I am a street camera extremist. Put a robot on every single intersection; ticket every single driver who speeds or runs a red light, every single time.
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But it’s not currently just a pass through of the fine/offense. Yes, a robot is usually (if it works right) more objective. Unfortunately, the images they gather can be, and are, used for other purposes and it’s not well regulated. We need a lot more protections to make it work well.
Two-second grace. Some of the places they put those cameras shortened the yellow light, for the money. On the other side, I am still alive because my buddy was driving. Because I would have timed the light at an intersection where a car would have sideways smashed me. Buddy did not try to time it.
I’m afraid I’m worse than you. I was thinking that the roadways could broadcast their speed limits and then the ticket printer could just be required dashboard equipment. Break the law, get a ticket. Rinse, repeat.
And frees up human being police resources if the robots are doing substantially more of the traffic policing. Those humans can then focus on, you know, keeping the community safe (in theory)
What is the value of privacy? Sure this might help traffic issues when managed by benevolent authorities. But what if those with the data are not benevolent?
Do you know how they work? It's plate readers. They take a picture of the plate and send the bill to the address associated with the plate, which is why people dispute their bills saying "I wasn't driving the car, it drove itself (or cousin/brother/kid/thief) and I shouldn't have to pay"
I never understood the complaints about these. If you’re speeding or running through an intersection, then you deserve the ticket. Fuck you, you have nothing to complain about. Fuck you fuck you fuck you.
You deserve AT LEAST the ticket. I love that my kid can walk and ride really well and keep an eye on threats, and it makes me so mad that even when he’s doing everything right, someone could end him by running a red. I block busy intersections with my body before I let him roll through on bike.
honestly i'd rather spend the money required to implement this on better urban planning and on effective mass transit. instead of slapping an enforcement modality on the problem, mitigate it at its source
In addition to automatic enforcement, a point system on the driving license is also a good deterrent. For example in France, drivers have 12 points. Infractions like speeding will remove between 1 and 6 points to the driving license depending on the speed…
European countries generally have a much higher standard for both obtaining and retaining a driving license. European countries also generally have much better public transit and cities that are more livable without a car
which is why i mentioned urban planning and mass transit earlier
I think the status quo is that traffic law is already optional for wealthy people.
Whether you automatically get a ticket for running a red/speeding or run the risk of getting pulled over doesn’t matter. I don’t see how a camera changes a wealthy person’s underlying decision making here
the proposal as made acts as further endorsement of the principle that compliance with the law is optional for the wealthy. we don't need to entrench this notion any further
That’s true of many compliance frameworks. Turns out having money usually means the rules are optional. Doesn’t seem like a good argument for not having any framework.
Next up: abolish the IRS because the wealthy just cheat the system and they treat tax law as entirely optional.
More cameras would slow down all parties and improve safety for all users, even if it doesn't stop willful scofflaws. The net social benefit would be positive
Or just confiscate the cars once the license plates reach a certain number of tickets (since one of the reasons we nominally dislike speed cameras is that it is hard to know who was driving).
How would speed cameras make this worse? We’re not exactly enforcing speed limits right now and (depending on the area, but also those laws should be changed) we have the ability to revoke driver’s licenses and impound cars of repeat offenders.
As a beneficiary of red light camera vigilance - downhill, ice, short cycle - I still endorse this idea. Not like our entire lives aren't already on-camera all of the time.
I hear you - but the second you get a ticket in the mail you’ll be extremely against them lol.
Also, red light cameras lead to more accidents and have been manipulated by cities/providers in the past to make more $$$
Anecdotally, if you have one of these in your town you know that people will slam their breaks the second they see a yellow light at one of these, which isn’t a natural driving action.
From the article you sent. "While the number of crashes with injuries dropped where red light cameras were installed, the total number of accidents rose over the program's 14 years." So, what are we caring about here?
Also, probably shouldn't grant you the increased crashes point. There will be variation, but in general they decrease crashes. No need to clever, thinking outside the box here. They straightforwardly work. https://www.iihs.org/topics/red-light-running
I hear you guys. Thought about it for a bit and it definitely seems like a boomer-ish take on my part.
I’ll leave it up simply for debate but yeah, looking into it I can see overall it is probably much better.
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Why would he be against them just by receiving a ticket? Do you think he's so shallow as to think he is above the law and shouldn't be punished for engaging in reckless behavior? Speeding, parking illegally, all fine when I do it, right?
Red light cameras can be considered a pretty effective safety measure. While in some locations they can result in an increase in a small crashes, the increase is from rear end crashes, which have far lower injury and fatality rates than the angle crashes red light camera significantly reduce.
I'd like to see fines for speeders and then the camera picks a car doing the speed limit at random and they win the money. People will stick to the speed limit if they think they might win.
This is a coherent approach and I sympathize. In practice, as we have seen with parking enforcement, the effects are likely to impact the less affluent, less educated, and less healthy parts of the population far more than those who are already well-off and empowered.
I am largely in favor of the cameras, and I take your point which is valid. But it may tacitly underestimate the ability of the more highly empowered people to find other ways to evade automated fines and punishments, as they already sometimes do on those occasions when stopped by police.
I suggested the same in another reply. It seems a good idea, but what actual experience is there that it "works wonders"? Has it even been tried for driving violations?
The only arguments against are ones that says wealth shouldn’t be factor, because we should be equal, but the reason for them is rich people effectively ignore laws as just the cost of living.
That's right. People treat the fine as "the price of doing the thing." In the USA under the current rules, multiple unpaid fines, perhaps all accrued at multiple cameras on one journey, would cause poorer people to lose their license, then their job because can't drive to work, then their home.
There's also the presumption of guilt. A cop pulls someone over, the person speeding gets ticketed. The camera spots someone, *the person listed on the title* gets ticketed. A son borrows the car, the mom loses the license, then job etc.
Very good point. I have a feeling that the cameras, if ubiquitously placed, will prompt a re-think of how we assess driving-related fines and punishments. The existing system was predicated on the reality that the cop would only occasionally be there to catch you.
It was designed to maximize the value of a limited resource: traffic enforcers' eyes couldn't be everywhere. But if now the eyes are everywhere, and apply (at least in theory 😐) to everyone equally, maybe that's an opportunity to reconsider the system.
Would it be feasible to have graded punishments suited to the economic standing of the driver, just as we do with different degrees of excess speed? Could other types of consequences be applied? It's interesting. I think David's point is valid but potentially only a start, not an end.
Every driver is always driving over the speed limit, texting while driving, tailgating, running stop signs, ignoring yield signs, no signaling, road rage, etc., etc., on and on 💀
I’m always amazed at how often clothing is brought up in these convos. It could just be that I walk/bike often & am pretty pro-autonomy, but dictating what people wear when they’re getting around town is a wild overreach. Like, I should be fined for biking to work with a black jacket in winter???
And your opinion is that fining bikers to wear reflective clothing will fix that, rather than just implying that it is bikers’ responsibility to act perfectly instead of drivers’ responsibility to drive with consideration for others and the municipality’s responsibility to build safe infrastructure?
This is one of those really clear illustrations of the fact that laws serve not to prevent or deter behavior, but to give the authorities a justification to hassle who they want to hassle.
Yes but I fear the surveillance state that would likely be built around it. We’d need auditable/open-source assurance that just passing by a speed camera isn’t transmitting your data to skynet.
For most of us the car already transmits location data, or could be made to do so, and if that's not enough there's the smartphone we're using to navigate, the tollway pass, and so on. We either already have adequate protection or (more likely) don't, but in any case road cameras don't change much.
Road camera data would be directly in the hands of the government, though. Ready for some DOGEr to launch a query for “all cars found in proximity of last 3 Free Palestine rallies”, then forward on to the FBI.
Maybe so, but I understand that it's trivially easy for the DHS, under existing laws, to send a data request of that sort to data-havers, ISPs or local jurisdictions, including a stipulation that the existence of the request may not be revealed, and that such requests get nearly total compliance.
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That a camera can perfectly record what a person can only partially observe doesn’t make it unconstitutional.
There’s no constitutional right to rely on human fallibility.
And frees up human being police resources if the robots are doing substantially more of the traffic policing. Those humans can then focus on, you know, keeping the community safe (in theory)
this is already a problem (there's one driver in NY who _averages_ two violations a day) and i think this approach just makes that worse
which is why i mentioned urban planning and mass transit earlier
Whether you automatically get a ticket for running a red/speeding or run the risk of getting pulled over doesn’t matter. I don’t see how a camera changes a wealthy person’s underlying decision making here
Next up: abolish the IRS because the wealthy just cheat the system and they treat tax law as entirely optional.
More cameras would slow down all parties and improve safety for all users, even if it doesn't stop willful scofflaws. The net social benefit would be positive
this is the problem with enforcing rules "senselessly", which is what this proposal demands
Also, red light cameras lead to more accidents and have been manipulated by cities/providers in the past to make more $$$
Anecdotally, if you have one of these in your town you know that people will slam their breaks the second they see a yellow light at one of these, which isn’t a natural driving action.
https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/newyork/news/suffolk-county-red-light-cameras-deactivated/
You made a broad statement about putting a dumb camera on every corner.
No need to be a d*ck.
I’ll leave it up simply for debate but yeah, looking into it I can see overall it is probably much better.
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Protect people and privacy.
Protect people and privacy.
The only arguments against are ones that says wealth shouldn’t be factor, because we should be equal, but the reason for them is rich people effectively ignore laws as just the cost of living.
Better to trade some of that physical burden for the financial burden of enforcement tickets, no?
Set reasonable speed limits and tolerances; set reasonable times on the caution light phase; and hold people who violate those parameters responsible.
People pick on me I drive so slow.
I cycle and run a lot, I know why it's important to follow speed limits and stop signs/lights.