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this post was submitted on 28 May 2024
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A Boring Dystopia
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Maybe don't run red lights instead of trying to get meth users to take the cameras down?
I know it's a joke but drivers are assholes by me and enforcement is low so these cameras are the best option.
The problem is that red light cameras incentivizes cities to encourage dangerous driving, because it is now a revenue source. Multiple cities have been caught illegally shortening yellow lights because shorter yellow lights cause more red light violations, yielding more money for the city and also increasing the rate of accidents at those intersections.
Changing a yellow light for that reason is messed up in so many ways.
Yep, that and the inconsistencies of timing. Some areas yellow are very long, some are short, and some seen to vary within the "allowable range." In other words, encouraging people to slam on the brakes because God only knows when the lights will change.
I hate the cameras (I spend most of my work day driving city/suburban areas) and think that if they're going to exist, they should have longer yellows to give more opportunity for drivers not to panic between getting ticketed or rear ended.
Euro Truck Simulator taught me that some countries have ways of indicating how long is left in a light. Some have progress bars, some go from solid to flashing to indicate an imminent change, and some do creative stuff with extra lights
How about we compromise and just get rid of cars?
Is there any actual hard evidence of this? Or is it all anecdotal?
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/08/130813201430.htm
There are also a bunch of court cases where tickets have been thrown out because the yellow time was too short, but maybe you think that counts as "anecdotal" because I can't find a source to cite that's tallied them all up.
People say this all the time, and I've never seen any kind of proof, either.
The only thing people point to is one area in a Houston suburb where they installed red light cameras, and people were so scared of running the lights, they would stop short in the yellow, resulting in more rear end accidents. Hardly a compelling reason to be against these cameras nationwide.
God bless America, just like its for-revenue prisons.
That is the dumbest argument I ever heard.
How does it encourage dangerous driving when it actively punishes dangerous driving?
The fact it is a revenue source has more to do with people not following the law than the system.
If there were no dangerous drivers, it wouldn't be a revenue source and thus those cameras wouldn't need to exist in the first place.
If anything, asking people to break traffic cameras is encouraging dangerous driving.
Because the people who habitually drive badly find out pretty quickly how to game the system and not face the consequences, and/or consider the fines part of the cost of driving how they want. Fines don't stop bad behavior, they just put a price on it.
Before you dismiss me by saying I just want to get away with speeding, consider that it's easy to fight a ticket from a camera- in most cases, you just don't respond and it goes away, though of course that varies with jurisdiction. If I wanted to get away with dangerous driving, I'd be all for replacing cops with cameras.
I have some experience with this.
The problem is cities reducing the timings, because it'll go from green to red without sufficient time to safely stop. The whole purpose of the yellow light is to give you wiggle room to either stop or get through the intersection before the next cycle. If a sudden red forces you to slam on the breaks hard enough to risk being rear ended (or worse in icy conditions risk sliding into the intersection)
Plus if the timings are tight enough someone trying to stop/complete their menuever might find themselves in the intersection with opposing traffic now trying to enter
Traffic cameras are just trying to put out a greese fire by throwing water on it. If you don't know better it seems like a good idea, but in reality it just makes the problem worse
Drivers are assholes by me too and enforcement is low here too, but that doesn't justify a camera watching every driver 24/7, plus pedestrians in some areas.
If you want more traffic enforcement, get the cops to do their fucking jobs.
Lol good luck with getting the cops to do anything. They love abusing traffic laws themselves.
But these cameras do not watch people. They take a picture when they detect a car is going too fast or blows a red light, not constant surveillance.
Plus cars are on public roads, peds are on public streets. I don't really care about the privacy argument tbh in this case. Much more people are harmed from cars speeding and blowing red lights then any sort of abuse involving public cameras.
Speeding ticket like many other crimes are an issue on;y if you are poor. Making presecution more agressive and non-fines based or limiting the cars sold\registered there are probably the quick fixes to this systemic trouble.
It's a black box we don't have much info about in this or other states. What makes the overseer abstain from OCRing every car plate and having it's trajectory mapped at every junction? There are many justifications to do so, like car theft or general tracking of wrongdoers, but with it's automation comes the understanding that every ride in your car is tracked A to B without you knowing it.
The best fix is to have the fine scale with income.
Probs, but it also has it's ways to be obscured.
Are you sure about that?
https://www.observerlocalnews.com/news/2022/feb/02/caught-on-camera-fcso-uses-traffic-footage-to-solve-crimes/
Not only are those not cars running red lights, you can clearly see the intersection and sidewalks where pedestrians would be.
Those are traffic cams dude, not enforcement cameras.
Traffic cameras watch traffic and a lot of them are open to be viewed by anyone.
Enforcement cameras take shots on motion and object detection. Just like toll cameras which snap a pic of your license plate as you drive under them, they aren’t meant to view traffic live. The cameras have very different tech as they are for a specific purpose.
I'd much rather an almost unbiased and passive camera making the decision rather than a likely racist, and certainly biased in other ways, cops enforcing the law. Certainly considering I would rather cops doing more important work than handing out tickets. Maybe even spending that time getting training to be less fuckwits.
If you said they should be put in cars, I would agree that is watching it very driver 24/7, but strategically placed cameras in dangerous areas seems like a good idea to me and certainly not watching everyone all the time.
Unbiased cameras? Obviously the bias would capitalism. More tickets more revenue. Lol who do you think is reviewing the tapes? Clearly not the racist cops and judges you spoke of /s.
............how would cops attempting to pull over drivers, and then shooting or chasing the black families help?
We live in dark times. We've always been living in dark times.
I mean, if they didn't do the second part...
Until everyone behaves within acceptable societal standards traffic / red light cams are a reasonable part of the strategy to steer assholes towards the goal. As much as awareness campaigns, improving training, lowering vehicle velocity when it sees yellow automagically maybe…
Which doesn’t mean there aren’t unfortunate abuses by cops or city wrt shortening yellow duration to pocket more cash or such like.
And I strongly believe that cops should be doing more interesting cop stuff then enforcing traffic tickets in our days and age.
There's also the aspect of designing roads in a way that discourages driving dangerously, like in the Netherlands. Raised crosswalks, speed bumps, narrowed lanes, physical barriers, etc.
If we make completely straight, flat roads with wide lanes going through neighborhoods, people are just going to drive down them fast because that's what subconsciously feels like the correct speed.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=bglWCuCMSWc&t=4m57s
And those preventive measures as well indeed - on top of those cameras because some assholes don’t learn unless they get hit in the bank.
I don't know how it works in America, but in Germany and presumably most parts of Europe, red light cameras are triggered by coils under the road (similar to speed cameras). There's usually one coil right past the stopping line (for cars being halfway over) and another coil somewhere closer to the center of the intersection (for fully running a red light).
A cop standing at every intersection would feel a lot more uncomfortable to me but each to their own
Is that how you think they used to do it before red light cameras?
How do you imagine the cops do it so it's the same as with the cameras? Or would you be fine with worse enforcement, as long as you do away with cameras?
There can be a middle ground between almost no enforcement and taking a photo every time someone might be breaking the law, but also the camera might be miscalibrated or malfunctioning somehow.
How else would you enforce people to follow the law if cameras aren't an option?
The fact it wasn't enforced in the past doesn't mean it shouldn't be enforced today. People were allowed to drive drunk in the past as well.
Last I checked, there weren't drunk driving cameras, so I'm not sure how that's relevant. If anything, that makes my point for me. Human cops enforce anti-drunk driving laws.
How about we do mechanical speed limiting like they do with ebikes.
The solution to shitty drivers is fewer drivers, not more cameras.
All these cameras accomplish is forcing people to brake strongly and spontaneously, which is unsafe. In truth, they’re a revenue stream first, second, and third; for the government, insurance companies, and automotive shops. It’s a selective tax system that also nudges your bumper every other week. I don’t believe they’ve ever actually improved traffic conditions.
CDC says they reduce injury crashes.
https://www.cdc.gov/transportation-safety/calculator/red-light.html
Here's a brilliant idea: do not speed, and you won't have to put the brake pedal to the metal.
If someone speeds in front of you, unless you speed too, this won't be an issue.
0 cares given about speeding drivers.
Impeding traffic, increasing accident rates, and arriving more slowly make for a poor lifestyle pitch. Speed differentials hurt everyone, including you.
Legitimately good bait, but preventing someone from driving exactly the speed limit, a construct lagging severely behind current safety standards, is more important to me than simply calling it out.
Arriving 10% later is well worth additional safety. And for any accidents due to drivers around me not respecting the speed limits, they are to blame. I'm honestly baffled by the "you are the problem for following rules" proposition. No, you are the problem for breaking them. They are there for a reason.
The safety standards were set when roads were not dominated by multi-ton trucks - something that eats away all the progress we've made to both braking and safety systems, and then a bit more.
Thinking everyone is just a backwards thinker who didn't bother to change the limits would be far from truth.
The most lawful evil comment I’ve ever seen on Lemmy. And I didn’t downvote, someone else did.
Lol :D
Also yes, it sucks that it doesn't show who votes. Makes for a lot of confusion in discussions.