Speed Cameras = Safety Mechanism or Money Making Machine?

[Soontir C'boath]

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.

I'm not sure of the actual tolerant speed but according to this, it was recommended to be 5 mph above the limit. So if you drove 40 mph, you should've been fine.

[Sea Skimmer]

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

I’ll keep that in mind the next time I see a Philadelphia cop with no lights on fly by me doing 85mph in a Charger before splitting three lanes to keep up his speed. If you’re going to claim that you don’t speed, in your cruiser or your own car then I call pure bullshit.

[Stark]

He didn't say he didn't speed, which is frankly irrelevant. He said don't speed if you don't want to get caught for speeding, which seems pretty unassailable to me.

Unless you're talking about dodgey radars or whatever (which certainly happens) and not some guy admitting he was doing 30% over the limit and complaining about being caught.

[MKSheppard]

In a city the limits are obviously there to prevent pedestrians from getting splattered.

Speaking for one; I fucking hate pedestrians; They usually jaunt into the middle of the fucking street without looking both ways; and just hope that we see them in time and slow down.

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.

So you think that Speed Limits are a public safety thing; instead of a money machine, right, got you.

[Mr Bean]

If Speed Limits in the US were based on actual hard science of what was and was not safe I would have no issue with them. However they are almost never based on hard science, but rather whatever the local municipality or state board decided they should be.

A good example is exit on/off ramps. Normally these are rated very close to scientific standards. If it's a 270* loop and it says 30 MpH on the ramp, the likely if you attempt to drive 40 Mph on that ramp, the slightest slip on the road will likely cause your car or truck to hit the barrier.

Once off the exit on/off ramps however you get into whatever a political body decided the speed limit should be.

Take a look at two states
One is West Virigina, land of steep mountains, 500 foot drops and beware of falling rock signs most places. It snows often and any road is constantly winding between hills and mountains in addition to either driving up or downhill.

The other is Indiana, land of flat cropland. Most of the major highways are perfectly strait for over five or six miles at a time. Generaly speaking unless your in town there's nothing but fields of corn/wheat or what have you off to the side of the road, sometimes theres a wire fence, often times there is not. As mentioned the roads are flat, the land is flat, and if you go off road, your going off road into soft turned earth and crops.

The average highway speed limit in the great state of West Virgina?
-65 Miles per hour, with several highways being 70 or 75 mile per hour roads.

The average highway speed limit in the great state of Indiana?
-50 miles per hour with some highways being 60-65 miles per hour in some areas.

Why is that? What great traffic dangers are on Indiana highways?
It's very easy to tell what dangers are in West Virigina, tiny highway shoulders, no highway medeum in many places. Rocks, Ice, winds, and of course, giant 500 foot drops off one side of the highway.

So why is West Virgina 65mph while driving through the vast croplands of Indiana must be done at a sedate 50 mph speed?

Because the state house of Indana decided they wanted to generate revenue and thus combined long flat roads with very low speed limits in order to give State Troopers plenty of work. And that's why I take issue with the general usage of speed cameras and the like. Because the speeding limits they are based on are almost never based off what is "safe" but what somewhat wanted.

[MKSheppard]

A good example is exit on/off ramps. Normally these are rated very close to scientific standards. If it's a 270* loop and it says 30 MpH on the ramp, the likely if you attempt to drive 40 Mph on that ramp, the slightest slip on the road will likely cause your car or truck to hit the barrier.

Technically, they're rated as the maximum possible safe speed for a large semi trailer in bad weather; but yes; it is always a good idea to follow closely the exit ramp limits.

[Kamakazie Sith]

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

I’ll keep that in mind the next time I see a Philadelphia cop with no lights on fly by me doing 85mph in a Charger before splitting three lanes to keep up his speed. If you’re going to claim that you don’t speed, in your cruiser or your own car then I call pure bullshit.

If he would have been caught then he wouldn't have had any room to complain about receiving a ticket, right?

Also, police can speed if they are going to call, or to back up another officer. Some departments only require the use of emergency lights if you plan on running red lights, and it would be pretty stupid to run code to a crime in progress call, right?

[MKSheppard]

UPDATE: It turns out it wasn't me; but my mother who got the ticket; since she was driving at the time.

Heh; my record of zero speeding fines continues.

[Stark]

I'm not seeing why different speed limits make any difference. Do you really think the only reason for lower speed limits is to generate speed tickets, and how could they do this if drivers paid attention as they are legally required to do?

[Kamakazie Sith]

So you think that Speed Limits are a public safety thing; instead of a money machine, right, got you.

The speed limit is based upon the road, and the average traffic load of the road.

It is used to generate money, but don't kid yourself about the safety thing either. If everyone followed the speed limit then accidents would drop sharply.

Do you have any idea what the single biggest contributor to accidents involving vehicles is?

Speed.

[Mr Bean]

The speed limit is based upon the road, and the average traffic load of the road.

You wish it were, see my Indiana/West Virgina example. Speed limits should be defined on what is safe on a given road for an average driver. What they are actually based on is the personal reasons of the various state and municipal highway and road administrations.

[Stark]

Says... who? I'm sure you have a source, but I'm not American so... ?

Anyway, they can't bust you if you pay attention and control speed (particularly when crossing state lines). This seems a pretty irrelevant tangent to Shep's complaining about being busted for breaking the law.

[MKSheppard]

If everyone followed the speed limit then accidents would drop sharply.

Actually, accidents decrease if you raise the speed limit towards the "natural" speed that people drive at.

Do you have any idea what the single biggest contributor to accidents involving vehicles is?

Speed.

The biggest contributor to vehicular accidents is improper spacing. I can drive safely at 70 MPH all damn day long as long as I keep proper car length spacing, giving me time to react.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

In Washington State there are no speeding cameras, they're illegal, but there are red light cameras, which are quite reasonable. The fine is an automatic $101.00, and it doesn't go on your record, it's treated as a parking infraction only, because the cameras can't discern whether the owner of the car is the one driving or not.

I think that is the main issue with speeding and red light cameras, the possibility that someone else is driving the car. Because of that they shouldn't count toward your driving record or a point system at all, that much is obvious, and any state which applies camera-based fines to such systems (Washington State has no point system) is being supremely abusive of its power. But the actual use of the cameras themselves I have no particular issue with.

[Sea Skimmer]

If he would have been caught then he wouldn't have had any room to complain about receiving a ticket, right?

Good job dodging the point. Cops speed all the fucking time with no reason, you speed, I see, our speed laws are fucking stupid and should not be arbitrarily enforced. It shouldn’t be an issue if he got caught or not because if our speed limits are to be rigidly enforced then the people fucking enforcing them better follow them.

You know it would be REALLY easy and really cheap to put a recording speedometer in every police car and have it linked to the dash camera, in fact I think some camera setups actually already have that, but would you accept driving a car like that? You would want your superiors reviewing the entire tape to look for infractions and counting all the times you didn’t pull over speeders because they weren’t driving any faster then you thought appropriate and where traveling yourself? Or do you think you should have the right to make judgment calls?

Speed cameras are a waste of money, assuming they aren’t the ones operated by private companies for a fucking profit. Develop a camera that issues tickets for tailgating, something far morel likely to cause an accident, and I’ll be happy to see 80 million of them installed.

Also, police can speed if they are going to call, or to back up another officer. Some departments only require the use of emergency lights if you plan on running red lights, and it would be pretty stupid to run code to a crime in progress call, right?

It’s on a freeway with a marshland and forest on one side, and sound barrier shielding a township in a different county on the other. In fact this whole particular stretch of highway in question is out of a Philly cops jurisdiction. They just drive down several miles sometimes because they don’t always feel like turning around at one of three center divider gaps they’ve got to use in the previous three miles of road. I don’t blame em for using the safety of a proper interchange, but this cop could not have had a legitimate reason for going 85mph away from the city. Philly does not help out surrounding counties except at Philadelphia international airport, which straddles two countries and exists as a special zone with regards to police. This was well past the airport exits in any case.

[Stark]

In AU, you can just stat-dec that you were driving instead of the driver. I'm sure it's more complex (as it's clearly open to abuse) but the penalties are steeper due to the ability to pin it on the actual driver, and they count towards your licence points.

It's a good reason not to let fucking cockheads drive your car: they'll rack up tickets and they won't sign no stat-dec that it was them.

[Kamakazie Sith]

The speed limit is based upon the road, and the average traffic load of the road.

You wish it were, see my Indiana/West Virgina example. Speed limits should be defined on what is safe on a given road for an average driver. What they are actually based on is the personal reasons of the various state and municipal highway and road administrations.

What source did you use for that example? Every place I've looked has comparible speed limits in every state.

Here is one...

Speed

[Kamakazie Sith]

If everyone followed the speed limit then accidents would drop sharply.

Actually, accidents decrease if you raise the speed limit towards the "natural" speed that people drive at.

What is the natural speed that people drive at? Does this speed take into account the sudden changes that cause accidents?

The biggest contributor to vehicular accidents is improper spacing. I can drive safely at 70 MPH all damn day long as long as I keep proper car length spacing, giving me time to react.

Great. What happens at 70 MPH when you have something unexpected happen to you?

[Darth Wong]

Wait a minute, I see people saying that speed cameras are totally useless for preventing accidents because there are other factors that cause accidents, such as tailgating. Ergo, they reason that speed itself is virtually irrelevant to the accident rate, despite the well-known limitations of human reaction time and automotive traction. Do you guys seriously believe that?

[Flagg]

I have no problems with speeding cameras. I do have a problem with speed traps, though. I think there needs to be legislation limiting what speed limits can decrease to by percentage. Aside from coming off the interstae, there is no reason for the limit to go from 60 directly to 35.

[Kamakazie Sith]

If he would have been caught then he wouldn't have had any room to complain about receiving a ticket, right?

Good job dodging the point.

Your point wasn't very clear in your previous post. Perhaps you should do a better job explaining your point if you expect people not to "dodge" your point.

Cops speed all the fucking time with no reason, you speed, I see, our speed laws are fucking stupid and should not be arbitrarily enforced. It shouldn’t be an issue if he got caught or not because if our speed limits are to be rigidly enforced then the people fucking enforcing them better follow them.

Yes, they should. My department has a unit of IA dedicated to the discipline of officers who are found speeding for no good reason.

You know it would be REALLY easy and really cheap to put a recording speedometer in every police car and have it linked to the dash camera, in fact I think some camera setups actually already have that, but would you accept driving a car like that? You would want your superiors reviewing the entire tape to look for infractions and counting all the times you didn’t pull over speeders because they weren’t driving any faster then you thought appropriate and where traveling yourself? Or do you think you should have the right to make judgment calls?

How easy, and cheap would that be? Let's see those figures? Would all police departments be able to afford that, and still provide adequate training?

Point of fact, Sea Skimmer. Police Officers are given the right by law to have discretion in our enforcment of the laws. In Utah, we have discretion on class b misdemeanors and below.

Speed cameras are a waste of money, assuming they aren’t the ones operated by private companies for a fucking profit. Develop a camera that issues tickets for tailgating, something far morel likely to cause an accident, and I’ll be happy to see 80 million of them installed.

It's interesting how conclusions differ. You think tailgating is the single biggest reason why people get into an accident, but if you ask someone in law enforcement they will tell you that speed is the biggest contributor.

It’s on a freeway with a marshland and forest on one side, and sound barrier shielding a township in a different county on the other. In fact this whole particular stretch of highway in question is out of a Philly cops jurisdiction.

Then stop being a whiny bitch, and report him.

They just drive down several miles sometimes because they don’t always feel like turning around at one of three center divider gaps they’ve got to use in the previous three miles of road. I don’t blame em for using the safety of a proper interchange, but this cop could not have had a legitimate reason for going 85mph away from the city. Philly does not help out surrounding counties except at Philadelphia international airport, which straddles two countries and exists as a special zone with regards to police. This was well past the airport exits in any case.

"Philly does not help out surrounding counties" That's a new one to me. Why not? Do you know this to be policy because I know we sure help out our surrounding agencies. The way they talk about it you'd think it was common practice for law enforcement agencies to assist each other. I look forward to your source.

[Mr Bean]

Wait a minute, I see people saying that speed cameras are totally useless for preventing accidents because there are other factors that cause accidents, such as tailgating. Ergo, they reason that speed itself is virtually irrelevant to the accident rate, despite the well-known limitations of human reaction time and automotive traction. Do you guys seriously believe that?

Speed Cameras don't change anything behavior wise, Wong if a person was driving down the road at 85 mph on a 55 mph road, they see a flash, get a picture taken by a Camera what are they going to do?

Slow down?
Ignore it?
Speed by?

Most likely ignore it, if they saw the flash to begin with(And not all speed cameras need to flash) they might possibly slow down, but what can they do?

Unless you blanket the roads with these Camera's, they don't modify behavior like a State Trooper will.

[Kamakazie Sith]

Speed Cameras don't change anything behavior wise, Wong if a person was driving down the road at 85 mph on a 55 mph road, they see a flash, get a picture taken by a Camera what are they going to do?

Slow down?
Ignore it?
Speed by?

Most likely ignore it, if they saw the flash to begin with(And not all speed cameras need to flash) they might possibly slow down, but what can they do?

Unless you blanket the roads with these Camera's, they don't modify behavior like a State Trooper will.

They don't modify behavior? You're telling me that after someone receives a speeding ticket due to a speed camera that they won't be driving down the road thinking "Man, there might be a speed camera around I better slow down"?

[Admiral Valdemar]

The UK is a veritable nest of anti-speed camera folks. I do wonder how many people truly believe the argument "It makes it less safe, because I'm always checking I'm doing the speed limit and not concentrating on the road".

To which I respond: "Why the fuck are you allowed to drive, doofus?"

Oh noes, they create money for the evil police whom we always complain are not out enough and poorly paid. Abort, retry, fail?

Although I wish the points went from 3 to 6 for speeding. Then you'd see even the rich pricks take note (oh, and MPs and police superintendents who feel to need to speed).

The A14 near me, a notoriously blood soaked road, is also experiencing less in the way of death thanks to average speed check cameras being installed. Unlike the GATSOs on the normal roads, the dual carriageways and motorways have sensors along certain stretches. If you try and slow down when you see one, simple physics enables the camera to call bullshit and send you a ticket.

[Sea Skimmer]

How easy, and cheap would that be? Let's see those figures? Would all police departments be able to afford that, and still provide adequate training?

You’ve already got a computer in the car that can do the recording, and you’ve already got a digital speed signal from the ECU to the vehicles own speedometer. All that you need is a program to make a graph of that input and a wire to connect the two. That’s tens of dollars per vehicle for wire, irrelevant compared to the amount of money police spend on gas. I have seen police dash cam videos which had the cars own speed as one of the bits of display data, so clearly someone has already thought of and implemented this, it’s just not standard.

Point of fact, Sea Skimmer. Police Officers are given the right by law to have discretion in our enforcment of the laws. In Utah, we have discretion on class b misdemeanors and below.

Sounds like an admission that speed cameras are unfair then

It's interesting how conclusions differ. You think tailgating is the single biggest reason why people get into an accident, but if you ask someone in law enforcement they will tell you that speed is the biggest contributor.

Actually I’ve seen law enforcement officers say exactly that and more then once. I’ve even read an interview with a state trooper pilot who flies a Cesena for highway patrol and he said he prioritizes tailgating over speeding, because it’s more likely to cause trouble, yet harder for his fellow officers on the ground to spot.

Then stop being a whiny bitch, and report him.

If he didn't pass going 50% faster then me, I might have been able to get his number to do just that. I have reported my local police for fucking repeatedly driving the wrong up a one way street near my house. Course these same wonderful people are now busily dealing with a lawsuit steaming from one of them having hit and almost killed a pedestrian crossing legally at a corner, and then attempting to pin everything on the victim despite numerous eyewitnesses.

You know, I don’t hate cops, I know the job is extremely difficult any day of the week, but some days I see them doing shit that really makes it hard to keep that mindset. I’d have to say my biggest button is the issue of ‘smart guns’ which are used by no police department in the world (despite the fact that a cop is quite likely to have his gun stolen in a struggle) and yet countless police have testified to the media that we’d all be much safer if the general public was forced to use them.

"Philly does not help out surrounding counties" That's a new one to me. Why not? Do you know this to be policy because I know we sure help out our surrounding agencies. The way they talk about it you'd think it was common practice for law enforcement agencies to assist each other. I look forward to your source.

Sorry I don’t have the last three years of local papers locked away for reference, but it pretty much stems from the huge murder wave the city has been suffering, which is becoming so well known that tourist revenue has been significantly reduced. The cities solution to that has been to advertise more, rather then hiring more cops. Just this September the cities police commissioner made a more then slightly dubious decision in the absence of more funding, this murder wave should be tackled by forming a 10,000 strong vigilante unit to actually foot patrol the streets. Thankfully its not on the job just yet.

In any case, the location this cop was at and his direction of travel would have meant he was putting at least four other police departments between the Philadelphia city limits and any crimes scene he could have been heading too. I don’t fucking buy the legitimate mission excuse for an instant, and it’s not like this is the only time I’ve ever seen cops flying along on the highway with no apparent purpose.