Best speed camera pictures ever

[scan]

The argument for having the cameras - leaving officers free to do other things, like take care of terrorist or murders, is invalid. The police that work on those areas of enforcement are not writing tickets anyway. Seems like speeding cameras and the like are a way to eliminate the need to hire as many cops. What happened to the day when people would see a cop on a neighborhood beat? It became impractical in terms of manpower. Now it is becoming impractical to have so many cops watching the roads, so we may see the day of highway cops coming to an end.

No one should deny the reason they don't like the traffic cameras. I'm sure for most people they don't want to get busted for breaking the law. I admit that myself. But as a secondary issues, I think the other ones mentioned are still valid. Just because cameras are everywhere and I can be seen everywhere doing things, doesn't mean I want even more. Sure, I first don't like gettting caught doing what I shouldn't have done. Secondarily I don't like being spied on, I don't like money being spend on that project, I don't like humans being phased out, and I don't like the potential mistakes that go along with this system. But YES, I do want to break this law, so that is at the core, and I don't think anyone yet has denied that, but they have all brought up the other less obvious issues.

So, I think those who think speeders get what they deserve - you will not be swayed, and your logic is not flawed. Those of us who speed do not think we are being dangerous fools though, and find the restrictions to be unfortunate. I was in Germany, and where it made sense there was no speed limit. This was not true everywhere. In the city on the freeway, you had to slow down. On country roads you could not go however fast you wanted. But on long stretches on the freeway, where there were large gaps in traffic, you could go as fast as wanted. This is what I think should work everywhere. That is where I speed the most and have the greatest chance of getting caught - a place where I'm causing no one else a problem - other than people with an arbitrary limit on how fast is safe for a freeway. IMHO.

[CNF2002]

The last thing we need is to allow soccer moms and cellphone talking accountants to decide what is 'safe speed'.

I'm all for speed cameras if it gets you people to slow down. You may want to ride dangerously and accept the risk but I dont. You are on the road with me and you pose a danger to me with your recklessness.

Do SOME local govts install cameras and lower the speed limits to get money? I'm sure they do...corruption is not exclusive to the corporate world.

Nothing I say is going to convince you, but how about a story?

In my neighborhood a road is 25. It seems silly because not many houses are on it, mostly its just an artery for the smaller roads. Its wide (can accomodate 2 lane traffic plus cars parked on both curbs) and honestly I would feel comfortable driving 35 on it. I don't because 25 is the speed limit, and I have no problem driving the speed limit. This infuriates people, who love to drive 30...35...40 on this road.

People are just impatient, selfish, and don't think their personal actions have any consequences.

One day I was driving down this road at 25. Out of nowhere, this little girl on a bike (probably 9 yrs old) comes flying out of one of the side streets into my path. I slam on the brakes and swerve and barely missed her.

If I had been going 30 I might have hit her. If I had been going 35 I probably would have hit her. If I had been going 40 I would have hit her before I even knew what was happening.

That 25 mph speed limit doesn't seem so silly now, and I for one am glad that I force myself to obey it. Fact is, most people are unable to correctly estimate what their speed needs to be to effectively drive in situations like that. This applies both on the freeway and in the neighborhoods.

Don't like the speedlimit? Lobby for it to change...but don't fight new methods of catching lawbreakers and hide behind a bunch of distorted facts and paranoia to defend your position. Don't want to obey the limit, and don't want to take the effort to get it changed? Then boohoo...here's your ticket, cry me a river and give me a violin.

[scan]

OK - I had to break this one down -

The last thing we need is to allow soccer moms and cellphone talking accountants to decide what is 'safe speed'.

Granted. This is not safe. But what are we as riders of motorcycles? We are highly focused citizens of the roads. I am in a constant state of scan. Part of what I love about riding is analysis. Look ahead, figure out what the other cars are doing, watching for places other cars could come from, keeping vigilant scan of the ground for debis and changing surface types. When I ride faster I endanger no one. It is what I believe, but I do put a limit on how fast and when it is safe. I spend more time going the speed limit than not, but my bike was made to go fast, and enjoy my bike. You do know that is a large portion of the riding community - those who own powerful bikes and like to take them for little brisk runs from time to time.

I'm all for speed cameras if it gets you people to slow down. You may want to ride dangerously and accept the risk but I dont. You are on the road with me and you pose a danger to me with your recklessness.

You people? Alright man. I guess you putting yourself in a seperate community than me. I am not dangerous to you, nor would I be if I was one lane over from you passing.

Do SOME local govts install cameras and lower the speed limits to get money? I'm sure they do...corruption is not exclusive to the corporate world.

Yes, and I do not think this is strictly corruption either. There are places where it seems like the only right thing to do. Traffic lights are a great application of this technology, since I see red light runners as a huge threat to riders. Aggressive drivers are also a problem, but I do not see speeding and aggressive driving as being linked. It does occur that aggressive drivers speed, but not all people who speed are aggressive. Still, I think the point is, the speed cameras are watching for excess speed, which is against the law. I see little true corruption there, but possible opportunism.

Nothing I say is going to convince you, but how about a story?

I'll pull up a chair and get comfortable

In my neighborhood a road is 25. It seems silly because not many houses are on it, mostly its just an artery for the smaller roads. Its wide (can accomodate 2 lane traffic plus cars parked on both curbs) and honestly I would feel comfortable driving 35 on it. I don't because 25 is the speed limit, and I have no problem driving the speed limit. This infuriates people, who love to drive 30...35...40 on this road.

People are just impatient, selfish, and don't think their personal actions have any consequences.

One day I was driving down this road at 25. Out of nowhere, this little girl on a bike (probably 9 yrs old) comes flying out of one of the side streets into my path. I slam on the brakes and swerve and barely missed her.

If I had been going 30 I might have hit her. If I had been going 35 I probably would have hit her. If I had been going 40 I would have hit her before I even knew what was happening.

That 25 mph speed limit doesn't seem so silly now, and I for one am glad that I force myself to obey it. Fact is, most people are unable to correctly estimate what their speed needs to be to effectively drive in situations like that. This applies both on the freeway and in the neighborhoods.

Yeah, I just don't see that very last point. It is a good story though, and I think if I'm going to advocate speeding I need to qualify what I'm talking about, because I do not find the behavior of speeding in a residential, or most sub-50 MPH zones to be acceptable. 90% the speed is reduced below 55 MPH in order to allow for traffic changes, congested areas, high pedestrian count, many busy intersections, and so on. I think that requires some common sense, that I guess not everyone uses. On the highway, I think speed reduction is less of a factor in safety on the highway. Good distance ahead and behind, being aware of the available escape routes and keeping those clear, and awareness of merging traffic. I've seen it many times on the highway (in my 17000 miles on this bike), slow traffic and people not following the keep right guideline are the biggest threat to safety. Not speeding.

Don't like the speedlimit? Lobby for it to change...but don't fight new methods of catching lawbreakers and hide behind a bunch of distorted facts and paranoia to defend your position. Don't want to obey the limit, and don't want to take the effort to get it changed? Then boohoo...here's your ticket, cry me a river and give me a violin.

Like I said, if I get a ticket, I pay it, knowing I was aware of the rules and broke them. You have to be responsible for your actions. And I still don't think the other points I made are distorted facts or paranoia. But I respect your point of view. You have no way to respect mine, so that's something I'll have to accept.

[CNF2002]

scan, I do understand your points. Common sense and skill used when you want to drive faster than a posted speed limit? Great! I'm all for that...one problem though...

...most drivers wouldn't know common sense if it ran a red light and t-boned them.

I will happily driver slower than I think is necessary...because in all truth, I probably misjudge it ALOT myself because I don't always think or account for every possible situation.

But this isn't a discussion about whether speed limits should exist. This is a discussion about speed cameras. Arguing against these detectors is like arguing that cops shouldn't have radar guns. We need to use the tech available to catch these people breaking the law.

Just because a law is inconvenient to you and doesn't make sense, doesn't give you the right to actively break it...nor complain when you are caught. Fine, drive fast...but don't complain when the detector mails you a ticket for it.

[dieziege]

Here is the problem....

A couple of years ago, New York city had a budget problem... so they started enforcing the laws result in fines. They fined people for having license plate frames with words on them (every car dealership in the USA installs these on every car they sell... I always take them off 'cause they are ugly... but nobody ever told me they were illegal too.), people parked in such a way as to block a driveway...even when it was their own driveway... on and on.

Quite a few years before that, a small town in Nevada had a budget problem... so they decided to drop the speed limit on the highway that passes the town from 70MPH to 35MPH.

A few years after that a town in Northern California had a budget problem so someone decided to seize a house to Auction off... they manufactured a report that pot was being grown ("nobody knows" where the report came from) because property seized in drug raids can be sold to the profit of the agency which seized them. In the process they killed the homeowner... but they never found any pot. They did sell the house though.

If you read US travel guides today, they will usually warn against carrying more than a few hundred dollars cash. Why? Because a town in Florida was having budget problems a few years ago and decided that they could cure it by seizing any large amounts of cash they discovered as "probable drug money"... you can get it back with a lawyer, but it takes 18 months and will cost thousands more than you ever recover... and that practice has spread to other states.

In every case, people were using the law to further some other goal. In the case of NY, the goal was short term cashflow and the only harm was a lot of citizens pissed off that they had to pay bogus tickets. In Nevada there are more harms... people (mostly from out of town) are paying traffic tickets... but it is also more dangerous to drive through town (I nearly got rear-ended by someone who didn't see the new speed limit signs), more fuel is used, and goods cost more to transport. In the case of the homeowner who was killed, the injustice was profound and irreversible. In the case of the thousands of innocent people who have had cash stolen from them by police departments across the US, the injustice is lower but still profound.

How long is it before speed cameras become a way to correct budget problems? Wait a second... they already are... most are installed by private companies who split the proceeds with the city. A better question is how long until the laws are warped (speed limits changed, traffic signal timing altered) to boost revenue from these devices? Wait... that has already happened too. They were thrown out of San Diego for a while when it was found that the timing of traffic lights with cameras was different than normal lights.

If, after installing these devices, the speed limits stayed the same or went up to reflect how fast people were able to travel now that things are safer, you could argue that the devices were not being abused. If you could demonstrate that the roads were safer, again you could argue the devices have merit. Studies have already established that red light cameras actually increase the number of traffic accidents (people getting rear-ended at lights). Are speed cameras different?

The technology is too open for abuse. There is a good reason why the use of radar for speed enforcement is regulated and legally limited... why you can't just start using radar any time and place you want to as a LEO... because radar was abused too. There is a reason why there are laws intended to prevent "speed traps"... they too were abused. They still are in places. There are places where the justice of the peace and the police department split the fines from speeding tickets... so when the JotP needs extra money for their house payment, a speed trap goes up until they have their money. And you can argue that if people were following the limits that wouldn't happen... but you can as easily argue that if that didn't happen the speed limits would be higher (because there would be no incentive for artificially low speed limits).

[CNF2002]

So we should abandon all technology that has opportunity for abuse? Well, thats about everything

I see your argument...but you are talking about a small percentage here. I've seen these cameras go up and I haven't seen any drop in the speed limit, so I don't know what you are talking about but it must be a local thing.

And the cameras are installed by private companies because the city contracts the work out to them. They take a percentage of the money from the fines to help fund the construction and maintenance of those devices so that the city doesn't pay full price out of pocket for every one (we can talk about poor fiscal responsibility some other time).

The BIG thing is that no one would oppose a cop sitting in the same place every day watching for speeders and issuing tickets. When a camera does it, suddenly its a big deal. That's awfully suspicious and leads me to question the motive behind the complaint.

Unless we want to get rid of traffic cops also?

[dieziege]

Not all traffic cops... but in fact people have opposed traffic cops setting themselves up at a particular spot and just writing a bunch of tickets. That's called a "speed trap" and there are laws to prevent them.

But more importantly, when you said "So we should abandon all technology that has opportunity for abuse?" you either attempted a red herring or you missed the point. It isn't a technology issue, it is a legal issue.

If you establish laws or law enforcement processes which create a motive for abuse, you create the abuse which follows.

By establishing traffic cameras as a franchise partnership between a city (which needs money) and a for-profit company (which isn't just collecting money to maintain the equipment), you create a motive for abuse... and you create abuse. If you create a law which allows police departments to profit from seizing property suspected of use in a crime... you create the abuse that follows. If you allow individuals to report criminal behavior, and you take those reports as factual and act on them, then you create the abuse that follows when a neighbor gets pissed off at the family next door and makes a false report about them...you created that abuse by allowing the law which motivated (as in "powered") the abuse.

Allowing privately operated traffic cameras create a motive for abuse... but, more to the point, allowing the enforcer of the law to benefit from its enforcement (whether it is an individual LEO copping a feel as he arrests a prostitute, a police department getting half the value of a house they seize, or TraffiCams LTD. getting 50% of the face value of automated tickets they issue) creates a situation where abuse is likely to follow.

Supporting or trying to rationalize that situation is a mistake. You should be fighting it as hard as you can... because it creates a situation that is unsafe not just for the lawbreakers you think are "getting it" but for everyone.

[CNF2002]

I don't see how stopping cameras on the streets is going to help corruption. You directly link these cameras to other wildly unrelated incidents.

Your entire argument seems to be based on taking away the "instruments of corruption" from our government. Its a good cause, but its based entirely on dealing with a symptom instead of a cause. The cameras do not threaten anyone, they make it easier and safer for our police force to do their jobs. If the laws they are enforcing are wrong, or they modify it to suit some profit-gaining agenda, THAT is the problem, not the cameras themselves or what they represent.

However, how would you propose that the city maintain its camera system? Would we now need to send a police officer to build and repair them? You would be hard-pressed to find a company that can build electronic devices that is non-profit. Everyone is out to make a profit, and unless the city annexes a few factories and uses its police force to build the things, what else are they supposed to do?

[dieziege]

You are incorrect about symptoms and causes. Entirely backwards in fact.

They symptom is the corruption. The cause is the system which rewards the corruption thereby pushing people to be corrupt. Remove the reward and you remove the corruption. Remove the corruption leaving the reward... and you leave the door open for more corruption.

I was directly linking traffic cameras with other systems (laws, procedures, etc) which create similar potential for abuse. The linkage is very clear.

I'm not saying that traffic cameras themselves are wrong. As I said, it isn't a technology issue. I'm saying that for-profit operation of traffic cameras creates a situation that will be abused.

I used to work for a company that made digital security cameras. These were cameras with embedded computers which could be programmed to, among other things, detect the speed of a vehicle based on the intrinsic characteristics of the sensor (we used an interlaced sensor, which means you read off all the odd lines then all the even lines of the image. If an object is moving the odd and even line images will be in different places... measure the separation of the images, do some calculations based on known target distance and lens configuration, and you have the speed). These cameras could be had, with everything needed to install them at a remote location, for $1000. Lights are extra of course but not always needed. $1000 is not a heck of a lot for a road maintenance project. It is about the price of the street signs actually.

I had no moral qualms about that product. We only sold a few in that market (mostly in places like Brazil) but the product itself was clean and more to the point it could be owned outright by the government and operated entirely by them.

Your argument is that it is reasonable for a private company to operate traffic cameras as a service, with their profit derived from citations issued, because you see a potential benefit. I'm saying that it is unreasonable because the potential for abuse in that situation is very high, the potential benefit has not been proved (studies so far show harm, e.g. higher accident rates at those intersections), and the cost for a government to install their own cameras is low.

In the broader picture though, traffic cameras are easily abused. They can be abused by private companies (it has already happened). They can be abused by the police departments that could install them. The law has not adapted to curb those abuses. Until the protections are in place, we are better off without the tool.

[CNF2002]

I dont know how reliable or accurate that kind of speed detector would be. Too many variations in the image I think...far less reliable than the good old radar.

Anyway...this discussion is going back and forth to no end so I'm going to start winding my posts down

The cameras are not intended to be used for profit-gaining by the city, if they do end up being used for it, thats an issue that needs to be resolved. The cameras, the technology, what they enable us to do is not the issue. When used properly, they will help fight speeders. What is so frustrating about it all is that no one cares if people speed...they are oblivious to the problem, or they deny it entirely. I guess no one takes notice until someone in their immediate family dies.

For the cities profit-sharing with the companies consider this; company A comes to you and says they'll build 50 cameras for $100 a piece. company B comes to you and says they'll build 100 cameras, which they will own, operate, and gain 5% of the citations under contract for $25 a piece. A pencil pusher decides the city could operate the camera system for 5 years for less money with company B. Company B likes the deal because after 5 years, the city will probably stick with their cameras and they will continue to make more money than they would had they simply sold the cameras to the city outright.