Speeding Cameras

[TomCollins]

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Getting rid of publicly funded roads and letting the free market do it's thing is sounding better now isn't it?

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Because there's nothing stopping the private owner of a road from taking your picture from a van and issuing you a citation if he deems your driving inappropriate. Yep. Privatization fixes everything.

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Why would any ACist consider this a problem?

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I didn't say it was a problem, but it's the same situation about which the OP was complaining, and shake seemed to suggest would be "fixed" with private roads.

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It solves the problem about people complaining about it.

[TomCollins]

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Try living in Arizona--we have them on a stretch of freeway going through Scottsdale in addition to the cameras at red lights and vans. Rumor is they want to try to put them on ALL of Arizona's freeways through a referendum next year.

A huge problem IMO as this is driven by revenues not safety and is a pet peeve of mine. I follow a site/blog called thenewspaper.com and it follows the topic very closely. I bought a license cover for $25 and that keeps me insulated from the tickets, but still pi$$es me off. Police should be around for public safety NOT as a revenue source. [img]/images/graemlins/mad.gif[/img]

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Perhaps a solution to this is to make all fines due to traffic tickets go towards some fund for victums of automobile crashes, or something OTHER than the police departments. This would make this a public safety issue rather than funding issue pretty fast.

[Dan.]

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It solves the problem about people complaining about it.

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Unlikely, but it removes some of the merit of their complaints.

[AzDesertRat]

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Try living in Arizona--we have them on a stretch of freeway going through Scottsdale in addition to the cameras at red lights and vans. Rumor is they want to try to put them on ALL of Arizona's freeways through a referendum next year.

A huge problem IMO as this is driven by revenues not safety and is a pet peeve of mine. I follow a site/blog called thenewspaper.com and it follows the topic very closely. I bought a license cover for $25 and that keeps me insulated from the tickets, but still pi$$es me off. Police should be around for public safety NOT as a revenue source. [img]/images/graemlins/mad.gif[/img]

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Perhaps a solution to this is to make all fines due to traffic tickets go towards some fund for victums of automobile crashes, or something OTHER than the police departments. This would make this a public safety issue rather than funding issue pretty fast.

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Right now the fines go into the general fund for the town/city/municipality and is also split with private company putting and maintaining these things. If you were to change where the funds go, you would rapidly lose support for these things from these jurisdictions and they wouldn't be around any more.

It's not about safety, it's about the money--anyone who says otherwise is either completely ignorant or is trying to sell you something.

[Brainwalter]

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I just want to make sure I'm reading this right:

Are people actually complaining about being caught openly breaking the law? I can understand disagreeing with the law itself, but complaining when you get caught OPENLY VIOLATING IT? Amazing.

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"If you're not doing anything wrong you should have nothing to hide."

They're complaining about the method of enforcement, cameras placed on public streets. The complaint is of like kind (but lesser degree imo) as unjustified contraband searches, wiretaps, etc.

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I just hope our transit system does not turn into Australia's. They have speed cameras everywhere I went.

[John Kilduff]

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I prefer speed limits to an officer subjectively and arbitrarily judging an "unsafe" speed. I also agree that speed limits are usually too low. If they were raised, and a lower tolerance for speeding was enforced (no bs 7mph rule) that was objective, I don't see the problem.

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The problem with this is that the average motorist is always going to go slightly above the speed limit, and it can be unsafe to drive at strictly the speed limit when everyone else around you is going 3-18 m.p.h. faster. If speed limits were raised (say 5 m.p.h. increase) to adjust, as you suggest, motorists would simply themselves adjust to going 3-18 m.p.h. above that and the driver who is the strict observer of speed limits would still be in the hazardous position.

[BCPVP]

I guess I'm still unclear as to this mentality. Elwood probably brought up the best point, being that the camera may not show the driver in which case the owner of the car has to prove it wasn't him driving. But if the cameras that catch you running a red light can take a picture of the driver, why can't these speedtrap cameras do the same?

And if these cameras could take a picture of the driver, how is this any different than a police car hiding with the radar gun out? It seems that most here don't have trouble with the laws regarding the speed limit, so why the reaction to enforcing those laws?

For the ACists, pretend that I'm talking about a private road with private enforcement because that would be my ideal scenario.

[zyqwert]

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1) it makes unfair assumptions as to who the actual driver of the vehicle is at the time of the violation. Essentially, the burden is shifted to the owner to prove that they were not the driver. This is, in my opinion, an inappropriate burden-shifting. The state should have to prove All elements of the crime/offense (in particular that the defendant actually committed the crime)


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You have some quaint notions. Burden of proof?
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Although the Red Bank City Court accepted proof that she was at work at the time listed on the photograph, Judge Gary Disheroon nevertheless ordered her to pay $50 for the violation she did not commit and another $100 for challenging the ticket in court.

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Got to love the additional penalty for exercising her right to due process.

Next you are going to want to cross examine the witness against you. That would mean reading the source code to look for bugs that could impeach the camera's credibility. Unfortunately, the source code is a trade secret.

(In 1986 I worked on the software for a breathalyser like the one in the last link. I was not then qualified to write the software, and what I wrote was doubtless full of bugs. The company's skill was getting judges / politicians to mandate the use of their product, accuracy was irrelevant.)

[Poofler]

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Try living in Arizona--we have them on a stretch of freeway going through Scottsdale in addition to the cameras at red lights and vans. Rumor is they want to try to put them on ALL of Arizona's freeways through a referendum next year.

A huge problem IMO as this is driven by revenues not safety and is a pet peeve of mine. I follow a site/blog called thenewspaper.com and it follows the topic very closely. I bought a license cover for $25 and that keeps me insulated from the tickets, but still pi$$es me off. Police should be around for public safety NOT as a revenue source. [img]/images/graemlins/mad.gif[/img]

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Perhaps a solution to this is to make all fines due to traffic tickets go towards some fund for victums of automobile crashes, or something OTHER than the police departments. This would make this a public safety issue rather than funding issue pretty fast.

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I have no idea if this particular case is profitable, but schemes like this have actually driven down State revenues before.