5 Ways Speeding and Red Lights Cameras Are Causing Political Outrage

[xchrom]

http://www.alternet.org/civil-liberties/5-ways-speeding-and-red-lights-cameras-are-causing-political-outrage



***SNIP

1. Rear-end ruckus

The main argument in favor of the cameras is that they keep the roads safer, reducing intersection crashes and other type of dangerous driving. But at least one study suggests that the harm reduction argument isn’t so clear cut. In New Jersey, the Department of Transportation has acknowledged that, although right-angle crashes at monitored intersections are down, the total number of collisions has increased by 0.9 percent in areas where the cameras are installed. Much of this increase is caused by the skyrocketing number of rear-end collisions, which have increased by 20 percent as drivers slam the breaks to avoid getting caught cruising through a yellow light.

***SNIP

2. Ballot bans

Although the long-term safety benefits are still being tested, motorists across the country are flocking to their ballot boxes in attempts to ban the cameras. This month, voters in California, New Jersey, Texas and Washington state all voted to end the camera programs and the automatic tickets that come with it. In League City, Texas, more than three-quarters of voters opposed the program, while in Monroe, Washington, 70% of voters demanded the cameras be taken down. Much of the opposition came from conservative or Tea Party candidates, who launched grassroots camera-opposition campaigns that managed to beat out the big money of the monitoring companies. Since 1991, there have been ballot votes about the speed and/or red-light camera programs in 30 districts--and in only three contests did the monitoring systems prevail.

***SNIP

3. Cities cashing in

The main reason that motorists oppose the cameras is that they often come with expensive tickets that are automatically mailed to offending drivers. To cash-strapped city governments, however, these additional revenues are exactly what the budget calls for. In the District of Columbia, for example, the city is cashing in on the program, increasing the traffic violation revenue by more than 400 percent. In October, the city netted $350,000 in fine s, more than four times the measly $65,000 it gained during this month last year, before the cameras were installed.

[Selatius]

1. If the cameras are simply for taxation purposes, I oppose. It's a flat tax on everybody.

If the city wants to raise cash, it might do it the old-fashioned way and pass a targeted tax increase aimed at wealthy property owners. Hike up the property tax with an exemption for the first 300,000 of a person's home, or whichever appropriate rate.

But nobody wants to do that. Working class people going to work don't have their own lobbyists. Rich homeowners, on the other hand, usually have money to bribe city hall into their way of thinking, and they have the powerful arm of the Chamber of Commerce going to bat for them, and few city councilmen are willing to pick such a fight with a goliath.

[union_maid]

2. And all they're about is #3

Everyone in my household except me has gotten one or more of these. None are for actually running a red light. Every one has been for rolling rights on red, which are admittedly a violation. Right on red is legal and all the intersections in question, but you are supposed to come to a full stop. However, not one of these turns was in any way dangerous. You can see video of your offense and there was nothing even close to dangerous about any of them. I have to assume that most would not have netted a ticket from an actual cop, since none of us have ever received one for anything similar from a live police officer, ever.

There are number of intersections with cameras with short yellow lights. When there's plenty of traffic in back of you and that light turns yellow just a little too far ahead to be sure you'll make it, but too close to be sure you can stop without being rear-ended it sets up an unsafe situation. I wish they were on a ballot here. I know how I'd vote.

Oh, also, doesn't it just feel so Big Brotherish? I know that's a sort of silly concern when basically we now live in a world where if you're in public you should probably just assume you might be on video at any given moment, but it's still kind of creepy.

[Sherman A1]

3. I will go out of my way to avoid

the intersections with Red Light Cameras in my area. We have 4 of them on a nearby main road and I make sure that I avoid them like the plague. Fortunately I can do so most of the time.

[randome]

4. I don't particularly like the idea of them but...

...it's hard for me to argue we need MORE right-angle collisions, which are more often fatal than rear-end collisions.

[TheBlackAdder]

21. The yellow light is too short or there is not a pause between the green light switch. n/t

[randome]

34. That is definitely not cool.

[marmar]

5. k/r

[MrYikes]

6. Obey the law.

Put your son on a bicycle in the intersection, now.

[RomneyLies]

7. Those things are dangerous as hell.

I avoid any intersection with a camera as I am more likely to be rear ended.

I feel like there is no choice but to slam on the brakes if the light turns yellow.

[Disconnect]

8. Cameras and shortened yellow light times

I have read that with the cameras comes shortened yellow light times. The yellow light time on should be a certain length for the spee limit at the intersection. if they are "shortened" the tickets will will increased because of reaction times and braking distances. The rise in rear end collisions is evidence of this.

[Javaman]

14. Yup.

there are countless links on the net mentioning just that and there are also countless lawsuits challenging the redlight cams as a violation of due process aka cams being judge and jury.

anyone that has stood up to a ruling usually wins.

[MindPilot]

20. In my city not only did they shorten the yellow light times

but they also set the trigger point ahead of the limit line. So basically if you were the first one at the intersection, stopped or not, you got a ticket.

[dixiegrrrrl]

39. Red-Light Camera Ticket Revenue: Palm Coast, 14%, Private Company, 86%

The Palm Coast City Council decided today to stick with the 10 spy-and-snap red-light cameras around town, and allow the company running them to install more of them—even though the city will barely break even for its role in the arrangement while the private company running the cameras will cash in on up to 86 percent of the revenue it is allowed to split with the city.
The Palm Coast City Council is ready to sign a seven-year deal despite those numbers, and questionable evidence that the cameras are improving safety.

http://flaglerlive.com/40500/traffic-cameras/

Meanwhile, there are yellow light timing issues:

NEWARK, N.J. - (AP) -- New Jersey suspended a red-light camera program Tuesday in all but four of the 25 municipalities in the pilot program, saying the traffic signals are not timed according to program standards.

http://autos.aol.com/article/new-jersey-suspends-red-light-camera-program/

AND constitutional issues:
Florida Judge Ruling Finds Red Light Cameras Unconstitutional
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/florida-judge-ruling-finds-red-light-cameras-unconstitutional/

[hobbit709]

9. More than one town has been caught shortening the yellow light below standard.

http://blog.motorists.org/6-cities-that-were-caught-shortening-yellow-light-times-for-profit/

[Ligyron]

10. In most states

I believe one can enter an intersection on a Yellow light -- no matter that it may turn Red once you're in it.

[zipplewrath]

18. Not Florida

It surprises the heck out of snowbirds when they get here. It is standard practice in many states to enter an intersection for a left hand turn, and then finish it when the through traffic stops for the yellow/red light. But in Florida they can write you a ticket for that. Technically, they can write you a ticket for not clearing an intersection (regardless of size) before the light turns red. Apparently the camera folks haven't been pushing that and are only sending our tickets for cars ENTERING the intersection on a red.

[TheBlackAdder]

22. That's because...

You might find yourself entering the intersection only to be stopped by cars in front of you trying to enter a driveway or business and they might be waiting for an exiting car to clear the driveway. Everyone gets trapped in the box from time to time, but, when there is obvious traffic congestion, the driver should know not to enter the intersection.

[lonestarnot]

11. Cash cows. That's all they are.

[TheBlackAdder]

12. Check The Yellow Light Timings.

My town put up some traffic light cameras by a private firm.

I mentioned to my family that someone should camcorder the light before the cameras went up and then after they went up. I never had the chance to do it, though in retrospect I should have.

It turned out, a year later someone noticed that the yellow light was a full second shorter than state code mandates.

In NJ, the yellow light must be 1 second for every 10 MPH. Since the road was a 45 MPH zone, the yellow light should have been 4.5 seconds long. It was, in fact, set to 3.5 seconds! The legalities are still going on, as this was just recently in the papers.

3.5 seconds is not long enough to react and brake when traveling at 45 MPH.

[Fuddnik]

15. Same thing in New Port Richey, Florida.

Where the stuck these things, with shortened yellow lights, at every intersection on US 19.

[TheBlackAdder]

19. Set up a camcorder, on a tripod, record it and post it on-line.

Keep the raw video, but if it is happening, you might have a class action suit on your hands.

Once there is video proof, no attorney would turn down that case.

[Fumesucker]

30. Even low end digital cameras do pretty decent video these days

If you have an obvious camera on a tripod out on the side of the road it's going to draw attention, possibly from criminals or the police, that seems inadvisable in most circumstances.

A window mount with a digital camera that does nice video would be a better setup, IMO. This is a suction cup type unit, they make clamp on units as well.

[TheBlackAdder]

33. Awesome tip!

[OldDem2012]

13. Nothing but automated speed traps....

....the only difference is you don't have to go before a small-town judge to learn you've been fleeced.

[MindPilot]

16. extra-judicial privatized for-profit law enforcement

They add a completely unnecessary level of distraction. RLCs are usually installed not at the most accident-prone intersections, but the most complicated. There is enough things to worry about when approaching an intersection anyway including--cyclists and pedestrians, two groups to whom traffic signals are pretty much meaningless--without having to worry about it costing me a week's pay if the light changes when I'm five feet from the limit line and the yellow is too short to make it across.

When the lights are simply timed properly, compliance goes way up and accidents go way down, but that isn't profitable.

[TheBlackAdder]

17. Wait! Was That Yellow Light Too Brief?

Ahhh, your mind might not be playing tricks with you.

I was speaking to my town's Dept. of Highway officer and throughout the discussions, he stated the following:

1) The traffic light timings, how long the green, yellow and red lights last can be programmed to change throughout the day, this helps to address traffic congestion during peak hours while also allowing better durations off-peak. This is something that they monitor from time to time and will evaluate when a report comes in from a township resident highlighting an issue.

2) They can change the traffic lights dynamically, from their PCs at their desks or from home.

3) They do not keep a log of when these changes were made, how often they were made or by whom. I can't see that with today's technology. Perhaps, he didn't want me to know a log exists.

So, when you sail through your intersection, it could be possible that you might have been spotted on on of those monitoring cameras and someone could have made a change to the light timings, they could have a program to randomly change the timings every Nth cycle, the timings are manually adjusted to catch people at certain intervals or periods, etc...

I guess, the only way to prove it is to set up a camcorder and record several days worth of traffic light cycles to see if a pattern exists.

[dembotoz]

23. what bothers me most is that the tea party types are the ones building around this

this has a nice grass rootsy feel to it
they are way unpopular
shows fucking teabaggers looking responsive to the peoples wishes.

classic organizing and we are on the outside

[sadbear]

26. I got a red light camera ticket in League City, TX (one of the places that voted them out)

for not coming to a complete stop on a right-turn-on-red. It was a BS ticket, but it would have been more trouble to fight to damn thing. Good riddance.

[obamanut2012]

27. Receiving tickets when you don't ven live or travel there

This has happened to several people I know, because the tags were read wrong on the cameras. It wasn't them or there cars (colors, makes, and models all different), and, in one case, the friend had never traveled or lived in the town.

[TheBlackAdder]

32. Some NJ Towns were notorious for this.

Up until recent years, there were only 3 things that didn't have a statute of limitations: Murder, Rape & parking Tickets

Towns would send parking violations to people all across the state claiming that they parked in their town 5-15 years earlier and it was either paying the fine, showing up in court or having your driver's license suspended. Most everyone paid the fines, anywhere from $40-$80 each.

It was cheaper for people to do that than to take the day off of work, drive 50 miles away, show up and either lose the case or have it rescheduled for another day (just to bust chops).

Towns were doing this when people didn't even own the car claimed on the citation, own the car, lived in other areas of the country, etc.

Now, NJ reduced it to either 3 or 4 years!

[obamanut2012]

37. Wow, for real?!

That is crazy! Even three years is too long.

[blackspade]

28. This is just another money making scheme...

for cash strapped governments, just like speeding tickets and property forfeiture.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

29. There are so many things wrong with red light cameras.

Yes, yes, I know. "Don't break the law and there'll be nothing to worry about" and all that jazz. Sounds common sense, right?

Except you are putting faith in a machine over human observation. And machines know nothing about context. And machines cannot be cross examined.

Plus there's the question of whose actually driving the car versus whose getting ticketed.

Plus there's the fact that drivers automatically tense up and become much more edgy around these cameras, leading to less safe driving.

Plus there's the whole "cash cow" factor, not only for local governments, but much more disturbingly, for private companies who serve as vendors for these cameras.

I'm sorry. If I've allegedly run a red light, I want to be told about it. Immediately. I want a human being who is a sworn law enforcement officer to observe it with his human eyes and with his human sense of context, and for him to pull me over and tell me he saw me, the actual driver of the vehicle, allegedly run the red light. And I want him to give me a ticket immediately, not have it mailed to me several weeks later. And if I disagree with his judgment, I want to be able to take the matter of court and have the human being police officer's account questioned in a court of law. And if I ultimately have to pay a fine, I want my fine to actually go 100% to my government and not a private vending company.

Anything less is a violation of my due process rights.

[AnnaLee]

31. My husband got a camera ticket.

They sent a photo of his car in the intersection showing the light color was red. He came to me and said that it was his car but he had never been in that location and he had not been at any location in Baltimore since way before that photo occurred. I looked at the photo of the back of the car and told him that it wasn't his car. He said it was and he had checked the license plate; it was his. Again I told him that the car wasn't his and the lights weren't even shaped like the ones on the back of his car. And he insisted the license plate was the same. I took the photo outside to the back of the car. It was not our car. I compared the license plates and there was one transposition of letters (e.g. ABCEDF instead of ABCDEF). When he called the DMV they even had trouble seeing the transposition but finally did.

[bluethruandthru]

35. I really object to the speed cameras.

Where I live they were ONLY supposed to be used in school zones or at dangerous pedestrian crossings.

After the county saw the money these could rake in, they started putting them everywhere! They are now on divided highways that are nowhere near school zones or crosswalks. On roads where the speed limit is 40 on one side of the road....it will be 30 on the other - with a speed camera!!
The vast majority of these cameras are on very busy commuter corridors and all they've done (besides bring a boatload of cash to the county) is to slow commute times even further in an area where we already have the 3rd worst commutes in the nation!

I have no problem using speed cameras for safety issues...but the way they're being used now is ridiculous!

[AlexSatan]

36. It sounds like the speed limits need to be raised

or more lanes added.

All speed limits should be for safety issues. Otherwise we shouldn't have them.

If a "safe" speed is determined, I don't have much of an argument that they shouldn't be enforced. As a chronic speeder, I wouldn't prefer that, but it would be hard to complain. The only logical complaint I would have is where they are too low and would argue that to the appropriate body.

If they started having cameras everywhere around where I live, I would shrug and have to leave a little bit earlier.

[jeff47]

38. One of the traffic laws I love from CA:

To actually enforce a speed limit below 55, the city/county/state has to perform a "speed survey" and determine that cars are driving close to that speed limit - the assumption being drivers, en masse, know what's safe.

What that means is towns can't play games with speed limits in order to increase traffic tickets. They can't engineer a road for 75mph traffic and then put a 35mph speed limit on it. Or rural towns can't make the 55mph highway go down to 25mph to get funding from the non-locals.

One town near where I grew up desperately wanted to keep the "riff raff" out, and felt that one of their streets was getting too much traffic from the undesirables. So they slapped up 35mph signs to try and get people to drive elsewhere. And everyone drives through it at 55, since the police can't write a ticket.

(This rule only covers "normal" roads and highways. It doesn't cover school zones or residential streets where the default speed limit is 25)

[joeunderdog]

40. Orwell got busted for an illegal right on red.

Boy do I hate the whole big brother thing. The traffic angle is just a ruse anyway. They'll have cameras in bathrooms before its over.