Nevermind...
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Money Machines
Here are some more facts.
If municipalites have truly become unconcerned about motorists' safety in favor of generating more revenue, why don't they just begin literal highway robbery, instead? Fewer people would get hurt, and the city still gets its money. :
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More Money
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Re: More Money
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Re: Re: More Money
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Re: Re: More Money
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Re: Re: More Money
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Not too long later, the red light cameras went away again. The state had some legal argument that forced the city to shut them down, over great protest by the city police.
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I'm not surprised
There is a lot of money to be made on tickets. Don't let the cops fool you into thinking that come out in force during holidays to promot safety. They do because they know there is lots of money to be made.
I'm all for safety and using fines to deter minor offenses but to rig the situation so that the driver is essentially tricked into a ticket? Isn't that kinda like entrapment?
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Tickets as a revenue source
The address to mail the "fine" was
Department of Revenue
Box xxxx
Chicago, IL
Gotta give 'em points for honesty, I guess.
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ATM
Trouble is, most municipalities are using them as ATM's -- a reward for poorly designed intersections. They install the cameras at intersections with the highest number of red-light infractions and begin collecting revenue, rather than fix what's causing the higher-than-normal red-light infractions in the first place.
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Get to the point
There are only a couple of companies that provide these services to cities. They own the cameras, they collect the pictures, they collect the fines and they pay the city. In return, they keep a hefty portion of the fines.
This all seems fine except that the contracts often include light timing requirements. The part of this article that talks about the yellow light timing being shorter than is recommended by safety guidelines is most likely based on the contract the city has. The city engineer probably can't change the light timing because of the contract with the camera company.
The light timing is a matter of public record. The contract should also be a matter of public record. It would be very easy for someone who was involved in an accident at one of these intersections to get the city engineer's information about light timing around the city and make a pretty strong case that the city has ignored common sence safety issues and a smart lawyer could make a killing with a class action suit.
There's no need to get any of the cities engineers involved in testimony, unless they can provide expert testimony as to when and why the light timing was changed as well as what timing is recommened for public safety.
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Re: Get to the point
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Re: Re: Get to the point
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yellow light time
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Gotta disagree
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Re: Gotta disagree
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Fake Camera's as deterents
Fairfax put signs up near the boxes and before the intersections. I don't remember how Vienna marked them.
IMS Fairfax city had five or six intersections with camera boxes mounted and only one camera. They would move it around to different boxes. I think it rapidly paid for more cameras to fill all the boxes. They got me once for $50.
Vienna Va uses video cameras that allow them to decide if you had cause to enter the intersection in the red light. Something like letting an ambulance pass would be ok.
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...should be illegal
This should be ruled unconstitutional quickly before it becomes more of a problem than it already is.
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It's amazing...
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Re:
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Corrupt at every turn...
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RE: Yellow Light Time
Fairfax VA found that going from 4 seconds to 5.5 seconds reduced violations 94%.
4 seconds seems to be pretty standard. 3 seconds seems to be dangerous and also 3 seconds seems to be what is used at most camera sites.
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I'm for them...
There's just too many a-holes who feel they have the right to endanger the lives of other drivers by blowing thru red lights. Anything that makes them think twice is OK by me.
BTW, they were removed here because the courts bought the argument that the photos couldn't prove who was driving the car and thus the tickets wouldn't stand up in court. I just hope some lawyer gets fed up enough with the bogus parking tickets they hand out here to apply the same argument: "You can't prove it was me who parked that car in front of an expired meter..."
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Re: I'm for them...
For the guy in Phoenix... you might as well be dorpus with that comment. I've been in the area only for a short time and even then I can see how more and more intersections have the yellow light extended, especially the ones with red-light cameras. So again, before you start trumpeting the "benefits" get the whole picture, pretty please with a ticket on top.
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i dunno if i explained that point clearly, but i hope you get it.
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Re:
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Camera's are good
Secondly, it shouldn't matter how long the yellow light is, when you see a yellow light you slow down to make a stop at the intersection, or did you all forget your drivers education. Maybe everyone should be retested for your drivers licence, lets see how many people will still be alowed to drive.
I think that every intersection in the country should have a red light camera, with steep fines, and those people who are continuing to run the red lights will soon run out of money to afford the gas to be able to drive, and then the streets would be a hell of a lot safer.
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Re: Camera's are good
First, red light cameras start taking pictures as soon as the light turns red. The government, the police and the company running the light does not care if the light turned red when you were already in the intersection. In fact, they are counting on these drivers to pad their pocket books. Don't be so naive.
Second, increasing the time of the yellow light does matter. The problem is that over time, governments have reduced the length of the yellow light, conditioning drivers to make one of two decisions: speed up or hit the brakes. You are probably one of those people that believes that when you increase the speed limit that the drivers will continue to drive 10 to 20 mph over the new limit (a notion that is completely false).
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Re: Camera's are good
First, red light cameras start taking pictures as soon as the light turns red. The government, the police and the company running the light does not care if the light turned red when you were already in the intersection. In fact, they are counting on these drivers to pad their pocket books. Don't be so naive.
Second, increasing the time of the yellow light does matter. The problem is that over time, governments have reduced the length of the yellow light, conditioning drivers to make one of two decisions: speed up or hit the brakes. You are probably one of those people that believes that when you increase the speed limit that the drivers will continue to drive 10 to 20 mph over the new limit (a notion that is completely false).
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Re: Re: Camera's are good
Secondly, what does speed limit increase have to do with red light running, please stay on topic, or start your own blog elsewhere.
The government has not conditioned anyone to make a decision when they see a yellow light. Those that speed up when they see a yellow light are blatently disregarding the traffic laws as nowhere, in any driving manual, driving school, or driving test, is that an option for a yellow light.
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Re: Re: Re: Camera's are good
Read the fifth paragraph from the bottom. What did Lockhead Martin IMS do? They "surreptitiously moved three underground magnetic sensors that triggered the cameras, causing innocent motorists to get ticketed for running red lights."
http://www.motorists.com/issues/enforce/weekly/part2.html
This part has some interesting points about the length of yellow lights. Anyways, I find that people tend to speed up when they see the flashing Don't Walk symbol - a dead give away that the traffic light is about to change from green to yellow.
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Avoidance
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Increased Safety
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Re: Increased Safety
Yes, collisions in the intersection have greater potential to be fatal, but all of these red light cameras are installed on the premise of increased safety and/or a reduction in collisions. You can't ignore the increase in collisions before the intersection.
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Revenue over safety
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Are you people insane?
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Re: Are you people insane?
There is a big difference.
When the laws are rigged to provide city income as opposed to provide citizen safety, then you will find dissentors who to you, just might look insane.
Until you open your eyes.
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we vote for people? ha!
No sadly enough we (and I assume you mean the collective we the populous of these United States) do not vote. About 20% of us might, but the rest don't give a damn. Currently voting is just an illusion to make it feel like we have a choice. All we can choose, is to put some jackass in a seat. Once there they'll do whatever they please until a lawsuit says otherwise. Now if a city is conisdering red-light cams they may choose to bring it up in a city-council meeting. In which case anyone who would like to protest must get off their fat lazy ass, drive to town hall, and wait to be called on to voice their opinion. Even fewer people actually go to meetings, than those who vote. The great majority however waits until someone does something they don't like, and then they throw a huge tissy-fit much like most of the commenters here, and expect something to happen thereafter.
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Does it apply to motorcycles?
I'm not talking about being dangerous and stupid here ... that would just remove me from the gene pool prematurely ... I'm just talking about not having to ride miles out of my way to get home if I'm out late on my bike and there aren't many cars on the road. (At least none that are going my way that could trip the light for me.)
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Re: Does it apply to motorcycles?
Just go get a 10$ strobe light, set it to the right frequency, and you can (often) turn the light green by powering up the strobe light for a few seconds.
(warning: that's a felony in most states, but hey, at least you wont get a fine!)
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Re: Re: Does it apply to motorcycles?
Just go get a 10$ strobe light, set it to the right frequency, and you can (often) turn the light green by powering up the strobe light for a few seconds.
(warning: that's a felony in most states, but hey, at least you wont get a fine!)
That would be an IR light that you need and it doesn't work all that easily or that many places at all. Seriously, I prefer dorpus to be posting nonsense.
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Re: Re: Re: Does it apply to motorcycles?
http://www3.state.id.us/oasis/2004/H0604.html
Next time, get your facts before correcting someone.
The original strobe sensors (that were mass deployed and are still in mass usage) were created to be backwards compatible to the strobe lights already installed on the rescue vehicles they were providing service for. And it works extremely well, thank you.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Does it apply to motorcycles?
http://www3.state.id.us/oasis/2004/H0604.html
Next time, get your facts before correcting someone.
The original strobe sensors (that were mass deployed and are still in mass usage) were created to be backwards compatible to the strobe lights already installed on the rescue vehicles they were providing service for. And it works extremely well, thank you.
Thanks for being as accurate as dorpus. You provided an Idaho bill as proof?! There have been NUMEROUS articles on the matter as well as testing by several magazines.
Here is one article for you, Coward.
http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,68507,00.html
I hope you can find more for yourself.
And yeah, it might be an optical strobe light as defined in your lovely amendment, but the signal that sensors respond to is STILL infrared. I hope you are not too surprised that both can be coming from one source. That's also the reason the strobe light you are talking about works all the same when you have an IR lens on top of it.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Does it apply to motorcycles?
But uh, you didn't discredit anything.
I was referring to the original implemtation of the system that worked quite well before it was rendered far less useless by the MIRT standard, the one that borked most of the usability elements of the system in favor of making it minutely less possible to use without permission (which was part of the original design spec).
And no, I was not referring to IR when I said optical. I was referring to the systems that were implemented pre-MIRT. Thanks for trying to put word in my mouth tho, but I prefer my own intelligent words over your ignorant ones.
I hope you have learned something now. Goodbye. Coward.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Does it apply to motorcycl
My first response to you, Jack, was that a strobe light won't work since the systems are MIRT. You can argue all you want that you were referring to the old systems, but you might as well talk about steam powered cars. No one put any words in your mouth, your advise was wrong the first time you said it and it is still wrong as you are trying to obscure the original comment. The red-light changing system are MIRT based, strobe light won't work, thanks for playing, Jackie-boy.
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The flash is killer
If they position the flashes wrong, as in the case by my apartment, the red light cameras can become very dangerous.
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The war on travel
Near Bristol in England a speed camera recently became the first to earn 1 million pounds. If you drive in the UK you are watched by cameras on every street which read your registration plate. They know where you are, how fast you travel, if your motor has insurance and road tax, and even how many passengers you have in the vehicle.
The UK is one massive experiment in TOTAL surveillance and automated law enforcement. The traffic meters and cameras in any London street earn twice the hourly rate of any human working in the shops and offices. In short the entire enterprise is one massive gravy train. We call it the "War on Transport". It is driven by the marriage of a lunatic nanny socialist state with corrupt local authorities who are in bed with the so called "security companies".
The experiment is still ramping up, increasing the pressure to see how much we will take before we turn. It has been running for almost 5 years now.
What are the results of this experiment? I'll tell you....
There has been no significant reduction in serious and fatal RTAs
or street crime and traffic congestion is worse than ever before.
Sorry to hammer this home but
THERE HAS BEEN NO SIGNIFICANT REDUCTION IN ROAD TRAFFIC ACCIDENTS
NO SIGNIFICANT REDUCTION IN STREET CRIME
CONGESTION IS WORSE THAN EVER BEFORE
My own town spent 30 million on cameras alone this year.
That would have built a new hospital.
Runaway authoratarianism and sinister "security companies" are fucking us up the ass. Everybody wants to lower crime and increase safety but this is not the way to do it. There is simply no evidence that surveillance impacts on the situation, leaving any thinking person with the incontrovertible conclusion that it's just a big money making scheme through punative fines.
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Yellow Means Stop
Don't know what driving school you people went to, but in my lessons, I was told that, if you come to a yellow light, you're supposed to stop if you can, not put your foot down to try to beat it.
Also, if somebody hits you from behind while you're moving forward, it's their fault, not yours. When somebody tailgates me, I drive slower anyway, to try to reduce the chance of this. Yes, it pisses them off--that's the point. :)
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Re: Yellow Means Stop
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Exceptions
The point is.. yellow does not mean FLOOR IT!!!
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Re: Yellow Means Stop
There's no such thing as "undue braking". Certainly can't find it mentioned in my copy of the Road Code. If you hit something that's stationary, it's your fault. So if you hit someone because they've stopped, it's your fault.
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Re: Yellow Means Stop
What did they teach you in driving school about a four-way stop? Probably, that the vehicle to your right should proceed first. Again, some regulations state that you make a full stop and proceed when it is safe to do so. There is no mention of yielding to vehicles to the 'right'.
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Research Disputes This Blog Claim
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Re: Research Disputes This Blog Claim
As mentioned before, this is incomplete information. Just as in San Diego some yellow lights were shortened to "help out" the cameras, many cities installing them actually made the yellow lights longer to avoid the legal trouble.
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I ran a light a few months ago because I was in a hurry and got to it just as it changed to red. THREE cars behind me all ran the light. God knows what would have happened had I stopped.
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Automated Enforcement means $$$
The even bigger farce with these photo enforcement systems is that there is no transparent audit trail in which the money goes directly back to what it needs to - driver reeducation. Instead, it goes back into the ol' pork barrel where politicians can use it for whatever whim they see fit. In the city of Edmonton's case, this also went to buying a $4M dog kennel and "vacation getaway" homes in Arizona.
The bottom line here is that no government can clearly justify what it is taking our money for, and photo enforcement has nothing to do with administering justice.
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