Schaumburg Dumps Redlight Cameras After They Show No Safety Benefit
from the good-for-them dept
We've seen it in a few other places, but reader Don Gatza let's us know that Schaumburg, Illinois is the latest city to dump its redlight cameras. The city found that, despite promises to the contrary, the redlight cameras did not decrease accidents (not even the "t-bone" accidents that proponents of such cameras insist they help combat). The city claims that even though a single intersection generated 10,000 tickets and over a million in revenue in just a few months, it's going to drop the cameras, because "It was not our intent to use them as a revenue generator." If only other communities were so enlightened.Of course, there was a second potential factor in the decision as well. Apparently pissed off ticket recipients had been complaining and promising to stop shopping at Schaumberg businesses -- leading local businesses to fear a loss in customers and revenue. Of course, this is the same thing that towns with notorious speed traps have found: people avoid going there, harming local businesses. Hopefully more local businesses start recognizing that giving out automated tickets that do nothing to improve safety also tend to harm local businesses as well. In the meantime, if officials want to improve safety in Schaumburg intersections, studies have shown that the best way to do so is rather simple: increase the timing of yellow lights, and then add a longer pause between one direction turning red, and the perpendicular traffic's lights turning green.
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Filed Under: redlight cameras, safety, schaumburg
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Sweet!
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Re: Sweet!
Obviously there is an ideal way to time lights for economic advantage, such that the least time is wasted and the least accidents occur. But to do that you would need to take into account a very gray number of what percentage of people do not follow the law. And unfortunately the best way to get that number might actually be to have a camera sitting at every light and simply monitoring who runs yellow and red lights. I think it's a bit of a catch-22, but somebody else may see things differently.
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Well -- I will ignore the fact that I disagree with that being a good idea and simply point out to you that the lights were not being "simply monitored", they were sending tickets out automatically in the mail. This is absurd and incredibly unjust, and a TERRIBLE way for the city to collect revenue, as only a small fraction of the revenue goes to the city.
For instance, I was issued a $270 speeding ticket last year (probably deserved that one, but that's beside the point), followed by my insurance company tacking on a $400 surcharge for 6 years. That means that the total "revenue" garnered from me getting that ticket is an obscene $2,670, only $270 of which goes to the town. So the town collects their little fee, and then lets the insurance company charge me nearly 10 times more for getting the ticket! When towns start going out and giving tickets to generate revenue, they have to keep in mind that the people that they ticket are going to have to take on, in many cases, 10x the fee that they are charging. This is absolutely despicable and shows once again, that the government is not REALLY looking out for you (unless, of course you happen to live in Schaumburg, apparently).
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Responding to the content of your post, do you even know what a Catch-22 is? Can you please explain to me how the situation in question presents a situation which creates two potential but paradoxically impossible outcomes (i.e. -- the original Catch-22 -- If you are insane, you cannot be allowed to fly in combat. However, if you actually want to fly in combat you must be insane and cannot fly. Conversely, if you don't want to fly into combat you must be sane and therefore must fly) I can't see how that is a Catch-22 at all to begin with, but that is irrelevant. I was pointing out that slacker was missing the point, that we were talking about cameras being used for automated ticketing rather than cameras being used for monitoring. Apparently you are the one missing the point.
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By what twisted reasoning do you make a connection between a red light camera fee and your insurance company raising your individual rate?
Does your local municipality offer vehicle insurance to individuals, or regulate insurance companies? If not, how can you lump the two amounts together? The $270 to the town was for the infraction (and being stupid enough to do it where someone was watching). The $2400 surcharge over 6 years was because you proved yourself to be a bigger risk with a much higher probability of the insurance company having to pay out.
Lumping the two together is like trying to sell your used car for the amount you originally paid, plus the cost of all the maintenance and fuel you put into it while you owned it.
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I think there's a very good possibility the insurance company told him that the increase was due to the ticket. Most insurance companies will raise rates on people who get tickets.
Does your local municipality offer vehicle insurance to individuals, or regulate insurance companies?
I don't know about Rob, but my state regulates auto insurance fees.
The $2400 surcharge over 6 years was because you proved yourself to be a bigger risk...
He got a ticket, but that alone doesn't prove that he's a worse risk than someone who didn't. My family took my grandmother's keys away from her after she got dementia even though she never got a red light ticket. I don't see how Rob's ticket proves him a worse driver than my grandmother.
In states where auto insurance rates are regulated (all?), the companies look for permitted excuses to raise rates above the standard ones. They probably only raised his rates for 6 years for that ticket because that's all the state would allow.
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And about Schaumburg in general, I find it amusing that the City didn't know that most of the violations would be right turns and now they want out. Seems to me the City was looking for the revenue but failed to conduct a traffic study to assess the problem. So it's both the vendor and City failed to research the situation and then caved to local pressures. What a great example of bad planning.
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This seems like a question of mentality. What is yours? Because it sounds to me like you want to focus on punishing people that break the law.
I don't care if people break the law, I care about stopping dangerous accidents and stopping people from breaking the law wasn't the point of the cameras. It was to prevent accidents. Which it didn't. How is removing them NOT a no-brainer?
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But since you want to take this to the extreme, we can't ignore all the other violations--ticket everyone driving even 1 mph over the limit, every person who sets half a foot outside the designated crosswalk, barefoot drivers and Sunday dominoes players in Alabama, people using mules to hunt ducks in Kansas, etc...
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As far as the extra airport entrance goes, thats why the Elgin-O'Hare was built in the first place, as a route to go directly into O'Hare from the west...
Shaumberg also shortened the lights to catch more speeders, my ex mother in law runs a trucking company and was getting tickets because her trucks didn't have the time to stop
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Actually, the way that kind of information is usually acquired is by something traffic engineers call a "traffic survey" with actual observers, not red light cameras.
...and simply monitoring who runs yellow and red lights.
Identifying "who" probably has little bearing on "percentage". Off hand, I can't imagine why people's identities should have anything to do with such an analysis and so such a claim just seems like an excuse for something else to me.
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If by small you mean the 9th largest shopping center in ALL OF AMERICA, then yeah, it's small.
"It's not the mall's fault"
I don't think I said it was. The location of the mall is ideal from the mall's perspective. The fact of the matter is that any civil engineer worth a penny could have foresaw what putting that mall that close to one of the busiest airports in the world was going to do to traffic. But, in typical west suburban fashion, they didn't give a shit about anybody or anything but what was in their own municipality.
Chicago suburbs are notorious for being bad neighbors.
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That is an understatement...
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It probably wasn't a civil engineer. It was probably the decision of the real estate developer who owned the land.
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Power to the People!
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Elk Grove Village
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Eco Alternative to Traffic Lights
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Re: Eco Alternative to Traffic Lights
Um, yes they can. Roundabouts around here are installed to deliberately SLOW the flow of traffic through residential areas.
Most other countries do not have the same type of traffic that the US has. Public transportation and alternative transportation is a lot more heavily used. Vehicles in European countries are much smaller, on average, and therefore more nimble in roundabouts. Roundabouts do not work well with a huge volume of larger personal vehicles whose drivers are always in a hurry, which is what we have in the US.
And, before you start criticizing Americans for not using public transportation, please realize that effective public systems don't really exist in most cities. The auto industry bought and shut down most of them in the mid-1900s. They are starting to re-emerge, and hopefully someday I'll be able to ride to work in something other than my car without adding a full 2.5 hours to my workday. (It's a 20-minute drive to work. The only public transportation is a bus that stops a mile from my house, drops me off a mile from work an hour early, and picks me up a mile from work an hour late.)
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That depends on how slow it is.
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Memphis is going down this road
Now, since Larry Godwin is as dumb as a bag of hammers, he probably believes in some small way they're really doing something to make the city safer. But since Larry is also as sly as a fox, he knows that someone is going to get rich off of this, and he might as well take his piece of the action while he can.
I can guarantee that none of the dolts in the mayor's office, the city council, or the police director's office have any idea of the overwhelming evidence that these things don't save lives or reduce accidents, and they don't want to know.
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If people speeding generated 1 million plus in revenue, my god, they should put more up. Those speeding should pay for their wrongs and if the state is getting more money by trying to make highways safer, by all means do so and put more up.
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I agree with Rob, you obviously haven't a clue.
But that aside, you bring up the point "Those speeding should pay for their wrongs"
I think that if people want to "speed" over the posted speed limit then those people should be able to pay an up front tax on their registration to get a higher speed limit.
For instance, here in Illinois it costs me I think $78 per year for my vehicle registration sticker I put on my license plate. What if I could pay say, double, or $156 for the sticker and get a speed limit that is posted speed limit +10 or something like that. That way we can call it what it is, a TAX, not a "fine". Just a rough idea that occurred to me the other day.
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Oh great idea. Then I can spend time dodging rich little Naperville teenagers driving daddy's beemers @ 95 MPH...
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Changing the subject, here in Finland (Europe) where I live, we have a huge problem with people running red lights. The reason? Long yellows, a long pause between lights turning red in one direction and green in the next, and long reds. Everything suggested as a solution in the article is KNOWN to contribute to exactly the problem you are trying to solve. Try again!!!
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Negligent Mayor Ignored Red Light Camera Warnings
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elk grove
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spy/speed cameras
Redflex cameras across the nation have had a strange virus which causes the traffic light they are at to shorten the time of the yellow usually to the 3 seconds required by federal law, but well below university study recommendations of 4.5. This does allow much more revenue for Redflex, and the cities, so when they say it is for safety, that is just a load of b.s.,. MPH Reaction Time Stopping Distance Total Distance 40 mph 44 feet 81 feet 125 feet Where Redflex cameras have shorten the yellow will someday kill if in fact they have not already done so. This is a company that touts safety but in fact many of their actions show that they care a whole lot more about revenue than protecting citizens./// Knoxville News Sentinel Co."After 30 years with the Knoxville Police Department, 52-year-old Bill Roehl has opted for retirement, creating a vacancy in the post of deputy chief over the patrol division.Roehl leaves the Knoxville Police Department for a new full-time job with Redflex Traffic Systems///THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH "A Columbus City Council member whose committees oversee legislation dealing with road construction, red-light cameras and environmental issues borrowed money from a lobbyist whose clients are interested in the same topics" "refused to disclose the amount of the loan ". Akron Becon Journal--"City Council president criticizes William Healy II for contracts involving campaign contributors" "Schulman pointed to two contributions of $125 each on July 8 from individuals associated with Redflex Traffic Systems Inc. of Phoenix" By Gerry Smith Chicago Tribune Reporter July 15, 2009 After Carol Stream Police Chief Rick Willing recommended his town hire Redflex Traffic Systems, village officials approved a contract with the Arizona-based red-light camera vendor in December 2007. Less than a year later, Willing retired from the force and began working for Redflex.
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