also also cops ticketing speeders is just as much a "profit-making tool"
Sure, it's important that there be clear notice that the cameras exist, that's part of how they work, but no one has a right to break hte law in ways that obviously kill and it's absurd that people are arguing that
I will say I dislike the cameras because we're supposed to be ticketing *drivers,* not *license plates.*
Like, okay, I'll grant you that's my car running a red light, but I'm not the one driving it, and I can't prove that because you didn't pull the car over.
I prefer speeding cameras to red light cameras, because red light cameras were causing accidents (mostly because cities were making the yellow lights shorter to nab more revenue) and it'll cut down on weird cop traffic stop behavior, but I'm sure it'll be unevenly applied.
But like, when my brother was 17 he was going 90 in a 45 while borrowing my mom's car. He ended up getting literally arrested about it. And with cameras that could've been my mom, instead.
I think you're always going to have edge cases and judicious assessment of enforcement mechanisms is wise. But right now, at least where i live, there are a lot of people who drive very too fast and basically no enforcement. Seems bad.
Same. I can see the case for speed cameras (as long as there's no speed-trap-fuckery going on and they're not trying to create tickets to drive revenue). But red light cameras are unjustifiable and get people killed.
I'm curious about your argument in favor of speed cameras and your theory of technical police surveillance.
Also, you're right. The research says red light cameras are very dangerous.
Unless you've reported your car stolen, you should be responsible for whoever is driving your car. Speeding drivers who don't have access to a car are no threat to public safety, so making people unwilling to let speeders drive their cars is a good approximation for ticketing drivers.
“You own the car; you are responsible for the car” seems like a totally reasonable way to handle this. Don’t like dealing with expensive tickets? Don’t let yahoos borrow your car.
I think that's fine for fines, mostly, but when it does things like trigger criminal penalties and insurance-rate changes I think it's a little skewed. Like, I absolutely believe that should be the case with *guns,* but there's pretty much no benign reason to *borrow* a gun.
Anyway, on balance I approve of speed cameras because I think it'll save lives, given how trigger-happy cops are during traffic stops these days. I just worry about the edge cases, especially while we live in such a car-focused society.
Yours is the only observation made about this topic that makes sense to me. Cameras are less dangerous than cops. Nice.
Doesn't make me any happier about automated law enforcement though.
Yeah, like cameras can't claim they "smelled drugs" or "saw the driver reaching for something" and unload six clips in the back seat. Chasing speeders generally creates more accidents than it stops. Making it a fine by mail seems less confrontational for everyone involved.
After college, I drove my mom’s car until I could get my own. My parents currently share one vehicle. Like whose driver’s license gets assigned to the infraction?
I some places (MD being one) points are not assigned b/c of this issue. If you lend your brother your car and he gets nailed by a camera the expectation is it's on you to sort it out with him.
Not perfect by any means as many a parent has found out.
Washington state used to let people pay for tickets on the spot and it wouldn’t get recorded. My mom ends this story with “yeah I knew people who wrapped their car around a pole”. The record/points is the deterrence/mechanism to get dangerous drivers off the road.
People would literally keeps $20s in the glovebox like it was entirely pre-meditated and enabled by the state, partially because most of Eastern Washington is in the middle of nowhere (like sheriffs would be patrolling areas that took hours to get from point A to point B).
The red-light cameras we had in the last place I lived weren't high-res enough to capture the driver, though I'll grant this has probably improved in recent years.
