Cameras are a success in Quebec (for speeding & red lights)

[Luxbg]

Except as I pointed out in my earlier post, there are more effective and safer ways to improve intersections without the need to use enforcing measures (e.g. traffic circles).

In addition, red light cameras at intersections with reasonable yellow times turn out to be unprofitable a lot of the time, which makes their use even more counter intuitive since once you remove them, people will just start running the light again. As such red light cameras are not a viable solution.

[gone-ot]

...amazing the coincidence of "red-light cameras" and the sudden down-turn in government revenues, which makes one wonder, '...are they for SAFETY's SAKE or REVENUE ENHANCEMENT?'

...h-m-m-m-m.

[Clev]

Originally Posted by MazdaMatt

Sounds like a like of *****ing and moaning to me. Stop speeding, stopping running lights and you won't get a ticket. Don't give me this "implanting chips" crap - that's a stretch to say the least... you're being rediculous.

That's bullcrap. People get tickets all the time for legally running a light that should have been yellow, or running a light 0.05 seconds after it turns red (but still looks yellow--incandescent bulbs that size take more than 100ms to light up.) The city does it because there's no penalty for them doing it, and they know that many people can't afford to take a day off work to fight them (actually more than one day, as a local traffic judge that sees most of these doesn't even want to hear evidence. If you're in his court, you're guilty, so add at least another day and lawyer's fees to fight it at a higher level.) The city keeps a good chuck of the over $400 of these tickets, and there's no downside to them.

Don't give me this "if you're doing nothing wrong, you have nothing to worry about" crap. This is about fleecing innocent people to make more money. If the state makes a simple law such as, "here is the minimum yellow time according to the speed limit, and somebody must run the red by more than 1 second to be ticketed", I would be a lot less against it. Plus, the "if you're doing nothing wrong" argument has been used to justify a lot of atrocities in the last few years, from torture to unlawful imprisonment to "free speech zones".

[tasdrouille]

Again, the problem is not the cameras, it's the people running them.

If the ticket is the same price as if given by an officer, if the yellow light duration is standard, and if the ticket is emitted only when the light turns red before your front wheel pass the stop line, where's the problem?

[Clev]

Originally Posted by tasdrouille

Again, the problem is not the cameras, it's the people running them.

If the ticket is the same price as if given by an officer, if the yellow light duration is standard, and if the ticket is emitted only when the light turns red before your front wheel pass the stop line, where's the problem?

That's a nice hypothetical, but in reality, that's not what happens. Very often the yellow is legally too short, and the cameras set to take the picture before the light turns fully red. Here's an example:



This picture is from a red-light camera in Cerritos, about 20 miles from me. The LED light at the top is red, and the incandescent one on the right is still yellow. That's too short an elapsed time.

An officer uses judgment to decide whether to give a ticket. He won't ticket somebody for entering the intersection so close to the red that the light hasn't even fully lit yet. If a car goes through a red because the truck behind him has locked up his tires and is about to hit him, the officer will ticket the truck. If the straight-through lane is blocked by a wreck, and the only way through (on a straight-through green light) is to use the left-turn lane and continue straight-through, the officer won't ticket the people (and probably will be waving them through.) The camera will ticket all of these, and the drivers (if they even noticed they were flashed--another benefit of being ticketed by an officer is you can note the circumstances for later use in court) will have to fight in a courtroom where, if they are given a chance to even speak to their defense, will have no defensive eyewitness (in the case of being tailed by a truck with locked-up wheels), and will not be able to face their accuser.

If a guy is driving a stolen car and runs ten lights, an officer will arrest him after running the first one and recover the stolen car. The red light cameras will just send the car's owner $4,250 worth of red light tickets.

Again, if the camera operators were required by law to have reasonable yellow times and not ticket drivers who run the light by < 0.5 seconds, I would have less of a problem with them. But these requirements would make the cameras unprofitable.

[tasdrouille]

You see, that's the whole problem, profit. But profit only from cameras revenues. The system must be built around safety, and speed cameras can make our roads safer. And safety alone can be profitable. At least for us it is.

Around here a lot of things are publicly owned. Everytime someone goes to the hospital, our taxes are paying. When someone gets paralyzed for life after being involved in a road accident, our taxes will pay for his/her well being for the rest of this person's life. So if these cameras can help send less people to the hospital, it won't take a lot of avoided crashes to make those cameras very profitable (cause we all know healthcare isn't cheap).

[Wonderboy]

@Tasdrouille:

I also think part of the issue is cultural. Many Americans have an entitled attitude: Drivers are entitled to drive however they want (usually too fast), and the fraternal order of police for Anytown, USA are entitled to handing out tickets with their whole "guilty until proven innocent" nonsense. Not that I agree or subscribe to these ideas, but they are the norm. The police are more often than not very coercive, and are unequivocally more concerned with filling their municipality's coffers than the actual safety of John Q. Public. In canada, or at least where you live, it seems like the people are actually concerned about the safety and well-being of their neighbors, and the law shares that sentiment. Few of us only wish the U.S. could be more like that. I strongly disagree with the use of traffic cameras in a place where the impetus for law enforcement (traffic law, at least) is revenue, not these silly ideas like "safety" and "justice". I would be more inclined to support the use of traffic cameras if I lived in a place where I was comfortable knowing that society had more similar motives to mine. Perhaps Quebec is a place like this in which case I envy your living situation. The United States has some pretty cool features, but we also have some nasty cultural problems/addictions that are probably not fixable.

[Frank Lee]

Originally Posted by MazdaMatt

Sounds like a like of *****ing and moaning to me. Stop speeding, stopping running lights and you won't get a ticket. Don't give me this "implanting chips" crap - that's a stretch to say the least... you're being rediculous.

If I know there's a camera and i stop quickly and someone rams me, well he gets a ticket for following too closely as he should. Don't give him the excuse of "that guy stopped only because of the camera"... no... you stop for the light. You run the light due to lack of camera.

I would LOOOOVE it if all the light-controlled intersections in this town would have cameras set up. I'm sick of watching my advanced green go away because the people in cross traffic are not done running their red light yet, 4, 5, 6 cars at a time. EVERY DAY, EVERY INTERSECTION down the major streets of London (Ontario).

I also want EVERY overpass on the major highways here to have speeding cameras over each lane.

People do stupid things like rear-ending stoppers because they are used to breaking the law. Make them used to following the law and the problem goes away.

Quit your *****ing, nobody is going to tie a shock collar on your neck and install a camera in your bedroom - you read too many books from the paranoid cold war era.

Ridiculous? Think so? Slippery slopes.

The state jacked the taxes on smokes and booze. Everybody said "Why not junk food?" - as if the proposition was too ludicrous to consider. Well now it's being considered.

Got primary seat belt laws now too. Now the cops don't even need the weak excuse that "one of your license plate lights is dim" to pull you over for a cavity search.

Helmet law isn't far behind, I'd imagine.

Got blockades in Fargo "to check for DWIs". True. Stop everybody and check em all out. They'll stop, like, 5000 citizens to get 3 DWIs. They didn't even do that in Nazi Germany... I don't think.

Just you wait. Look at the trend. Freedom my ***.

[roflwaffle]

Originally Posted by Luxbg

Yes now that you mention that, it rings a bell. However it is generally the one running the red light getting T-boned, so I say good riddance

Was it? I coulda swore it was the poor driver who wasn't running a red getting smacked on the side by someone running a red going extremely fast for the road because they had to gun it to run the red.

[Frank Lee]

Originally Posted by Clev

The city does it because there's no penalty for them doing it, and they know that many people can't afford to take a day off work to fight them (actually more than one day, as a local traffic judge that sees most of these doesn't even want to hear evidence. If you're in his court, you're guilty, so add at least another day and lawyer's fees to fight it at a higher level.) The city keeps a good chuck of the over $400 of these tickets, and there's no downside to them.

Don't give me this "if you're doing nothing wrong, you have nothing to worry about" crap. This is about fleecing innocent people to make more money. If the state makes a simple law such as, "here is the minimum yellow time according to the speed limit, and somebody must run the red by more than 1 second to be ticketed", I would be a lot less against it. Plus, the "if you're doing nothing wrong" argument has been used to justify a lot of atrocities in the last few years, from torture to unlawful imprisonment to "free speech zones".

Exactly- the court is not into "speedy and fair" as we were told in school. Years ago I got a bogus speeding ticket- stupid cop wrote me up for 45 in a 30... only problem was, I hadn't made it to the 30 zone yet! So I go to court to fight it. First appearance: no cop. Judge reschedules court. Second appearance: no cop. Judge reschedules court. I ask the judge how many more times I have to come to court for this and get shouted down. Third appearance: WHOA! Cop showed up! along with prosecuting attorney. I kicked their a**es and won. After taking HOW MUCH TIME OFF WORK???

And you "do nothing wrong" guys- Your number will come up. It's not like I advocate running reds. But I do speak out against entrapment.