Speed Cameras = Safety Mechanism or Money Making Machine?

[MKSheppard]

So I just recently got a ticket for speeding near my house, and it's from one of those fancy new speed cameras and what really gets me is that on the ticket, posted speed limit is 35, and my speed was 46; a mere 11 MPH over the limit; on a straight, EMPTY, non residental road.

[Xisiqomelir]

Empty road is your problem. I was snapped on the day they put them in, but haven't been sent anything because I was in the middle of a massive wad of traffic.

[Darth Wong]

Why can't they be both a safety mechanism AND a revenue generator? It all depends on how they're deployed by any given municipality.

[SCRawl]

Yeah, it's a blatant cash grab. We had a similar program up here around ten years ago, and although there was a veneer of "public safety" to it, everyone knew that it was just for revenue.

[Stark]

Yeah, damn them for enforcing those 'laws'. Pffft. Being 11mph/17kph over the limit would lose you a pile of points in Australia.

The only rationale I've seen behind this whining that seems valid is situations where more cops are moved from criminal law enforcement to man additional speed cameras. Aside from that, it's just wankers crying that they got busted breaking the law.

[Glocksman]

Why can't they be both a safety mechanism AND a revenue generator? It all depends on how they're deployed by any given municipality.

Indeed.
Install one on a high risk, high congestion road that has a history of speed related accidents and it's a safety mechanism.
Install one on a lightly used road where the speed limit drops abruptly from 65 to 35 for no reason other than there's a 'town' of 300 people nearby, and it's a revenue device and is a high tech version of the old fashioned 'speed trap'.

The problem I have with them is that it removes the officer's discretion from the equation, especially in cases where while the motorist is within the posted speed limit, weather conditions (fog, ice, snow, etc) make it unsafe to actually drive that fast.

A live cop could pull over and warn/ticket the guy, while the speed camera will just do nothing.

[MKSheppard]

Yeah, damn them for enforcing those 'laws'. Pffft. Being 11mph/17kph over the limit would lose you a pile of points in Australia.

I love how in certain Southern States, speed cameras were found to be "uneconomical" because by law, all revenue collected from them had to go to schools.

[Stark]

You can always contest: even the automated ones. If you had a reason to be speeding other than 'lol empty lol I speed', it's not like you have no grounds. One of my sisters is a nurse, and in emergencis she's got off all kinds of traffic problems like this.

[Stark]

I love how in certain Southern States, speed cameras were found to be "uneconomical" because by law, all revenue collected from them had to go to schools.

You make that sound like a good thing? Speed limits less enforced = better? For who?

[MKSheppard]

You make that sound like a good thing? Speed limits less enforced = better? For who?

Less arbitary speed limits = better.

Recently, I was going to Annapolis from my area; and to do that, I spent like 20 miles on US-50, which is a very long, straight, flat road and largely empty outside of rush hour; posted limit there is like 65; and while some people in the far right lanes were obeying it or driving slow, as you moved to the left lanes, speed went up to an average of 80+ MPH; which is relatively easy to do; if you have little traffic, long straight road, you can easily get up to 85 before even realizing it as part of the natural "Settle back and do the long drive"

[Stark]

Whatever. If your problem is STUPID SPEED LIMITS, bully for you and there are certainly lots of those. If you're complaining about being busted BREAKING THE LAW, tough chunks buddy.

Saying 'it's easy to speed thus busting people is wrong somehow' is *ridiculous*. You remember that licence thing you've got? As a driver, if you can't maintain a fixed speed, you don't deserve it. You have a responsibility to a) pay attention for speed signs and b) obey them, controlling your speed as necessary. If you don't, you're open to getting busted. How is this anyone's fault but yours? Saying 'its stupid' when it's part of the licensing system you agreed to by getting a license is missing the point.

Like I said, if you have an actual defence beyond 'its easy to speed', you can contest it. If you've got no defence, and you got caught breaking the law by an unthinking machine, too bad. Sure, there are stupid aspects to speed enforcement, like excessive manpower or ridiculous standards or inaccurate equipment (in Victoria many years ago cops were busting people for 3kmh or 2mph over, and that was within their device's error threshold!). Being 17kph over the limit for no reason means you've got bucklies.

[Darth Tanner]

I don't know about America but in the UK they paint them bright yellow. If your going fast enough to not be able to slow down when you see a bright yellow speed camera you are going too fast regardless.

Install one on a high risk, high congestion road that has a history of speed related accidents and it's a safety mechanism.

The problem with this is that the gov will quite rightly be seen as waiting for people to get killed before installing safety equipment to enforce the law. A local village near me petitioned for a camera because drivers were speeding though too fast on a blind corner but were told there had not yet been a fatal incident to warrant one.

Now that's just dam silly.

I don't really see the point of installing cameras on non residential roads or in the absence of road conditions that would lead to accidents (tight bends) but otherwise cameras are in general a good thing.

Now mobile cameras in police vans, usually manned by two guys!!! Now that is a waste of time and money.

[Stark]

But people don't like local enforcement like that - look at Glocksman's example. Assuming it's signed, what's wrong with slowing down when a highway passes through a town?

Frankly, I'd far prefer automated speed cameras to those fucking 'traffic calmer' concrete island slalom things, particularly in residential areas.

[aerius]

Given the competance of the average driver in North America, they're not qualified to drive any faster than the speed limit. A little snow or rain and thousands of people go skidding off the roads, you get the speed limits you deserve and you break them at your own cost.

[Keevan_Colton]

They've got the cameras on the nearby motorway here are actually networked so they actually give an average speed for your time on the motorway.

[Dooey Jo]

Assuming it's signed, what's wrong with slowing down when a highway passes through a town?

That way we can't hear our manly engines go "wroom" while driving near towns. Also, it's very annoying to have to slow down; you lose whole seconds!! That totally outweighs the increased risk of hitting pedestrians crossing the road or cars pulling out.

[White Haven]

That'd cause a shitstorm here in Virginia, simply because we have low speed limits and a police system that enforces them as if they were 10mph higher than they are. It ends up working fairly well, easier than changing the limits everywhere, at any rate. Whenever I drive into West Virginia, the actual enforced speed limit doesn't change...the limit goes up, and the enforcement gets tighter.

[Kamakazie Sith]

So I just recently got a ticket for speeding near my house, and it's from one of those fancy new speed cameras and what really gets me is that on the ticket, posted speed limit is 35, and my speed was 46; a mere 11 MPH over the limit; on a straight, EMPTY, non residental road.

As a police officer I can tell you that they are intended for both. So what? Don't speed.

[Sea Skimmer]

They’d be a useful safety device if we had more realistic speed limits which are altered based on time of day and road conditions. But since only a tiny number of major roads in the US have variable speed limits at all, and typically they very only from stupidly low to insanely low they don’t work. Most of the time speed limits just end up fucking over traffic patterns, because you have fifty people who want to go forty plus backed up behind one person going thirty seven and this dense mass of traffic is going to be more likely to have an accident occur. I’ve always found it insane on I-95 how you end up with a huge clump of cars almost bumper to bumper because people wont pass and wont keep left, and they might have a full mile of empty road ahead and behind that the same cars could be spread out on.

[Superman]

Isn't most traffic enforcement a big money grab? Cities have to make revenue, right? I don't really have a problem with it.

[Phantasee]

I understand the need for speed enforcement in the city. What bothers me is going out of the city, up the east side puts you in Strathcona County, which is policed by the RCMP. They will have a photo radar car hiding in the ditch pretty much all the time. So you're driving down empty rural roads, and they'll get you. It's pretty much a cash grab from the Edmontonians dumb enough to take the shortcut of the highway to go north/south. At least with the ring road opening up, it gets a little easier to avoid them.

[Spin Echo]

When I was up in Rotorua, along one road there is a tricky corner so they have a speed sign that displays your speed and tells you to slow down if you are going to fast. It doesn't take any pictures or give any tickets, it just tells you to slow down if you are going above the advised speed. However, whenever the cops are hiding around the corner with the radar gun, they turn it off.... yeah.

[Dahak]

Well, I must admit that those brightly painted speed cameras in the UK puzzled me a bit. I couldn't understand how anyone can be stupid enough to miss them...
Here in Germany, it's a mixed thing, I guess. There are some fixed speed cameras (at least around the city here) and only newbs and non-locals get caught. Mobile cameras are also used frequently, and some complain that the cameras are used where they can get more drivers (like on big roads) and not where speeding would be more unsafe (schools or the like).
But given as fees for speeding are dirt-cheap here, virtually everyone uses the (up to) 20km/h-faster rule, anyway.

[Kamakazie Sith]

When I was up in Rotorua, along one road there is a tricky corner so they have a speed sign that displays your speed and tells you to slow down if you are going to fast. It doesn't take any pictures or give any tickets, it just tells you to slow down if you are going above the advised speed. However, whenever the cops are hiding around the corner with the radar gun, they turn it off.... yeah.

The sign is passive enforcement. The tickets are active enforcement. You don't make a huge impact through passive enforcement alone.

[Oni Koneko Damien]

Since when did driving in a rural area suddenly entitle people to pay less attention to the speed limit? In a city the limits are obviously there to prevent pedestrians from getting splattered. In the country it's there mainly for drivers as pedestrian traffic is at a minimum. Either way, it's there to keep people safe, and it's every damn traffic cops' obligation to enforce it when it is violated.

Don't want to get ticketed or speed-camera'd? Drive the fucking limit. Think the limit is too low? Petition your local government about it, going over the limit and bitching when you get caught just makes you look like an ass.