134
New speed cameras in California city issue 82,000 tickets in a month after grace period ends
(www.independent.co.uk)
this post was submitted on 28 May 2026
134 points (98.6% liked)
News
37769 readers
1955 users here now
Welcome to the News community!
Rules:
1. Be civil
Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.
2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.
Obvious biased sources will be removed at the mods’ discretion. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted separately but not to the post body. Sources may be checked for reliability using Wikipedia, MBFC, AdFontes, GroundNews, etc.
3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.
Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.
4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source. Clickbait titles may be removed.
Posts which titles don’t match the source may be removed. If the site changed their headline, we may ask you to update the post title. Clickbait titles use hyperbolic language and do not accurately describe the article content. When necessary, post titles may be edited, clearly marked with [brackets], but may never be used to editorialize or comment on the content.
5. Only recent news is allowed.
Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.
6. All posts must be news articles.
No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials, videos, blogs, press releases, or celebrity gossip will be allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis. Mods may use discretion to pre-approve videos or press releases from highly credible sources that provide unique, newsworthy content not available or possible in another format.
7. No duplicate posts.
If an article has already been posted, it will be removed. Different articles reporting on the same subject are permitted. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.
8. Misinformation is prohibited.
Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.
9. No link shorteners or news aggregators.
All posts must link to original article sources. You may include archival links in the post description. News aggregators such as Yahoo, Google, Hacker News, etc. should be avoided in favor of the original source link. Newswire services such as AP, Reuters, or AFP, are frequently republished and may be shared from other credible sources.
10. Don't copy entire article in your post body
For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.
founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
You know, speed cameras are expensive to cities, and a lot of the fines go to paying the company servicing the cameras rather than filling the local coffers. Not to mention they contain a Iot of copper and other sellable materials.
You know speed cameras actually do reduce the speed of traffic.
On top of that they only negativity affect those that speed (with fines). Where something like a speed bump effect both speeder and non-speeder.
Streets and roads were speed cameras were installed in my neighbor actually became more pleasant to drive, walk, and cycle on. No more speeders tailgating others for example.
Now yes your point is valid that a portion of the cash collected from speeders goes to pay for said cameras, but keep in mind it's the speeders that are paying and not non-speeders or taxpayers.
Of course that's how they sell the idea initially. But we would be fools to think they aren't planning on jacking up cost in a couple years to boost profits and expand surveillance to be sold to the highest bidder (fascists). History tells us that information will be used against their political opponents. Imagine how easy it's going to be to target protestors and immigrants with a camera on every intersection
You make a good point but I just read another article earlier about how camera info was going to ice so fuckem
Fuck ICE without a doubt!
All I could say is any speed cameras, along with any of the existing traffic and highway cameras or neighborhood cameras are implemented in such a way that the city retains full ownership and accountability of collected data.
There should be strong accountability and data protection for this, but city officials and common folk generally trade convenience for privacy for most things related to tech.
I for one sure miss simple CCTV.
Did you know that many of the companies that serve these cameras are data collection firms that sell the data they collect, often to governments for the purpose of tracking people wherever they go. But yeah I guess this the only way we can get people to slow down.
And I'm sure they never give bad tickets to the wrong driver or someone not actually speeding.
Its just a modern tech version of the "speed traps" used by small towns all over the country since speed laws first came into existence. They'll slap a "25MPH" sign on a 55MPH road just outside of town and have a cop sitting there to fine each and every driver who doesn't know about it already. These have been so abused for years that some towns' entire revenue streams come from these traps.
That other user's ideas can only work in a world where everything is done in good faith. In our world, everything that can be abused for personal gain will be, so ideas and rules need to account for that to help balance things out.
That may all be true, but choosing to allow them does create a precedent for automated "unmanned" enforcement of all kinds, which I'm not exactly ok with personally. It is usually terrible for privacy as well, as there's no guarantee how that data is handled or where it goes.
There are many issues with the area where I currently live, but I would consider the blanket ban on automated enforcement a big plus. It doesn't mean traffic enforcement can't be high-tech; it simply means that a citation cannot be issued by an automated system - a human needs to witness the violation, interpret the severity, and personally write and deliver the ticket to the offender.
Speed cameras can also just be implemented very poorly sometimes. The outcomes you cite only happen if the implementation is sound. If corruption in policing already exists these systems can create an opening to exacerbate it. For example, I used to live in a city that had used cameras for so long, the stretches of road covered by them were common knowledge to speeders. The cameras did shape behavior but only in the specific zones they covered. The local police relied on speed cameras and red light cameras so heavily, they served to substitute for in-person enforcement activities instead of augmenting them. That led to the police basically forgetting how to even do traffic enforcement very much at all. They would say "look how much revenue we're collecting!" at press events, but in reality they were using it to disengage, which created a palpable feeling of lawlessness on the streets. All of that put together led to worse issues than before the cameras were installed, even for things that weren't related to traffic laws at all.