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.
Re:Another outbreak of common sense! (Score:5, Interesting)
Here in the UK 65% of fatal road accidents [telegraph.co.uk] are caused by "driver error or reaction". This is poor but legal driving. Speeding (14%) and drinking (10%) are nowhere close to being the major causes of accidents.
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: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.
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Great Idea!
Lets just make the maximum speed limit 15 mph and demand all cars be covered in nerf.
No more road deaths!
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.)
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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.
Indeed. In principle I have no problem with enforcing the speed limit in places where excess speed is a safety problem. But whenever someone suggests installing speed cameras, I have to ask them what the purpose is:
1. Is it to improve safety?
2. Is it to blindly uphold the law, irrespective of safety?
3. Is it to generate revenue?
The only one of these I see as valid is (1). And all to often I am unconvinced that a speed camera will actually improve safety - if people are driving too fast and the introducti
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.
The other clue that this is a scam rather than a well-thought out and necessary item is the presence of
Re:Another outbreak of common sense! (Score:4, Interesting)
I live in a school zone that had a bad speeding problem. They put one of those signs that displays your current speed up and the speeding problem went away. They then moved the sign to another road that has a speeding problem...
Having actually worked with the math to calculate the doppler shifts, I don't trust the accuracy of the technology.
Re:Another outbreak of common sense! (Score:5, Interesting)
2. Is it to blindly uphold the law, irrespective of safety?
Please cite one proven example where going faster is in the interest of safety.
Since you asked: http://www.uctc.net/papers/069.pdf [uctc.net]
Interstate Highways in the U.S. have rather strict design standards, especially relating to the intended rate of travel. Any and all improvements in the fatality rate on American roads during the dark days of the double-nickel limit can be attributed to factors other than the lower limit. Why? No one obeyed that limit because it was stupid.
In fact, it was worse than stupid. It was dangerous. An artificially low speed limit actually forces the brain to work harder because of the mismatch between expected and actual sensory inputs. In other words, it can be as taxing, if not possibly more so, on the mind to drive too slow than too fast. Unconsciously, you know how long it should take to get from A to B, given nothing but the physical characteristics of the roadway. Deviate too much from that, and reconciling what is with what should be is far less safe than driving in accordance with what the roadway is set up to allow.
Additionally, artificially low limits on superhighways tends to overload other streets, which tend to NOT be designed for long-distance travel. This, too, was an unintended consequence of the NMSL. That, however, is for a different discussion.
Re:Another outbreak of common sense! (Score:4, Funny)
Of course old people would raise hell. They don't want to get their car the hell off my lawn.
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.
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You're making the assumption that accidents "just happen".
They don't. Accidents happen because somebody does something stupid. Without that "something stupid" the speed is irrelevant.
So instead of eliminating stupid things, we've just decided we're going to do stupid things at lower speeds, which reduces, but not eliminates, the chance of death in an accident.
The problem is, crappy drivers are a financial boon to the state in the fom of higher taxes on higher insurance premiums, higher taxes on higher fuel
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Actually paying attention turns virtually all accidents into non-accidents.
Game. Set. Match.
Re:Another outbreak of common sense! (Score:5, Funny)
As such, I favor a drunk driving course -> professional drinkers will show you how to drive, on a closed speedway, at top speed, with half a bottle of a single malt in your stomach. Successful completion of the course results in a reduction of your insurance premiums, as you've shown you're a safe drunk driver.
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: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.
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Ever been in a traffic court? The judge is not interested in hearing you say anything other than "I'm guilty." As a matter of fact, if you don't say that, then he will say it for you, "You're guilty," even when evidence eventually proves that you are not. The entire design of this legal system is so hopelessly lopsided that trial by gladiatorial combat might be considered fair in comparison. Well, if you're one of the common people, anyway. If you're a judge, police officer, or government worker, then appar
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The judge is probably some lawyer not smart or connected enough to get a real judgeship, but connected enough to get this job. Basically it's a good guaranteed salary with the petty power over the people that stand in the courtroom.
I'm sure these judges are just cashing in long enough to pay off their second homes until they qualify for their fat pensions.
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.
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6 teens killed in Ohio SUV crash (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:6 teens killed in Ohio SUV crash (Score:5, Informative)
I'm sorry but going 27-29 after you exit a 55 highway down a short ramp is NOT reckless driving, that's what the majority of the tickets this system issued were for and it's a crock. I don't even live in the area and I think it's a pure revenue grab. We had a little village near here that did the same sort of thing, nailing people for doing 2 over on the highway, the state legislature finally shut them down by raising the number of residents required to operate a mayors court.
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.
If only... (Score:5, Interesting)
If only this would hold up in The Netherlands, where speeding camera's are everywhere.
Nowadays, we even have systems in several places that measure average speed over a certain distance, meaning braking for the camera won't work.
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Speed cameras are mostly a Dutch product (though the concept isn't). By far the majority of speed cameras are produced by a Dutch company and the Netherlands seems to be testing ground for all of them. I've rarely seen speed cameras in places where they would serve a public good. Mostly they are placed in unpopulated areas with relatively low speed limits, on the edge of areas with speed limit differences and on down-hill stretches.
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%?
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Now go do some research and find out how much of the money going into privatized prisons becomes profit. You think false taxation is bad? How about slavery for profit?
Easy solution (Score:5, Interesting)
The incentive for police to write frivolous tickets will disappear, and people who are caught will be made to spend real time helping their community in some way, benefitting them, and costing them time, which is more valuable than money.
Shorter Yellow Lights (Score:5, Interesting)
The key problem here is simple; when you have a company that can make profits backed by laws they will make sure that there are as many law breakers as possible. Since you can't sell people on breaking the law the next best step is to basically set them up to fail. In my shitty city Halifax they switched to a private company doing parking tickets. They are relentless. If your meter runs out they will get you. Plus the parasites know where the best meters are such as those near the emergency rooms of Hospitals where people are not thinking about things such as putting change in the meters.
No private company should have almost anything to do with the legal system. Running prisons, enforcing laws, scanning our emails, Nothing. Not only will they not use common sense but they will use the worse common sense possible and that is to make as much money as possible and at any cost.
efficient government (Score:3)
A government that becomes too efficient will cause problems. In this case, they infractions are detected too efficiently. Catching major infringers is good, but when every slight infraction is punished, citizens will become unhappy.
We want government to have constant hurdles to overcome, because we have expectations regarding the persistence of overseers. Even though we may not be able to have the default anonymity we enjoyed pre-21st century, we can still regulate government to have stumbling blocks so that it doesn't become an efficient Orwellian machine.
Two problems (Score:3)
We have essentially two problems here.
1) Letting someone else fining people for breaking law is very bad. It creates mistrust. And if you really want to make people to obey the common sense law they really like to break (speeding is one of them, I *won't* get into details why psychologically so many want to justify it), you have to fine them yourself, not by some commercial entity; Otherwise it just make people angry. It's bad policy, period;
2) People will like to speed more than allowed and no matter of common sense will appeal to them. So other half of arguments - scam, can't win, etc. - sorry, been there, done that. People love to violate speeding limits. Yeah, some places those limits aren't really thought trough, but they are not that many.
So while I agree it's a really bad way of controlling speed limits, judge jumped a shark here and made more of political statement. But as Judges in US are part of political system - not very big surprise.
We have the technology to eliminate speeding (Score:5, Interesting)
Between automatic cameras, GPS, and OBD we could completely eliminate speeding. Or, at the very lease, insure than anyone who speeds _even a little_ is instantly ticketed. If speeding really is dangerous, maybe we should take these steps to eliminate it. If speed limits are too low, maybe we should raise them. But we seem to prefer these strange cat and mouse games.
Re:We have the technology to eliminate speeding (Score:4, Funny)
So you think some government agency should have GPS trackers on cars to monitor speed?
What could possibly go wrong with a government agency knowing the location, velocity, and owner of every car on the road at any given time?
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:We have the technology to eliminate speeding (Score:5, Funny)
On this side of the pond, where a speedo isn't a speedometer, this comment has a completely different meaning.
Re:We have the technology to eliminate speeding (Score:5, Interesting)
If you do manage to get speed limit compliance up, I expect you will follow what happened in Victoria Australia (which has the highest speed limit compliance in the world). The roads are congested so badly that we have not seen any of the advantages of a newer fleet and the total number km driven has gone down. You are now more likely to die per km driven than you were 10 years ago and you are more likely to die per hour on the road than you were 10 years ago. The "road toll" stats are now messed with nearly yearly to reduce them yet they don't go down. A decade ago if you fell asleep and drove off the road, you were counted as a traffic fatality, now you will most likely be counted at a sleep apnea related death.
Adjusting speed limits assumes everyone has computer control speed. Many modern speedometers are not compatible with speed limits of say 57 when you figure humans have to read them.
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They want your wallet, they do not wish to limit you speed.
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Re:We have the technology to eliminate speeding (Score:4, Informative)
Nobody here is arguing that speed limit enforcement can be done fairly and uniformly. In the UK they use cameras that read license plates between several points, if the average speed exceeds the limit, you get a ticket.
The problem is that the US system was never designed for 100% enforcement rate. This is why everyone does 90 in a 55 during rush hour. The cop that patrols that stretch can only pull over 1 guy every 30 minutes; hundreds of cars meanwhile speed through just fine. So on any given day your odds of getting pulled over are less than 1%, really I’d say about .025% at best.
I cannot speak for every state, but in most, the cops/courts will happily give you a no points ticket that will not go on your record and will not affect your insurance. They just want to collect the fine. This creates the mentality of “Pay to play” and “Speeding Tax”.
I ride a motorcycle, you can be certain that I am not doing the limit. I have never had points go on my license despite numerous encounters with police.
Fact of the matter is that there are plenty of US roads that can be safely traveled at 100-120mph. Our speed limits are stupidly low and the keep right pass left law is completely unenforced resulting in a chaotic traffic pattern that does not allow for a well regulated traffic flow.
Unfortunately with many police departments having no source of revenue beyond traffic violations and insurance companies gorging themselves silly on hiked up premiums due to speeding violations, the much needed change will never come. (Yes plenty of police departments do have other concerns, but I can think of 3 local townships of the top of my head where speeding enforcement is 100% all they do all day long.)
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.
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.
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I'd like to know how incidences of rear-end collisions are affected in areas where red-light cameras are installed...
They go up, way up in some cases. But they're not counted because they do not occur in the intersection.
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From the article:
"Police say up to 18,000 vehicles a day drive through the village, which links some big employers with I-75."
The population of the town is somewhat immaterial. Also as someone noted earlier they are speed cameras, not red light cameras. To be honest, the article does not mention why they are considered a scam, although it gives some (in my opinion weak) arguments against them. I think their biggest concern is the impact on the local businesses from the people who drive through.
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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.
I understand the sentiment but speeding is not an "often harmless" infraction. It endagers yourself and those around you. (Semantics about whether the speed limits are set at the right level or not are here as well, but still).
Well now that depends. First of all, for any road less than 55MPH, the speedlimit is supposed to be set at the speed at which 80% of traffic travels down that road. If there are unknown risk or hazards that warrant a lower speed limit, then it may be lower. Otherwise, it is supposed to be based on the speed at which traffic flows. This is a federal issue, and the state governments do not like it when municipalities trample on the federal guidelines for this because the entire state will lose its Nation
Re:Not true. (Score:4, Interesting)
There is a difference between driving 100mph, weaving in and out of traffic, on a crowded road where the traffic pattern is going 65mph... and driving at a safe speed that just happens to be higher than the one on the sign. I've gotten plenty of speeding tickets doing the latter (and none doing the former, but that's probably because I don't do it).
It's worse than that, because in many places everyone acknowledges that the speed on the sign is unrealistic and drives faster than that. So it becomes this sadly hilarious guessing game, where people have to guess how fast they should really drive, and what speed the cops will actually object to. In places it's 15 or even 20 mph over (the stretch of I-83 through Baltimore where the speed limit is 45mph comes to mind, as does the whole Beltway). None of these folks are driving particularly unsafely, though.
In most of the criminal code, we've asked ourselves "What things are actually harmful to others and worth criminalizing?" You can tell that there's been a lot of thought given to this in places. Yet with the speed limits there seems to have been no such care taken.
Re:Not true. (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
I'm not totally against speed cameras, but I believe in one important thing about parking and traffic enforcement; nobody should ever profit from issuing fines, because the incentives to be arseholes are just too big.
Parking and traffic enforcement on public property and public roads should always be performed by public employees and the fines should go to a random, approved charity. The costs of running the operation should come out of tax income and no bonuses or "performance related pay" should ever be given. At least this way you take away the very real profit incentive for fining as many as possible. The sole purpose of parking and traffic enforcement should be to improve safety and flow of traffic.
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And if you get a ticket from a police officer in the US? At least in some states, the officer doesn't need to present any evidence other than their own testimony and you'll be fined. Unless you can present some evidence that you were not speeding, did not run the li
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And if you get a ticket from a police officer in the US? At least in some states, the officer doesn't need to present any evidence other than their own testimony and you'll be fined.
At least it's a person accusing you, and at least the service of the summons is within the law (you have to sign the summons). Then you get your day in court and it's your word against the officer's (and whatever equipment he may have been using), and the judge can, you know, make a judgement call.
So instead they come up with a system where many days later you receive a letter in the mail demanding money. Put aside for a moment that USPS mail is not considered legal "service", and that you are not given a
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Better yet, spend the income from fines on road safety related items.
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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, Interesting)
" 'It is a scam that motorists can't win.'"
I'm sure they are also against the IRS using computers to catch revenue cheaters, because it gives them an unfair advantage.
Sure they can win, just don't speed. The motorists are just used to breaking the law and not getting caught most of the time.
Did somebody check how many tickets the judge got?
I think the issue is not that people are getting caught, but that there is a lack of due process when they are; which inevitably leads to some innocent people being wrongly convicted.
I don't know how things work in the US, but in the UK it works thusly:
- You get somehow "caught" alledgedly committing a traffic offence. This may be that a speed camera photographed you speeding, or a traffic warden decided that you were parked illegally or whatever.
- You get notified by post (note: if a member of the general public needs to send legal documents to someone they are required to employ a process server to ensure they got there. On the other hand the police are allowed to just pop them in the post and retain proof of posting (*NOT* proof of delivery) so its entirely possibly that you will never even get the notification and still a court will deem that it has been served and that you were responsible for responding to the notice you never received.
- You will be offered a choice: Accept a fixed penalty notice (a fixed fine (probably £30 - 60) and possibly a fixed number of points on your licence); you *may* be offered a "training course" instead of a fine and points; or you can decline the "fixed penalty" notice and have an automatic criminal conviction, £1000 fine.
- If you want to appeal, you are required to decline the fixed penalty notice and training course; therefore you voluntarily agree to be convicted and be fined £1000. Once you have been convicted, you may take the case to the appeals court and appeal the conviction.
The upshot of this is that if you believe you were wrongly accused, you have to be *absolutely* sure you would win in court before you can risk appealing, because if there's even the slightest chance that the court will side with the police then you're risking an enormous fine. I know a good few people who have just accepted the fixed notice, even though they believe they were not in the wrong, because they simply can't risk the possability that they would be hit with a £1000 fine if they lost the case.
In order for things to be just, the cards should not be so heavily stacked against the accused that they can't risk defending themselves when they believe the accuser (the police or traffic warden) is wrong.
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.
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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:4, Interesting)
Re:Not true. (Score:5, Informative)
The exotic situation is ice or snow on the street.
Or water or sand or anything else other than street.
Re:Not true. (Score:5, Insightful)
Or the yellow is too short.
Re:Not true. (Score:5, Informative)
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: (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
Re:Not true. (Score:4, Informative)
+ in bad weather conditions don't drive so fast
Re:Not true. (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Not true. (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Not true. (Score:5, Insightful)
Start braking a bit earlier.
You mean when the light is still green?
Re:Not true. (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm so used to it that I'm still shocked by the sudden switches to yellow in the US - you have a split second to decide whether to stop immediately or continue driving and risk running the red light.
Re: (Score:3)
I guess those countries never understood the concept of the yellow light then. They certainly donot do that in my European country.
Re:Not true. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Not true. (Score:5, Interesting)
We have this here - a steep downhill slope rated at 40MPH with a light at the bottom and a yellow of about 4.5 seconds. There's no way to do it properly, and semi trucks always run the red, because, y'know, physics. Locals know not to trust the opposite green but out-of-towners can be caught unawares.
The thing is, red light and speeding cameras are illegal by statute in NH, so there's no revenue incentive - they could park a cop at the bottom of the hill but they rarely do. It's more of a safety problem than anything, but the City won't do anything about it.
Re: (Score:3)
So they adjust the timing on the lights crossing the junction, so it gives the red jumpers time to clear the junction before allowing the cross traffic over the junction.
Its not exactly rocket science to adjust the timing of the OTHER signals rather than the one people are jumping.
Re: (Score:3)
Normally I wouldn't comment on this stuff but a 4.5 second yellow? Are there no crosswalks at these lights? Am I the only person who hovers over the brake pedal once the crosswalks start blinking? When the crosswalk lights start blinking, you know the light is going to change within 10 seconds or so.
Besides, 4.5 seconds, if you are traveling at normal speeds should be plenty of time to cover the break and start slowing down.
Re:Not true. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
Re:Not true. (Score:5, Funny)
> They don't teach slowing down for "stale" greens anymore? Damn, even I remember that from almost 40 years ago!
No. I think you're just making that up so you can take pleasure in being a sanctimonious jackass.
People like you are why we rebelled against England and why people continued going west afterwards.
Re:Not true. (Score:4, Insightful)
Lights ARE part of the road and the traffic around of them.
Re:Not true. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Not true. (Score:4, Informative)
There is a light at an intersection in the middle of nowhere along my morning drive that has a 5 second green light, if you don't start going as soon as it turns green you won't make it through. That is without ice and snow, both of which make it harder to get going. It is quite possible at such a light to sit at it while it's red, have trouble getting started, and 'run the red' because you haven't cleared the intersection. God forbid you have people behind you who actually think they can make it.
Re:Not true. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Not true. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Not true. (Score:4, Insightful)
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, Interesting)
You've never driven a horse trailer loaded with two large horses. When I come up on a traffic light that is green I cannot really slow down trying to anticipate if/when it goes to yellow for I still need to maintain traffic speed. When that light goes yellow I have an instant to make a decision, because I cannot hit the brakes hard and throw 3000 lbs of horse forward. I can only either ease then add more firm brakes or continue on, hoping the yellow is long enough for me to get through or hold opposing traffic enough to see I cannot stop.
Stop thinking everyone drives high performance cars. If a town was really interested in traffic safety they would install count down timers on traffic light intersections so an approaching driver can best gauge whether to brake in a reasonable time frame, brake firmly, or continue on. My stopping distance is minimum two times that of a passenger car so knowing how much time I got would really take the stress of of every light I come too when hauling horses.
Re:Not true. (Score:5, Informative)
If a town was really interested in traffic safety they would install count down timers on traffic light intersections so an approaching driver can best gauge whether to brake in a reasonable time frame, brake firmly, or continue on.
This is exactly correct. On the mornings when I drive my children to school I use the crosswalk timers to gauge when I can or cannot make it through a light. Traffic cameras have nothing to do with keeping people safe, they are all about lazily collecting fines from unfortunate drivers.
Re: (Score:3)
You make your decision way too late. You make the decision way before you are at the traffic light, when it is still green: "at that point if not turned yellow yet I move on, if turn yellow before that point I stop." Especially when you're driving such heavy loads, because as you say yourself you need time to stop.
And if you have an excessively long time to break, then you should not be trying to drive at maximum speed anyway. The speed limit is just that, a limit, not a requirement to go at that speed. It
Re: (Score:3)
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 do know there are are stoplights on rural roads and highways, going from 60 to 0 in twenty yards is impossible about 2gs , the top speed that most cars can handle that fast of a stop without screeching the tires is 35mph it doesn't seen that safe to me to be driving 35 in a 60.
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: (Score:3)
I even know the lights on my way to work are timed for 30mph despite the posted limit being 35.
That sounds annoying, but not as bad as where I live. Here, the lights are timed for 40 despite the posted limit being 35. Talk about perverse incentives.
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)
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: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:Not true. (Score:5, Informative)
I thought they were speed cameras, not red light cameras. The question is not about lines, it's if they are set to go off when you are going 56 in a 55 zone, and so forth. If they do not allow for imperfections in speedometer readings, they will overticket the population. There is also a question of how many are mounted and where; if you drive down a main thoroughfare going 60 in a 55 zone and get three tickets for it in one day, that's an issue.
Reading the first linked article, it sounds like they one had two cameras total, one where you enter the city and the limit drops from 35 to 25, and the other in a school zone. The town is a small town on an interstate that has a lot of through traffic to get from larger towns to major centres of employment. The city officials are confident this will hold up in appeals court, and I suspect they may be correct.
Re: (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:Not true. (Score:4, Interesting)
Likely the town was there before the highway that drove up their traffic volume was built. If people are not paying attention and speeding through the city just to get somewhere else, fuck 'em, write 'em tickets so they learn to slow down or find a different route. Perhaps I am jaded by all the people speeding down my street rushing to the highway on ramps. 35MPH and not many are doing it. I've taken to tossing gravel at them as they race by while waiting to put my kindergartener on her school bus. People live on these streets and their lives are just as important as the one you have living in your mcmansion on a cul-de-sac.
Perhaps they ought to leave a little earlier for work in the morning
Re:Not true. (Score:4, Interesting)
"I've taken to tossing gravel at them"
Here in the UK, you'd be arrested in short order for that, anywhere. You may be correct about traffic coming through the town too fast, but you seem to have a lot to learn about justice and proportionality. I hope a semi comes through and drops his load of gravel on your driveway. Maybe then you'd learn something about proportionality, but knowing people like that over here ("my car and my daughter are more important than everybody else, screw you") you'd probably be happy for the donation of ammo to throw at passing vehicles.
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:4, Interesting)
My wife and I are from a large rural area in our province, referred to as the Valley. Normally we'd take highway 101 to get there from where we live, but in the summer when it's nice and we want a more scenic drive we use to take the old #1 highway. The 100 series highways are 110 Km/h, the older single digit highways are 80 Km/h.
So it's a nice day and we're driving along at 75 Km/h enjoying the weather, then hidden behind some tree or other type foliage, blink and you miss it, there's a speed sign and all the sudden you're in a 50 Km/h zone surrounded by cattle and corn fields, 30 km/h if you're entering a school zone (speed fines doubled between 30 and 50 Km/h, triple if you're over 50 Km/h). Lately it seems schools have been popping up all over the place... well at least the signs for school zones have been, which seems odd since I keep reading about the rural schools closing and the students merged into schools in other counties.
We don't dare take the #1 highway anymore, something we've been doing for nearly 15 years, because all the little stick friggn' nowhere towns along the way started using the #1 as a money maker with hidden or poorly maintained speed signs.
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:Not true. (Score:5, Insightful)