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Mississippi Passes Law To Ban Traffic Light Cameras
Posted by
Soulskill
on Tue Mar 24, 2009 09:50 AM
from the guess-i-know-where-i'll-go-to-run-red-lights dept.
from the guess-i-know-where-i'll-go-to-run-red-lights dept.
DaGoatSpanka writes with news that Mississippi Governer Haley Barbour signed a bill into law on Friday which instituted a ban on automated cameras that would snap pictures of motorists when they ran red lights. "The new law says the two cities that already have the cameras, Jackson and Columbus, must take them down by Oct. 1. Other cities and counties are banned from starting to use them." We've discussed situations in the past where cities looked at such cameras as "profit centers," and even tampered with their traffic light timing to catch more motorists. Now, in Mississippi, the contractors who installed the cameras are unhappy, since they received a cut of the ticket revenue generated by the cameras. However, lawmakers overwhelming voted to get rid of them (117-3 in the House, 42-9 in the Senate), because "the cameras were an invasion of privacy and their constituents thought they had been unfairly ticketed."
Related Stories
[+]
News: Cities Tampering With Traffic Lights To Generate Revenue 736 comments
Techdirt is reporting that there has been a rash of reports indicating that red light cameras are being used to generate revenue rather than to promote safety. "Time and time again studies have shown that if cities really wanted to make traffic crossings safer there's a very simple way to do so: increase the length of the yellow light and make sure there's a pause before the cross traffic light turns green (this is done in some places, but not in many others). Tragically, it looks like some cities are doing the opposite! Jeff Nolan points out that six US cities have been caught decreasing the length of the yellow light below the legal limits in an effort to catch more drivers running red lights and [increase] revenue."
[+]
Politics: Cities View Red Light Cameras As Profit Centers 740 comments
Houston 2600 writes "Chicago could rake in 'at least $200 million' a year — and wipe out the entire projected deficit for 2009 — by using its vast network of redlight and surveillance cameras to hunt down uninsured motorists, aldermen were told today. The system pitched to the City Council's Transportation Committee by Michigan-based InsureNet would work only if insurance companies were somehow compelled to report the names and license plates of insured motorists. That's already happening daily in 13 states, but not here."
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Wow... (Score:5, Funny)
Inconceivable!!
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
Re:Wow... (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Re:Wow... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Wow... (Score:5, Insightful)
Except that they gave you a ticket for running a red light, not blocking traffic, which is an entirely different offense with a different penalty, usually lower.
People who block intersections are in violation of the law and stupid, but not as stupid as the people who knowingly run red lights. Both those action place you in the intersection when the other direction has a green, but running a red light results in you *appearing* there creating a large risk you and someone else will collide, whereas blocking an intersection from the start isn't very risky until people start deciding to go around you and ending up in the wrong lanes. (Which isn't your fault.)
Anyway, you can block an intersection and it not be your fault. Perhaps someone decided to leap in front of you via turning-right-on-red. A cop wouldn't give you a ticket for getting stranded in the intersection for that (Not that they normally give tickets for blocking intersections anyway.), they'd give the other guy a ticket for failing to yield.
Or perhaps something serious happened in your lane ahead so you had to change lanes in the intersection (Which is also illegal, but, again, not running a red light), and the other lane was full.
Entering an intersection without a reasonable expectation that you can clear the other side of it is a violation of the law. But people can't predict there future, and there are plenty of 'reasonable expectation' that are wrong. And even if you broke that law, it doesn't mean you should get a ticket for breaking an entirely unrelated law.
Parent
Re:Wow... (Score:5, Insightful)
If you can't see and/or know, you don't enter. It really is as simple as that.
Parent
Re:Wow... (Score:4, Insightful)
So this is what you'd be advocating; the light is green, but you must stop and wait at the line before the car preceeding you completely clears. Even if you're the 5th car in the line.
Isn't that called a stop sign?
Parent
Re:Wow... (Score:5, Insightful)
You do not have to stop unless you can't make it through the intersection. It's not advocating, its pointing out how it is to you.
Parent
Re:Wow... (Score:4, Informative)
TFA of the linked slashdot article indicates that the cities were shortening the length of the yellow lights. It could still be green, and it may not be obvious that the car(s) in front of you is/are about to stop. It seems that this was where the "unfair" part is coming from.
Parent
Re:Wow... (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Wow... (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Wow... (Score:5, Insightful)
I've lived in several places where this was an exceedingly common problem, but the intersection of 9th & Mercer in Seattle is by far the worst I've seen (map [google.com]) It can take 10 minutes to get from Broad & 9th to make the left hand turn on Mercer during rush hour because of that. I ended up rerouting the way I get to that intersection so I could avoid that turn and shave at least 10 minutes off the time it takes me to get to work during rush hour when I drive.
This unfortunately means the only way traffic EVER moves on that street during rush hour is if people move into the intersection while they have a green light. Thanks to how the lights are timed shortly before the left turn light turns red the light ahead on mercer will turn green and they'll get to move out of the intersection. Better traffic management could solve this problem, but if the city instead decides to place traffic cameras there to hand out tickets they would be incentivized to leave it broken.
Parent
Re:Wow... (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem IMHO is that everybody here by arguing about whether you get stuck in the intersection is missing the forest for the trees. What we are talking about with these cameras is ticket generators, nothing more. I have seen places that have these cameras where there is NO yellow light...the thing switches through yellow so damned fast your brain doesn't even have time to process it before you are in red and you are getting a ticket. See the problem here?
This is especially bad in these little one cop town speed traps you get throughout the rural south. Since they are pretty much living on burning out of towners they have EVERY incentive to rig it as much as they can against you. Cops having quotas is bad enough. But with these things both the company setting them up and the city have EVERY reason to make sure they can pass out maximum tickets. This isn't about safety or intersections, this is about boning those of us on the roads. A little highway robbery,if you will.
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Re:Wow... (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Wow... (Score:5, Insightful)
That's why red-light cameras set up by anyone who's not a totally incompetent moron take two or more consecutive pictures. Duh.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Huh... well that's not how 'our' traffic light cameras work. They basically trigger on the conditions that..
1. the light -is- red
and
2. somebody is actually crossing something like 2 meters past the hold line -while- that light is red.
You could still argue the case that you crossed it because an 18 wheeler was coming up behind you and didn't seem to be slowing down at all, or that you were getting out of the way of an ambulance.. the latter would have records, the former not so much. But it's not quite as
Re:Wow... (Score:5, Insightful)
In our town, the camera takes a picture of you BEHIND the line at the red light and quickly takes another one of you PAST the line at the red light. QED.
If you enter on yellow or green, you don't get nailed.
Also, while creating gridlock is a ticket-able offense (personally I think you should get the rack), it's also conducive to alleviating rush hour traffic when turning LEFT to enter the intersection on green even if you can't completely go through because of oncoming traffic; when they stop because of a red light, you have plenty of time to continue before the cross street gets green...
One extra car through the light each cycle means that much less traffic to back up. Where I live some lights only allow five or six cars to get through on the green turn signal. That means if you don't make the turn, then after five cycles you've got a whole extra cycle of backup. If the cycle is three minutes, you get two extra cycles of backup every half hour until rush hour ends.
Of course, you need to know that you'll be able to complete the left turn... if the left turn is backed up, you simply shouldn't enter.
Some places encourage and teach this (some places don't).
Parent
Re:Wow... (Score:4, Interesting)
Sometimes hard to do.
The other day I was in a traffic jam, at a green light. Since there was no room to clear the intersection I waited at the stop line. Soon there was enough room for a single car, so I proceeded into the intersection, but before I was across a guy in the crossing road turned right and took up the empty space, leaving me stuck in the intersection when the light turned red.
The guy who turned right broke the law, but I was the one who got snapped by the camera.
Parent
Re:Wow... (Score:5, Insightful)
2/ unfairly ticketed ? if there's a picture as proof I'd say it's fair you get a ticket..
The unfair ticketing comes in when cities start tweaking the yellow light timing to generate more revenue. I think it would be more productive to outlaw this practice than to outlaw red light cameras. I would personally also outlaw the practice of sharing the revenue with the vendor -- buy it outright like any other system. Traffic laws shouldn't be written/enforced with an eye towards making money -- they should be enforced with an eye towards deterring behavior that places everybody at risk.
Personally I'd use the revenue to fund traffic safety courses and make everybody who violates the traffic law sit in them. I think the prospect of spending eight hours of your time being lectured would be a bigger deterrent than a sub $100 fine.
Parent
Re:Wow... (Score:4, Insightful)
That's definitely the best idea I've heard. Regulate the timings on traffic lights, specifically the minimum time a light stays yellow based on the maximum speed of the road.
Parent
Re:Wow... (Score:5, Informative)
This is more about running reds, I believe, than speeding.
And on that note, I drive a motorcycle, and quite often a motorcycle does not generate enough of an EM field to be noticed by the sensors. Pull up to an intersection that is slow in your direction and you can wait all day if you like and never get a green. The common solution here is to simply wait for traffic to slow, and then run the red when there's a break. This particular problem happens even more often when waiting for left-turn arrows.
Do you suggest I should just wait half an hour for a car to coincidentally be going my way, or just accept my ticket for running the red light, simply because a camera saw me do it? I would say that would be a pretty fair ticket. The "picture as proof" fails to consider context. The above is simply one example where context makes a world of difference. There are other situations as well.
Furthermore, I should not have to spend a day in court because an automated system is incapable of properly considering the entire situation, so don't tell me "well then you can just get it thrown out of court." That still costs me time (and therefore money.)
Additionally, on the topic of context and your (2): suppose someone took a picture of me shooting someone in the chest with a gun. Wow! You've got proof I committed murder! Maybe I should go to jail? Nevermind the fact that a similar picture from just a few seconds before would depict the other person coming at me with a knife, intent on killing me for the few dollars in my wallet. We don't have that picture, so clearly it is irrelevant.
Wtf? A picture of a moment in time is not the entire story; don't treat it as if it is.
Parent
Re:Wow... (Score:5, Informative)
unfairly ticketed ? if there's a picture as proof I'd say it's fair you get a ticket..
Read the summary. The camera's were rigged to give out bogus tickets. A common trick was to set the yellow-light time so short that it is physically impossible to safely stop in time.
Assuming a driver slams the breaks and the car decelerates at 3/4 G, it takes a car traveling at 35MPH a full 4.2 seconds to stop and that doesn't even count driver reaction time. There have been many cases where cities would set their yellow-light times as low as 3 seconds. (IIRC the legal minimum is 5 seconds.)
Any way you cut it, traffic cameras were being used by cities to abuse their citizens. Some sort of reform was needed. (Though perhaps regulation would have been better than completely banning them.)
Parent
Re:Wow... (Score:4, Interesting)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
You are approaching an intersection with a green light.
The light flickers yellow for a half second and turns red.
A half second is less than normal human reaction time.
---
You are on a section of road going 40mph with a 40mph speed limit.
As you round a bend, the speed limit drops to 30mph, you are ticketed.
---
You are on a section of road with a 30mph speed limit. Like everyone else, you are driving 35mph. All of you are surveilled.
---
As a lot of politicians, preachers, and others discovered, privacy is the
Democracy works?!? Huh? (Score:5, Funny)
So despite the company and local municipalities profiting from this, constituents actually made their voices heard and their representatives acted accordingly?
I am deeply confused. This is not the democracy I am used to. I'm going to have to find something else to be cynical about today.
Re:Democracy works?!? Huh? (Score:5, Insightful)
I suspect the real reason is that legislators were photographed with their mistresses in their cars, and the pictures sent home to their wives. They would shut that s$#t down real quick...
Parent
Holy cow... (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Mississippi a leader in something. Amazing.
That's rather crude to assume they never were the leaders of something. The Mississippi Legislature removed fractions and decimal points [snopes.com] from the curriculum in their public schools. Clearly they're a leader in the degradation of the American educational system..
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
now mississippi can be like my hometown..... (Score:5, Insightful)
.... we don't have them around here and people run lights all the time. And I don't mean they squeak in under a yellow that turns red when they are in the middle of the intersection -- the light is red for a full second or two before they even hit the stop line.
I hate the concept of red light cameras but I'm hating the concept of being t-boned even more. If we can't have red light cameras can we at least have some fucking human enforcement of the traffic laws? There's a difference between hitting the gas to beat a yellow light and just plain ignoring the red because your selfish attitude thinks waiting 30 seconds is a worse outcome than placing other drivers at risk.
I agree; also, why invoke privacy? (Score:5, Insightful)
I know what you mean. I commented on this the other day. [slashdot.org]
I know this goes against the general /. attitude, but I used to be against red light cameras on principle. That was before I moved to my current city and saw how people behaved. I don't think they're appropriate everywhere, but I do think that my city could certainly use them. It just depends on the location and people's behavior.
Also, I have a hard time understanding how privacy comes into play. When you are driving, you are doing it in a public place; why should there be any expectation of privacy?
Parent
Re:I agree; also, why invoke privacy? (Score:4, Insightful)
Also, I have a hard time understanding how privacy comes into play. When you are driving, you are doing it in a public place; why should there be any expectation of privacy?
What I don't understand is why a red-light camera that only fires when you run the red-light is an invasion of your privacy but a police officer pulling you over for the exact same thing isn't.
Either way, people are asshats. They'd rather run the light and place the other drivers at risk than wait 30 fucking seconds to get to where they are going. I don't like seeing traffic tickets used as a revenue source -- I think they should be set at the smallest amount possible to fund aggressive traffic safety classes. Make everybody who violates the traffic law twice sit in one of those classes or lose their license. Most people value 8 hours of their time more than they value a lousy $100. Let that and the subsequent increase in your insurance premiums serve as the deterrent.
Parent
Re:I agree; also, why invoke privacy? (Score:5, Insightful)
Murderers are asshats too. But I'm not quite as sure about accused murderers.
The problem isn't really about privacy and the people who complain about their privacy being invaded when they're in public are full of shit.
The problem is that the cop gives the alleged offender a criminal citation, and they have due process. The defendant can go to court and have a judge look at the situation, face their accuser, etc. Nobody's camera laws work like that.
If you uphold the "civil citation for normally criminal matters" system, then you're opening a huge door to injustice. The local governments might as well create a parallel civil law for every single type of criminal misconduct, and they would be able get around all the rights that we thought the constitution protected.
Seriously, what's the point of the 4th and 5th amendments, if you can just get around them with civil law? If you think those amendments were a bad idea and have made society too lenient on the bad guys, then stand up and advocate their repeal. Using civil law as a loophole, is a really lame thing for government to do, and we ought to have nipped this abuse in the bud right away.
Parent
Re:I agree; also, why invoke privacy? (Score:5, Informative)
You appear to be under the misconception that red light cameras reduce accidents.
It simply isn't the case. http://www.motorists.org/blog/red-light-cameras-increase-accidents-5-studies-that-prove-it/ [motorists.org]
For intersections with high rates of run through, the answer is to send an engineer out and rework the light timings to make sure they work in conjunction with surrounding lights and have a sufficient yellow time, to reduce the travel speed on the road close to the intersection, or to re-engineer the intersection to better control traffic.
They are a gimmick designed to turn a profit for the state and the private contractors who operate them. They have a vested interest in making intersections LESS safe by inducing more revenue generating red light tickets.
-Rick
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes, I'm kind of astonished by this. Over here in the UK, there are plenty of complaints about speed cameras being used as revenue generators, by being put in places where there isn't a safety issue. But I don't think I've ever once heard anyone complaining about a red light camera. There is no effing excuse for running a red light, and no safe way of doing it. If you live in the middle of nowhere and feel the traffic levels are low enough that a red light can be ignored, then you should campaign for those
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Red light cameras distort traffic flow. They encourage people to make
SUDDEN manuevers that they wouldn't otherwise. Dunno about where you
are from but where I am from, they think that accidents are caused by
SUDDEN manuevers. IOW, you cause accidents by surprising other drivers.
This can be by violating expectations/law or by suddenly stopping cold to
avoid some stupid redlight camera.
Plus, they have have been tweaking these cameras to increase revenue even
when it was obvious they were creating a safety conditi
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
This can be by violating expectations/law or by suddenly stopping cold to avoid some stupid redlight camera.
If the yellow light timing hasn't been tampered with why do you need to 'suddenly stop cold' to avoid the camera? If you treat the yellow light as you are supposed to treat it (i.e: stop if you can safely do so) there is zero excuse for running a red light.
Re:now mississippi can be like my hometown..... (Score:5, Interesting)
In most cases, the timings HAVE been dinked with.
I've seen all too many short yellow lights, especially with the cameras in place. If you're in that intersection and it goes yellow, and you see that it's a camera monitored intersection, you'd better either be 1/2 or more the way through the intersection or you'll get the ticket period, even though a human would not have considered it a violation at that point in most cases.
Parent
There *IS* an effing excuse for running a light (Score:3, Interesting)
Clearly you're not a motorcyclist that has fallen victim to sensor-driven traffic lights. You can wait all day at a red light for a car to come trip the sensor for you, or you can wait a couple of minutes, wait for a clearing, and run the light.
Re:now mississippi can be like my hometown..... (Score:4, Informative)
AIUI, in the US they've been shortening the amber phase to the point where it's taking an emergency stop to avoid crossing the line on red.
I'm not aware of this happening in the UK. Almost every red light camera is on a 30mph road. I've never seen one on a road faster than 40mph. Amber phases are usually three seconds and almost never even as short as two seconds.
This all adds up to the only people who are ever caught by red light cameras in the UK are those who are blatantly ignoring the amber phase.
I can't find the original press release now but this RAC survey:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/3005364.stm [bbc.co.uk]
counted motorists as "scrambling through on amber" if the light had been _red_ for less than three seconds. Unfortunately, AFAIAA, the data for motorists going through on red has never been released. One hypothesis for why the raw data was suppressed is that this was really a study intending to show how bad cyclists were relative to other road users but the results didn't really support that claim.
Tim.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
So, instead of ... (Score:4, Informative)
... laying down sensible rules for using these things (minimum yellow light duration, camera is only armed 1 second after red light comes on, _no sharing revenues with the manufacturer/contractor_, etc), they're banned outright?
I smell a bit of luddism here.
Not to mention that they might be dangerous (Score:5, Insightful)
When you reward a company with money per traffic violation, obviously it will be in their interest for there to be more traffic violations. And the traffic laws are there to protect lives. Basically, governments are rewarding companies for killing people.
http://www.thenewspaper.com/news/06/602.asp [thenewspaper.com]
How about giving the companies a bonus relative to the decrease in the number of traffic accidents in an intersection? Now that seems smarter.
Re:Not to mention that they might be dangerous (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re:Not to mention that they might be dangerous (Score:5, Interesting)
.
Fixed that for you. Allowing the government to profit from law enforcement is just as big of a conflict of interest. People need to be punished, so there need to be fines, but the fines should simply be destroyed. That would avoid any conflict of interest, and make the people (infinitesimally) richer as a consequence of constricting the money supply. This rule belongs in the Constitution.
Parent
NH considering passing a law to enable cameras (Score:5, Informative)
This is a timely article. The state of NH is currently considering passing a law allowing cities to put up these cameras. As usual, we're a bit behind the times.
SB 113:
http://www.gencourt.state.nh.us/legislation/2009/SB0113.html [state.nh.us]
1 second green, 1 second yellow (Score:5, Interesting)
I live in Fort Lauderdale. The stoplight at the exit from my neighborhood has been adjusted, just a couple weeks ago. They recently installed cameras on this intersection. The new cycle appears to be: 1 second of green, 1 second of yellow, 28 seconds of red. The main street is getting 27 seconds of green, and 1 second of yellow, and 2 seconds of red. There appears to be no overlap of the red.
The state law says the yellow must be 4 seconds, if I recall correctly. But even if the camera-tickets can be successfully challenged in court, and even if a judge eventually orders the city to change the timing, it is still tying up the traffic. And, there have been more collisions at that intersection in the last two weeks than there were in the previous 20 years.
Different approach... (Score:5, Insightful)
I've seen outrageous examples of red-light runners, and they do occasionally kill people, so I support the idea of the cameras, when done properly. Why don't they just pass a law that says that any government entity that is caught with a red light camera on a light where the yellow is shorter than the standards say it should be, must reimburse triple damages to all recipients of tickets, and further may be sued by those recipients for triple any increase in insurance because of the ticket? That ought make these cities proceed cautiously and correctly ;-)
Arizona has anti-camera bills going too, but... (Score:4, Interesting)
...the bills (primarily HB2106) have been meeting stiff resistance from lobbyists and a strong PR campaign from the Department of Public Service (i.e. Highway Patrol), Redflex (the company that put up our beloved freeway speed cameras) and ATS (American Traffic Solutions), which is based in Scottsdale and is growing. Certain members of the AZ state legislature recently tried to slip in an amendment that would have legalized the unexpected and unauthorized video feeds from the cameras (the 24/7 video feeds that are archived for 90 days) and it would have allowed police to use them in all criminal investigations (that amendment has since been removed).
It doesn't help that our biggest publication is also in the pro-camera lobby's pocket either, which continually publishes pro-camera fluff pieces, and it constantly trumps up a flawed poll that says that Arizonans are in favor of the cameras. (The creator of the poll: ATS. The publication has also replaced the actual questions to the poll - which were totally leading, and now only publishes an obnoxious, Powerpoint-exported, Clipart filled, document full of splashy, bright red, ominous-looking percentages).
I'm holding out hope that the bill can make it through with a GOP-controlled legislature and GOP governor (the cameras were Janet Napolitano's idea - yes, our beloved HD Secretary - you were all duped if you think she was a good choice for that role. We couldn't get her out of this state fast enough.).
No offense, Mississippi, but the fact that they can be that far ahead of my home state on such a simple-minded issue is embarrassing. Come on, Arizona - do the right thing! Don't make camerafraud.com do the heavy lifting for you!
How to do tickets right (Score:3, Insightful)
1) No profit-sharing. The city should assume all costs and all responsibilities.
2) Arrest the car. If the car is caught running a red light, boot or impound the car for 24 hours at the city's expense. No fines. No costs to the car owner. Since the citizens of the city want to encourage people not to run red lights, let them absorb the costs of law enforcement.
3) Include several seconds before and after the infraction, and include a wide-angle view so extenuating circumstances are visible.
4) Destroy all videos 24 hours after they are no longer needed.
5) No gaming with the yellow lights. Yellow light timing should be based on safety not pumping up red-light run counts.
6) Right to trial by jury, even if it is just an "administrative" penalty.
OK, #2 is not going to happen, but the rest are necessary for any automated enforcement.
Also, any intersection with a high offense rate should automatically become subject to a traffic engineering study and enhanced live-cop enforcement during times of peak red-light running. The engineering study is to make sure the intersection does not "invite" red-light running, say, by poorly timed lights, poor visibility, excessive congestion, etc., and the cops are there to further deter red-light-running.