Ohio Judge Rules Speed Cameras Are a Scam 984
Hugh Pickens writes "The Columbus Dispatch reports that southwestern Ohio Judge Robert Ruehlman has ordered a halt to a speeding-ticket blitz in a village that installed traffic cameras saying it's 'a scam' against motorists and blasting the cameras and the thousands of $105 citations that resulted. 'Elmwood Place is engaged in nothing more than a high-tech game of 3-Card Monty,' Ruehlman wrote. 'It is a scam that motorists can't win.' The village began using the cameras in September, resulting in 6,600 speeding citations in the first month, triple the population of the village of 2,188. Optotraffic installed the Elmwood Place cameras and administered their use, in return for 40 percent of ticket revenue — which quickly topped $1 million. But business owners and motorists struck back, charging in a lawsuit that the cameras hurt the village's image and said they were put into use without following Ohio law for public notice on new ordinances. 'This is the first time that a judge has said, "Enough is enough,"' said plaintiffs' attorney, Mike Allen, who called the ruling a victory for the common people. 'I think this nationally is a turning point.'"
Another outbreak of common sense! (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't know what's happening recently, but it's a pleasant surprise to see these kinds of article cropping up more frequently on /.
Now if only we had the same kind of possibilities here in Europe, where there are more and more cameras everywhere, and the margin before you get a ticket is in some places ridiculosly low. I'm all for enforcing safer driving, but many camera emplacements are obviously for revenue-generating rather than safety.
They don't do anything to discourage the single-biggest cause of road deaths either, drunk driving.
It would be interesting to see ... (Score:3, Insightful)
It would be interesting to see a breakdown of the speeds that people were going when they received a citation. If it's within 10% of the speed limit, then yeah it's probably a scam. Yet my experience is that speeders tend to go over 20% faster than the posted speed limit. In that case, it's not a scam. You break the law, you pay the price. As long as people are receiving notification of a speeding ticking before receiving their next speeding ticket, the police are perfectly within their rights to use highly efficient technology to catch those law breakers.
Re:Not true. (Score:1, Insightful)
The judge understood it is fascism. No one wants to be regulated in every step, every word, and eventually every thought. Are you offended because you are a Fascist?
Re:Not true. (Score:5, Insightful)
You're not really wrong here, but there's something awful about being watched all the time and being busted for every minor and often harmless infraction. There's also something awful about being fined and then told you have to pay to contest the fine.
The mere fact that they issued 3 times as many tickets as there are people in the town is an indication that something is wrong here. That the company gets 40% of every ticket they issue is a massive conflict of interest. It's been proven before that some municipalities do fun things like shorten yellow lights so they can ticket more people. If these cameras are to be used at all, it should be for public safety, not making the roads less safe (yellows lasting 0.9 seconds in some cases I recall) so some company can rake in more money.
Only in America (Score:5, Insightful)
Optotraffic installed the Elmwood Place cameras and administered their use, in return for 40 percent of ticket revenue
So 40% of all fines aren't actually fines, but revenue for the camera company. Holy shit, that's flawed.
This sort of setup doesn't exactly persuade the camera company to ensure the correct margins to adjust for measurement errors are used either. Who checks if the camera's comply with the spec? The company who receives 40% of the revenue or the government who receive 60%?
Re:It would be interesting to see ... (Score:5, Insightful)
While I agree that the police need appropriate tools and some latitude to do their jobs, I firmly believe their job is what the people (as in "we, the people") say it is. So whether speed cameras help their job depends on what their job is. My preference is for the police to concentrate on public safety, not revenue generation, so if the voters agree with me the police should only try to catch speeders to the extent necessary to keep the streets safe.
Re:We have the technology to eliminate speeding (Score:2, Insightful)
The cat & mouse game is all about money feeding the government, while attempting to look like they want to 'protect' people. Which works great until things like this point out that nearly everyone speeds at some time and the specific wording of the law doesn't really care if you 'speed' for half a second or half an hour, so they can easily rack up large amounts of money... 6,600 tickets at $105 each is just shy of $700,000 in one month...
Re:Not true. (Score:4, Insightful)
Is it set to go off if you are over the white line at a red? Then if I stopped 3-5ft long at a light, I'm getting a ticket for running it? Seems like a scam to me.
How? The law says don't cross the white line if the light is red. You cross it when the light is red, you've broken the rules. It's not exactly a massive safety violation but the number of times I've seen people stop with their back wheels on the line and their nose peeking out into the junction so that it blocks pedestrian crossings is infuriating. You break the rules, you get a fine. Simple. It's not like the rules are obscure or hard to remember, there are signs and lines everywhere they apply.
TFA makes it sound like they're all speed cameras anyway, not line cameras, and points out that of the two cameras which were operating one was in a school zone where you really do want these things enforced. The plaintiff's attorney said "people who were unemployed, working poor and single mothers were hit with $105 citations they couldn’t afford". Well, boo-hoo. Don't speed in the school zone and you won't get fined, simple.
Re:Not true. (Score:3, Insightful)
What if to brake safely you come to a stop over the line? (large truck behind you or someone riding your ass, speeding etc?)
Re:Not true. (Score:5, Insightful)
Like when you make a legal right turn on red, and stop again to make sure it's clear...You missed the part where the judge said it was unconstitutionally difficult to challenge the fine. You're basically at the mercy of the enforcement agency and you have to rely on the accuracy of a company which profits massively from fining you.
Re:Or the easy solution... (Score:2, Insightful)
It doesn't work like that. Quite often the red lights with cameras are calibrated so the yellow/amber light is shorter than others on the same stretch. Drivers get caught out and either have to slam on the breaks and be rear-ended by the pickup sitting a few feet from their bumper, or risk running the red. If the light were genuinely about safety, all yellow lights would be set to hold for the same time, and they would also show a countdown. This move alone would cut out the vast majority of crashed at signals. Alas, it's not about safety, it's all about revenue for the local city/county and company running the cameras.
Re:Another outbreak of common sense! (Score:4, Insightful)
Stupidity is the main cause of road deaths. Everything else is accidental or malicious, and almost less than a rounding error.
"Hey kids, watch me lane change while I text (with both hands) on my phone, in the middle of heavy traffic!" -> Give me the drunk driver / speeder any day of this nonsense. At least I know that I need to watch that person...finding the subversive SUV / mini-van driving mom or daughter of mom texter in regular traffic is like trying to find the Red October in the Atlantic. Blink, and she's lane-changing on top of you.
Re:Not true. (Score:5, Insightful)
Back of the napkin math here; Breaking distance from 30MPH (14m/s) is 23m [passmytheory.co.uk] including a thinking distance of 9m in ideal conditions. Therefore, you require 23m to stop your car from 30mph, but are only given 12.6m to do it in (14m[distance travelled in 1s] * 0.9[length of amber phase]) and 3/4 of that is going "Yellow light... I had betOHSHITITSREDNOW." It's demontrably impossible.
Re:Not true. (Score:3, Insightful)
I hate those towns. They are built as speed traps. If they took the money and used it to build a raised road with on/off ramps and under the road crossings or even bridges to cross then fine away but they don't. They put their citizens at risk and pocket the money or use it for unrelated improvements so they can keep the money rolling in.
If you can't survive as a town without ripping people off who just want to get to work, you should just board up and move.
Re:you appeal and ask for the camera to be tested? (Score:4, Insightful)
Costs to be picked up by the loser
Your optimism is showing. Doesn't work that way in real life.
Re:Not true. (Score:5, Insightful)
Start braking a bit earlier.
You mean when the light is still green?
Re:Not true. (Score:2, Insightful)
And the exotic answer is "No, REALLY start braking a bit earlier"
Re:We have the technology to eliminate speeding (Score:5, Insightful)
insure than anyone who speeds _even a little_ is instantly ticketed
Then you'd have an entire country of drivers staring at their speedos instead of looking at the road.
Re:Not true. (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, in many places with red light cameras, the city has decreased the length of the yellow light below that recommended by national safety guidelines in order to get more ticket revenue.
Let me say that again: they've shortened the length of the yellow lights, not for safety, but in spite of safety, so they get to write more tickets.
At many of these places, it's possible to be driving along at a safe speed and see the light turn yellow, and be put in a situation where you have to absolutely slam on your brakes in order to stop behind the line -- and this is me driving a small passenger car with brakes limited only by the coefficient of friction. Drivers of large trucks which can't brake as hard complain even harder about this.
Re:Not true. (Score:5, Insightful)
Setting speed limits below the maximum safe speed under ideal conditions is also "overticketing". Setting speed limits and designing a traffic enforcement program with revenue, rather than public safety, in mind is a subversion of the purpose of law enforcement and ought to land the folks doing it in prison for a very long time -- it's just as bad as bribery, as far as undermining the legitimacy of the rule of law.
Honestly, I'd like to see statewide referenda passed wherever possible saying that all revenue from traffic and parking tickets goes not to any particular government body but gets donated to the "offender"'s choice of charity. Taking the profit out of claims of "but it's for your saaaaafety!" ought to nip this nonsense in the bud.
Re:6 teens killed in Ohio SUV crash (Score:5, Insightful)
So in 3 weeks when the registered owners of the SUV receive a letter containing an automated speeding fine, they can admonish the kids for spe.... Oh yeah, there might be a flaw in that cunning plan.
The delayed notice of infraction is another issue with these cameras. Very often people will speed right along, never knowing that in 2-3 weeks someone will be receiving a letter. At least when a police officer pulls you over, it's immediately after the fact and gives instant feedback to a person's driving habits.
The first time I ever saw a speeding camera trigger its flash, someone was passing me doing about 60 in a 50mph zone. Unfortunately I was right between him and the camera, so I had 3 weeks to wonder if I'd be getting a random tax in the mail. Even though I never received a ticket, it was still annoying to have the feeling that something was hanging over my head. These cameras really degrade the quality of life even when you don't speed.
Re:Another outbreak of common sense! (Score:4, Insightful)
Consider this: If the people around you drop from an average of 60 MPH to 50 MPH (replace with whatever km/hr works for you as appropriate), they are spending 20% more time on the road. That makes the roads more crowded at any given time. Do you think that might contribute to accidents?
Obviously I'm not seriously suggesting that we all travel at 150 MPH for safety reasons, but it's not a simple DANGER = k * SPEED equation.
Re:Not true. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Not true. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Not true. (Score:1, Insightful)
So what you're saying is that you weren't driving to conditions and haven't allowed yourself any safety margin for stopping distance?
Re:Another outbreak of common sense! (Score:5, Insightful)
Not a lot.
The bit that bugs me, is when I was learning to drive, all the advertisements were about how to read the road, how to be safe, how to risk manage the speed you drove at. Also, pedestrians/cyclists were warned that cars were big heavy boxes of death that hurt when they hit you, not sources of revenue when you ended up in hospital. People used to be asked to pay attention to what they were doing.
Now, as a pedestrian etc., if you jump out in front of a car, it's automatically the driver's fault. You claim on insurance, and get a hefty wad of money. If you think this isn't abused, try working in a hospital and listen to some of the people gabble about how the damage they get is going to pay for a nice easy life for them, and how they planned it. And they say it with pride, as if they're clever! It really doesn't enter their heads that jumping in front of a car may kill them, or at least mean they're on expensive surgeries for a lifetime (hey, NHS, or choose your own insurance makes all that free, right?).
A lot of drivers learning these days aren't taught to drive according to the road. They're taught to drive to an arbitrary speed limit. I know a goodly many stretches of road that I'd never drive anywhere _near_ the legal limit, as it's plain not safe... I also drive other stretches at over the speed limit, because it _is_ safe. People that slavishly follow an arbitrary number on a sign are heading for a world of pain.
Speed isn't the problem, it's the other driving practices that usually go with it (texting, having a phone jammed against the ear and trying corners one handed, not paying attention, blind overtaking etc. etc.). If you go after the root causes (hint, it's not usually just speed), then you lower the accidents, reducing the fatalities greatly.
And before you say "if accidents happened to those close to you": My folks were near killed in a head on crash. The other driver was speeding. On the wrong side of the road, and three times over the alcohol limit. Guess which one of that would have made the accident not happen?
My Brother was T-Boned by a car going inside the legal limit (national speed limit) coming out of a blind junction. An element of bad luck there, but the analysis of the other driver was he was just on the alcohol limit, and hadn't taken any notice of signs saying concealed junction, slow and all the other warnings that something dangerous was ahead, likely because he was on his mobile phone (yes he was mid call at the point of accident). That landed him on life support for a month.
Sister, knocked over on a pedestrian crossing, and thrown forward into the path of a car coming the other direction. Inside the legal speed limit, but just not paying attention. It took a defib unit to get her heart beat back, and years of physio to get her walking properly.
The simple fact is that if you don't drive a car, or get in one and never move in it, then you have an almost zero chance of causing death. As soon as it moves, that chance increases. The aim is to prevent accidents, not allow as many as you like, and just say "well, mitigate it by moving everything slowly". Take care of the root cause first.
Re:Not true. (Score:4, Insightful)
I can agree on taking the incentive out of ticketing for the sake of ticketing, but unfortunately, it would never happen. There's way too much money to be made.
I can agree on taking the incentive out of robbing people for the sake of profit, but unfortunately, it would never happen. There's way too much money to be made.
Re:Not true. (Score:5, Insightful)
Or the yellow is too short.
Re:Not true. (Score:5, Insightful)
If you're driving so fast towards a traffic light that you can't stop in twenty yards without screeching the tires, you're doing it wrong, yes.
You just said nobody should ever drive over 15 MPH [saferoutesinfo.org]. Yellow lights are supposed to be calibrated for the required braking distance, at the posted speed limit, for the worst of the typical range of common road conditions.
Trouble is, they often aren't - either for revenue enhancement or due to a lack of competence. Both are at the expense of safety.
Re:Not true. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Not true. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Not true. (Score:5, Insightful)
Here in Switzerland when they build highways they actually think about on ramps, and off ramps. Heck they do so in Germany, and France and so on. They realize that if you create a highway with an on ramp and off ramp there will be quite a bit of traffic that will go through the town.
Oh wait, this is the United States, the land of the free, small government and where we can't invest in infrastructure! Seriously, these days when I travel to Canada and the States what I see is how urban sprawl is killing the countries. No planning, no thought, just greed, and the thought that private money is always right. I am no socialist, nor a commie. BUT sometimes government has a role and sometimes people need to accept that.
Re:Not true. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Not true. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Not true. (Score:2, Insightful)
"for I still need to maintain traffic speed" Well there is your fallacy. If you can't stop safely at red lights, slow down. I recently spent a bunch of time pulling a trailer when I was moving and I was driving about 10 below the speed limit so I could maintain safe distance for stopping.
Re:Not true. (Score:4, Insightful)
Is it set to go off if you are over the white line at a red? Then if I stopped 3-5ft long at a light, I'm getting a ticket for running it? Seems like a scam to me.
How? The law says don't cross the white line if the light is red.
Just want to point out that something being "the law" doesn't make it not a scam, or at least stupid. Running a red light to me doesn't mean "over the line," it means, to me, driving through the intersection when the light is red. This isn't a sport, there's no reason the line should be regarded as magical just because the law says so. Most motorists stop where they think is reasonable, and that is safe. Accidents usually don't seem to be caused by people stopping three feet into the crosswalk, they're caused by people driving through.
Re:Another outbreak of common sense! (Score:4, Insightful)
Aren't driver error, speeding and drinking overlapping categories. And if you are drunk but make no driver error, isn't it nlikely that you will be in an accident?
Yeah, the categories will overlap. No surprise there. There's also the mobile phone as a major source of distraction. For whatever reason, phones seem to distract drivers a lot, much more so than passengers. (I guess the passengers tend to look out of the window and shut up when things look really dangerous.) Distraction and drunkenness tend to lead to inattention, and that often leads to speeding and errors, which in turn are where the accidents start (and get more serious too). I guess that driving while drunk, tired, texting and shaving (or putting on cosmetics) all at the same time, would be some sort of perfect storm of incompetence; I just hope that I'm never in a vehicle near anyone that inconsiderate.
The practical problem with drunkenness — or many other forms of intoxication for that matter — is exactly that it increases the likelihood of driver error and decreases the likelihood of a correct response to the errors by other drivers. Other things can cause the same effect. The exact degree of effect will vary between people, but it really isn't worth gambling with this sort of thing. (The only times I've really had problems with this sort of thing have been when I've flown intercontinental, found it hard to sleep en route, and then had to drive to my hotel from the airport. I didn't hit anything, thank god.)
Re:Not true. (Score:4, Insightful)
Lights ARE part of the road and the traffic around of them.
Re:Not true. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Not true. (Score:3, Insightful)
... or one can't see the line, which is pretty damn common around here in wet/dirty/winter road conditions, especially since the city gets pretty lazy about repainting the damn things.
Further to that, if the sensor trips when you're 1" over the line, is it detecting your tires, bumper, what?
Regardless, traffic laws are supposed to be about safety, not a source of revenue. That 1" over the line isn't meant to pump out $100k worth of tickets. When things are that sensitive, you end up with *more* accidents as people freak out about crossing the line and drive stupidly as a result.
Re:Not true. (Score:5, Insightful)
When my mother was learning to drive in England, the instructor told her the first rule of the road was this:
"Everybody else on the road is a bloody idiot."
The problem with your logic is, if somebody rear ends me, it still cost me 500 dollars deductible, trip to the hospital, time off work, etc.etc.
Not to mention, a friend of mine, who's an ex-police officer, has seen people die in rear end accident that were so light they didn't even scratch the paint on the car.
Just because "it's the other guy's fault" is no valid reason to not try to avoid an accident.
Re:Not true. (Score:5, Insightful)
If someone rear-ends you, then that's their fault. 100% of the time.
If someone rearends you while driving it may legally be their fault, but that doesn't change the fact that you get to live with whatever injuries you or your family get out of the deal. If you can't stop safely then it is actually in EVERYONE's best interest that you don't stop... unless of course keeping going is even more dangerous for others. Then you have to make a choice. The only way you can know that and to make good choices is to have a circle of awareness that includes what is going on behind you, to your sides, and in front of you. A sphere of awareness is even better, but most of the time, on the road, a circle will suffice.
I rearended someone myself--going 50mph--because I was looking in my rearview mirror too long while doing a lane change, and they were stopped dead on the highway.
You're obviously speaking from a personal experience here, and I hope everyone was okay, but it sounds like you learned the wrong lesson. The lesson you learned should NOT be that you don't need to know what's going on all around you and that you don't need to use your mirrors other than when changing lanes - rather it should be that you shouldn't focus on any ONE area sufficiently long that you fail to notice important things in another area. Who is "legally" at fault only helps you in the courtroom - not in the morgue and not in the operating room... those are where it counts. And yes, you might end up having to defend yourself from a fine (line/red lights) in order to keep yourself out of the morgue.
Re:Not true. (Score:5, Insightful)
as amusing as this thread is, none of you have even read the summary.
it's about Speeding Ticket Camera, not Stoplight Cameras.
Re: Not true. (Score:2, Insightful)
I believe there have been court cases in the us in the past where cameras were installed and the yellow light was shortened at the same time so that even if you were driving within the speed limit it would be physically impossible to stop before the light turned red. You seem to be implying that all drivers should always assume this to be the case and drive 10mph even on a 55mph road just in case there's no yellow. That argument makes no sense.