• glitchdx@lemmy.world
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    13 hours ago

    There seems to be 2 main camps in this thread.

    Fuck the police, and fuck shitty drivers.

    Both camps are correct.

  • finitebanjo@lemmy.world
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    23 hours ago

    I can condone taking down pedestrian surveillance, but people who drive cars should follow the rules or get fucked.

  • ToiletFlushShowerScream@lemmy.world
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    18 hours ago

    Government surveillance tracking device you mean? Enrich the local cops devices? Over half of violations monies collected goes to the corporations that market them to local and state officials with lavish dinners and vacations devices? Financial incentive to calibrate them to flag innocent drivers knowing there is little to no recourse against the company devices? 5.5 lbs you say?

  • MisterFrog@lemmy.world
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    1 day ago

    Gonna be downvoted, because apparently this is car brain central, but the amount of mental gymnastics people will do to make red light camera enforcement “bad” is crazy.

    The US’ private company control over these cameras notwithstanding.

    Fuck me, so many people die on on roads, and especially at intersections.

    • mojofrododojo@lemmy.world
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      23 hours ago

      The US’ private companies

      this is entirely the problem, because they’re turning over info to ICE and other agencies and it’s being used oppressively.

    • chiliedogg@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      The city I work for put up Flock cameras with specific instructions from Council that they were only to be used for identification of cars flagged in active warrants.

      Within a week of their installation, police used the cameras to track the movements of someone who filed a complaint.

    • yourgodlucifer@sh.itjust.works
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      1 day ago

      I just don’t think having this kind of surveillance state apparatus is ever worth it I don’t want the government or private companies tracking my every move.

      I don’t even own a car and I want these cameras gone.

  • jjjalljs@ttrpg.network
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    1 day ago

    On the one hand, omnipresent surveillance is bad and ripe for abuse.

    On the other, I feel like the haphazard and selective enforcement of traffic laws by police officers is also really bad. Cops can selectively enforce laws so poor people or black people or whatever out-group suffers more. A machine should be impartial.

    On the last hand, no traffic enforcement is probably going to get people killed. So that’s not desirable.

    Also, fines are problematic. Fines should probably scale with wealth, but also it shouldn’t be a revenue source because that’s a perverse incentive.

    • BanMe@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      Some countries do scalable fines, so you’ll see headlines about a rich person being given a $75k speeding ticket or something.

      I do agree with the concept of traffic laws, but I went back to my home state of Iowa recently and it was seriously comical, cameras everywhere, stoplights but just randomly along the road, everyone was driving exactly the speed limit and I was going insane. Having humans involved in policing does introduce biases but it also introduces common sense and good judgement.

      I like the idea of mobile camera units, so bad spots can be focused on, people understand that it’s a bad spot, but it doesn’t turn into a permanent fixture.

  • Echo Dot@feddit.uk
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    1 day ago

    I’m a little confused, do you want people running red lights in the name of “personal liberty, yeehaw” because that seems like a bad idea.

      • merc@sh.itjust.works
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        1 day ago

        Red light cameras may not be effective at making streets safer. But, they’re nearly 100% effective at making people who run red lights pay fines. The first one would be amazing, but I’m happy to settle for the second one.

        • dreadbeef@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          1 day ago

          You sound like someone who can likes rich people getting away with just paying fines for being rich assholes

          • merc@sh.itjust.works
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            21 hours ago

            And you sound like someone who wants to be able to run red lights without consequences.

            • dreadbeef@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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              19 hours ago

              No, I just want traffic lights enforced without being in a surveilance state, but the better solution is just to make more streets illegal to have cars instead of adding lights, and add bus routes instead

              But people will be lazy and say eh, surveilance state is good enough for me since Im not affected! More buses. Fewer cars. Fewer lights necessary and fewer surveliance cameras necessary.

              • Thadrax@lemmy.world
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                5 hours ago

                without being in a surveilance state

                Those cameras only activate when people run a red light, right? And if they don’t, that’s the problem that should be fixed, not taking down the whole thing instead. People following the rules and not endanger others is kinda a good thing.

          • urandom@lemmy.world
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            1 day ago

            The problem is not the cameras then, but the fines. Should be proportional to net worth

            • dreadbeef@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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              24 hours ago

              we both know thatll never happen in america, and until then its a law for poors only, as designed. Its continued existence only affects poor people

      • Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        1 day ago

        Cameras specifically to catch people running red-lights will only take a photo when a car crosses a red light rather than run continuously.

        They’ll only have you “under surveillance” if and when you’re breaking the law by running a red light.

        So if you’re so worried about “surveillance” from those cameras, don’t run red-lights.

        • deathbird@mander.xyz
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          1 day ago

          There are other, newer cameras like those from Flock that run and check continuously. I prefer the old-school ones you’re talking about.

          • Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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            12 hours ago

            Yeah, those are a massive, MASSIVE concern when it comes to pervasive surveillance.

            When I lived in the UK it already had a similar thing in the form of license-plate-reading cameras all over the place (the UK is even a biggest civil society surveillance dystopia than the US, or at least it used to be but maybe the US has caught up with it).

            When driving in anywhere but dirt roads in such a country you absolutelly are almost constantly under surveillance and that shit is going into a database were it will stay forever and ever.

            Redlight cameras, however, need not include “always on” or even “license plate reading” features and, at least in the UK, those and speed cameras were a different kind of camera.

            That said, it makes sense that Flock, being a private and profit-driven company, is lobbying for their cameras to also be used for redlights (and pretty much anything else that needs a camera) since for them that means extra sales and hence extra profits, none of which applies in the UK.

    • pahlimur@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      Big problem with these is profit motivation. They are usually operated by a for profit business that the city contracts to. One of the cities near me had a few installed. The company made 5 million a year in fines, city ended up with pennies. The road is built like a 40mph road but has a 25mph speed limit only where the cameras are. There is no money to update the road to actually make it safer because it all goes to the company operating the cameras.

      • JcbAzPx@lemmy.world
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        1 day ago

        That’s not to mention they usually change the timing to catch people off guard for more tickets. Someone went around in my area timing a bunch of different lights and found that every light with the ticket generating cameras had yellow lights shorter than the legal limit for the state.

      • merc@sh.itjust.works
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        1 day ago

        The photo shows a traffic light enforcement, not speed enforcement.

        There’s a road near me that has an unnaturally slow speed limit enforced by a camera. That’s a bit annoying. But, it also has red light cameras nearby. Those are great. I really don’t care what someone’s excuse is: I was distracted, I thought I could make the yellow, the light was taking too long… if you think you really do have a valid case, talk to the judge.

        • pahlimur@lemmy.world
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          1 day ago

          I made this point in another comment, but these cameras send you bills instead of tickets. They ignore our right to a fair trial and subvert our right to confront our accuser. The only one I’ve received had no info on how to dispute it, just pay or fuck you type of bill.

          A red light camera is no different than a speeding camera in this regard.

          • merc@sh.itjust.works
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            1 day ago

            I made this point in another comment, but these cameras send you bills instead of tickets

            Maybe where you live, not where I live.

                • SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca
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                  8 hours ago

                  dude… red light camera infractions, or speeding infractions, just result in fines. No impact on the driver because the fines are tagged onto the vehicle. So, douchenozzles in Toronto just pay to speed and run lights without any impact.

    • sobchak@programming.dev
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      1 day ago

      Well, this is a meme. But I personally am anti-surveillance. With the way things are going, these will almost certainly be “upgraded” to ALPR/“AI” systems for 24/7 surveillance and tracking; I’m guessing some probably already are.

    • michaelmrose@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      Photo enforcement cameras are problematic for several reasons.

      A) It has been shown that yellow lights with such cameras are very often set to a yellow duration briefer than generally accepted engineering practices to increase revenue *1

      B) They discourage a rare misbehavior, actually running red lights, whilst causing another to become common. That is slamming on the brakes even when it isn’t safe to stop. Exacerbated by A. Better slam on the brakes when it flicks yellow even if you are way too close to reasonably stop whilst going only the speed limit.

      People who are caught up by it are almost always those who found themselves a bit too far into the intersection to safely stop. EG those who cross the threshold right as it is changing. There is for reasons of safety a few seconds between one light turning red and another green. At 30 mph (44 feet per second) someone will fully clear a 40 foot intersection in less than a second. That is to say the only people you catch aren’t those who would have collided.

      They are those

      1. you fucked with the shorter duration yellow oops
      2. people who hesitated because of 1 and slowed but ultimately decided to proceed thinking they can make it
      3. People with poorer brakes and or dealing with rainy conditions reducing stopping time.

      C) Most of the money goes to the contractor who owns the cameras. Essentially you are letting a private company prey on your citizens as long as government gets to keep the scraps.

      *1 https://ww2.motorists.org/blog/6-cities-that-were-caught-shortening-yellow-light-times-for-profit/

      • ameancow@lemmy.world
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        5 hours ago

        I’m not arguing for police states and surveillance, but this is wrong:

        a rare misbehavior

        Nearly half of all motor accidents are at intersections. It’s estimated there are annually a quarter million red light running accidents, and somewhere between 700 - 1000 fatalities yearly from these accidents. I suppose you could argue that with the number of deaths yearly from auto accidents (30,000 - 40,000 in the US) that a thousand “isn’t that much” but I feel like if a thousand people a year died to anything else we would be up in arms and demanding something be done about it.

        Red light cameras have been demonstrated to reduce crashes at intersections, actual studies and data, so maybe check for all sources on all angles of a problem. The reduction isn’t drastic but it is there. It shows that there are ARE things that can be done about intersection accidents, but whether or not it’s cameras is a separate debate. I don’t think the harm of illicit data collection or the instances of some cities using corrupt methods for collecting funds outweighs the lives saved, but I guess you can ask the families of people who died how they feel.

        I am open to better ideas for reducing auto accidents but everyone seems pretty stuck on the idea that we should have the freedom to pilot thousands of pounds of steel as fast as we can as a method for compensating for bad time management, and I think it’s safe to say that a LOT of the opposition to automated methods for managing traffic laws irritates people because they don’t feel like they have a way to “get away” with breaking the rules.

        https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10487344/

        https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/publications/research/safety/05049/

      • pahlimur@lemmy.world
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        1 day ago

        I’ll add one more. They subvert our right to a trial and seeing our accuser. The fines are all supposed to be viewed by some sort of officer that is supposed to show up if you challenge the ticket. The only one I’ve received didn’t have any info on how to challenge it. It was like a bill that obfuscated my right to a trial. Guilt is assumed and forgiveness is ignored. 28 in a school zone in an unfamiliar city, instant fine with no “oops I fucked up” recourse.

      • deathbird@mander.xyz
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        1 day ago

        None of these are actual problems with red light cameras, and actually people run red lights all the damn time.

        • michaelmrose@lemmy.world
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          21 hours ago

          Shortening yellow lights to cause people to unintentionally run them, people slamming on the brakes and causing accidents, and a monetary transfer between citizens and a private company are not problem?

      • Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        1 day ago

        You clearly don’t live in and never been to my country (Portugal, which in my personal experience of driving all over Europe has some of the worst driving in the continent) if you think running red-lights is a rare behavior.

        Around here, were there are no zero red-light cameras that I know of (unlike other countries in Europe I lived in), it’s literally the norm for people to run the red-light for about 30 seconds after it has switched over from yellow. There’s even a joke around here that “Green means Go, Red means Stop and Yellow means Accelerate”. You will literally get honked at by the person behind you if when you see the yellow light you slow down so as not to run a red-light.

        Curiously, in the other countries in Europe I lived in which did have red-light cameras, such behavior was incredibly rare.

        Even more entertaining, when I first moved out of Portugal as a young adult I went with that very same behavior trained and not soon after I started driving in my new country of residence (which was The Netherlands) I almost immediately got a €50 fine for running a red light in that way and getting caught by a camera, tried to dispute it, got told “Red is red, it doesn’t mater if it has been red for 1 second or 1 minute”, paid the fine, learned my lesson and never did it again. Whilst anecdotal, it’s none the less one data point of red-light cameras working at making people change their habits.

        In The Netherlands they weren’t shorting the yellow light times, but that’s because unlike in the US were the Law and Politics are a total shit-show, the Dutch actually have specified in the law the minimum time period for the yellow light (you know, because they have politicians which are at least somewhat competent and not on the take) and if city halls had it lower than that all of their red-light fines would end up thrown out in court if it was ever found out (and taking them to court over there is also way cheaper than in the US) same as parking fines get thrown out if the “no-parking” sign isn’t properly visible.

        You see, the problem you have pointed out is not a problem with red-light cameras, it’s a problem with the Law over there, so it’s the Law that needs fixing not the red-light cameras.

        • michaelmrose@lemmy.world
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          21 hours ago

          You appear to be drawing a conclusion based on your experience with Portugal and elsewhere in Europe but America has no red light cameras at the majority of intersections and areas with and without and areas that have them and haven’t before. In general this correlation doesn’t appear to be so universal as you suppose or indeed hold. The citizens of one city or state can “fix” banning red light cameras in theory in many places wherein the citizens can pass initiatives. Those without means regulating those with them just doesn’t work in America. America is a country firmly for the rich.

    • paultimate14@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      If only it were possible to transport humans and goods without a network of cameras invading everyone’s privacy.

      If only that was the natural state of the world for more of human history until just a few years ago.

      • Echo Dot@feddit.uk
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        1 day ago

        Hell even in Amsterdam they have traffic lights. This isn’t an issue about the lack of public transportation.

          • sakuraba@lemmy.ml
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            1 day ago

            I swear people just jump to the comments they don’t even digest the picture to understand this is about the cameras and not the traffic signals

    • MajorasTerribleFate@lemmy.zip
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      1 day ago

      As someone else pointed out, the traffic light itself isn’t being affected, just the automated enforcement mechanism of the camera. We managed just fine without those.

      • thermal_shock@lemmy.world
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        1 day ago

        Plus, they’re not safer the way the government likes to claim. People slam on their brakes when they see one, and they can only ticket, it’s not like they’re stopping accidents or saving people, can only report on what happened.

    • ameancow@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      There is some political horseshoe theory that connects “People who cannot stand any kind of authority at all and start shrieking even when a forum mod removes their comments.”

      It’s the weird far-left anarchists and far right libertarians finding common ground in wanting a society where mommy doesn’t tell them to not run with scissors. Some of the “sovereign citizens” who make for hilarious Youtube content are sincere in their their irrational hate for any kind of rules and laws.

      I have had enough dealings with these folks that I have a pretty strong opinion that nobody has been able to change, that these folks just have serious authority issues and do not give a shit about a broader society and are just mad at their parents.

      They are the absolute worst people you could ever have as neighbors. I sometimes think we should drive them into the sea via mobs with torches.

      edit: let me double down - if you get angry at the idea of authority (not considering the enforcers or management of that authority, which is a separate thing) you need to be driven into the sea via mobs with torches. We need systems and rules and taxes for a functional society. Work on changing the way that society enforces and motivates people to follow those rules instead of blindly lashing out at anything designed to keep people safe.

      • ThrowawayPermanente@sh.itjust.works
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        8 hours ago

        Honestly we would all be better off if we had somewhere we could deport these people to. Fascists to Russia, communists to Venezuela, sovcits to Somalia.

        • ameancow@lemmy.world
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          7 hours ago

          The fact that there are so many tankies who don’t in fact move to Russia is pretty telling. It’s not like there’s a huge barrier to entry, they are desperate for more bodies more people who support their propaganda and nationalism :D

      • groet@feddit.org
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        1 day ago

        I don’t think sov civs actually have a problem with rules or authority. I think they are deeply insecure in the fact that they don’t understand the rules so they make up new ones that they believe to be absolute and above all else.

        They believe like dogma in this shit like the maritime flag with stripes and a court with that flag gets magically invalidated so they don’t have to follow any rulings. They get a feeling of control when they understand the rules even when the rules are imaginary.

      • michaelmrose@lemmy.world
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        1 day ago

        Personally I have found authority in America to be stupid, abusive, incompetent or all 3. Do you live somewhere else?

        • ameancow@lemmy.world
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          1 day ago

          Police officers and FBI directors are broadly stupid, abusive and incompetent, but that doesn’t encompass all authority.

          You face authority every day. You follow systems and rules and contracts so that society functions. You use traffic laws. You don’t shoot people who make you mad, you don’t write bad checks or walk out of stores without paying. You are under a system of authority whether or not you agree with the values and enforcement of the people who enforce these rules.

          I’m fine with throwing out the leadership and officers who enforce the laws, but we HAVE to have rules and laws, and this includes safety issues like speeding. I don’t care what motivates you to follow these rules, as long as you do, because I am also on the road.

          • michaelmrose@lemmy.world
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            1 day ago

            I don’t need a system of law not to shoot people or walk out without paying. Some of us have ethics. I have found authority in America broadly garbage from bottom to top. It’s not just the top that is fucked.

            • ameancow@lemmy.world
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              I don’t need a system of law not to shoot people or walk out without paying. Some of us have ethics.

              I cannot take your word for that, even if it’s true, I cannot trust everyone, and even if someone is a good person, every human is vulnerable to emotions and failures of judgement, so yes we do need laws and rules and nothing can change that short of some system of taking away everyone’s free will. I already said that the enforcers as, top to bottom, are a separate issue.

      • mrgoosmoos@lemmy.ca
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        1 day ago

        red light ones are not great due to increased rear endings from some idiot slamming the brakes on when they should have gone through / people rushing and assuming the person in front will go through the yellow.

        speed ones work great, when placed appropriately (i.e. on a street with an appropriate speed limit for the road design and in areas of higher pedestrian activity). I hate that Ontario just banned speed enforcement cameras, because that means a loss of revenue to pay for the road network maintenance, more police activity enforcing speed (which a camera does automatically all day long) which means police aren’t doing more important stuff and also it’s a waste of my tax dollars, and they will have to spend more of my tax dollars putting shittier speed reduction methods in place like speed bumps (annoying as fuck, bad for fuel economy, loud because people race from speed bump to speed bump, ineffective because people pay attention racing from speed bump to speed bump instead of to what’s going on around them, annoying for bicycles and people with towing trailers, loud when people telling trailers go over them, loud when regular cars go over them, bad for snow plows…)

        now, this is just for speed enforcement, not coordinating traffic flow. although in a properly designed network, there are times that this can actually be achieved, unlike those light cycles on arterial roads that let you go through if you speed just a little bit but if you go the speed limit you hit every single red light

        • michaelmrose@lemmy.world
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          There are plenty of areas where the speed that is safe and reasonable to travel is substantially different from the one set. This is only not wildly broken because everyone disobeys the law and the cops refrain from stringent enforcement because forcing the traffic to all slow down would completely break traffic flow.

          Maybe this works well in Canada but America governments are about as stupid as Americans.

    • GeneralEmergency@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      You think people pushing that thought further than “What’s the edgiest political personality I can use for posing online”

    • RagingRobot@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      They would remove the camera not the traffic light. I don’t think that would cause an accident

      • merc@sh.itjust.works
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        1 day ago

        The camera only snaps a picture when people blow the traffic light. If everybody obeyed the traffic lights then nobody would ever get their car’s picture taken with the camera.

        • RagingRobot@lemmy.world
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          They have speed and traffic light cameras made by the same companies and they are pushing them out indiscriminately.

          Also why should that company get money if someone speeds or goes through a red light? Why do they get that privilege but no one else does? The government getting fines is one thing but a private company is another

          • merc@sh.itjust.works
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            21 hours ago

            They have speed and traffic light cameras made by the same companies and they are pushing them out indiscriminately.

            Who’s “they”?

            Also why should that company get money if someone speeds or goes through a red light?

            Around here, the company doesn’t get money. The fine is sent by the government and the government gets paid. I don’t know why it’s different for you, sounds like you need to change your government.

            • RagingRobot@lemmy.world
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              20 hours ago

              I live in Atlanta so they is the city of Atlanta I guess. I got a random fine in the mail and it was from a private company I don’t remember their name but the same cameras are all over my town now.

              The cameras are in places where people have to drive everyday and the flow of traffic is usually slightly higher than the limit. You can’t avoid going by them so you are tracked no matter what. And if you forget and follow the flow of normal traffic you are getting a letter from the company in the mail asking for $200.

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        1 day ago

        The reason the camera is there is because of the crashes that happened when it wasn’t.

        • RagingRobot@lemmy.world
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          1 day ago

          That’s not true. We have a ton of these popping up in my neighborhood in places where there haven’t been issues.

          Also they are owned by private companies that pocket most of the money you pay the fine with.

          Why do I need 5 of these on my way to work in the morning? That’s 5 times where if I accidentally went too fast I have to pay a private company $200. That’s up to 10 times a day I am at risk of a random fee to some company. Insane that you want that

          • daw@feddit.org
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            1 day ago

            All good but “risk of a random fee” ?🤨

            Same discussions as in German; FFS people have to drive within the speedlimit. That’s the meaning of a limit. If you cannot do that reliably you will not get a fine for accidentally driving 3km/h under the limit. I do not understand how checking people for safe driving is seen as a predatory practice. Everybody getting fined is literally in the wrong.

            • kuhli@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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              1 day ago

              American roads are massive and built so you can safely drive way higher than the limit, which means most people do. It sucks and the solution is to design roads better.

              Currently we just have a system where going the speed limit causes backups and people make dangerous maneuvers to get around you.

              Hell, I even got pulled over for ‘impeding the flow of traffic’ once when I was going slightly over the speed limit. Pig just gave me a warning, and I certainly would’ve succeeded in contesting it if he hadn’t, but our whole road infrastructure sucks

            • michaelmrose@lemmy.world
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              1 day ago

              In America we like to build roads in such a way as they cannot reasonably work at posted speeds force everyone to speed somewhat and just pull over the minorities for speeding whilst black. For 20 years the maximum speed on the interstate highways was 55 mph or 88 kph. In case you aren’t familiar with the vernacular.

              Interstate: A high-speed, controlled-access road in the U.S. network of highways designed for long-distance travel and linking major urban areas

              It’s still common for there to be areas that for practical purposes roll at 10-15 mph over posted limit where literally every car is going that speed and being pulled over is basically a random act of police rather than actual normal law enforcement.

            • RagingRobot@lemmy.world
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              1 day ago

              My only real issue with it is that there are a ton of them now and they are privately owned. If the fine went to the city that would be a different story.

              Imagine if next they put a sensor right in your car so if you ever go over a limit you always get a fine. Would you still be into that? Would you buy that car?

              • Tabula_stercore@lemmy.world
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                16 hours ago

                privately owned

                Sounds like a shithole country issue. Normal countries have a police and judiciary.

                Would you still be into that?

                Ow yes please. If that’s what it takes for people like you to drive according to the rules, absofuckinglutely yes.

              • deathbird@mander.xyz
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                24 hours ago

                That is actually a legitimate concern. Add it to the long list of “technologies that are cool and good except when capitalism”

            • RagingRobot@lemmy.world
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              1 day ago

              Everyone goes over the speed limit at some point but usually there isn’t a cop there so there is no issue. It’s impossible to drive exactly the speed limit even if you wanted to

        • kuhli@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          1 day ago

          Cool, sucks that we went with the vibes feels like it should help solution then.

          https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/red-light-cameras-may-not-make-streets-safer/.

          We found no evidence that red light cameras improve public safety. They don’t reduce the total number of vehicle accidents, the total number of individuals injured in accidents or the total number of incapacitating injuries that involve ambulance transport to a hospital.

          • Naich@lemmings.world
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            14 hours ago

            “Evidence clearly shows that camera programs are effective at decreasing the number of vehicles running red lights. In one study in Virginia, red light cameras reduced the number of total drivers running red lights by 67 percent.” Seems pretty effective to me.

            "When the Houston cameras were removed, angle accidents increased by 26 percent. However, all other types of accidents decreased by 18 percent. " So, a net increase in accidents. I can’t make their numbers match up with their conclusion.

            • kuhli@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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              13 hours ago

              “Evidence clearly shows that camera programs are effective at decreasing the number of vehicles running red lights. In one study in Virginia, red light cameras reduced the number of total drivers running red lights by 67 percent.” Seems pretty effective to me.

              At reducing that one behavior? Sure, but we also have to look at what other impacts it has.

              We could reduce the number of people running red lights by 100% if we removed traffic lights, doesn’t mean it’s a good solution.

              "When the Houston cameras were removed, angle accidents increased by 26 percent. However, all other types of accidents decreased by 18 percent. " So, a net increase in accidents. I can’t make their numbers match up with their conclusion.

              The next sentence is “Approximately one-third of all Houston intersection accidents are angle accidents. This suggests that the program’s drawbacks canceled out its benefits.”

              Say there are 100 accidents, 33 of which are from people running red lights.

              A 26% decrease in red light running accidents results in 9 fewer accidents from running red lights. (.26*33=8.58)

              An 18% increase in other accidents results in 12 more accidents from people slamming on their brakes. (.18*66=11.88)

              So a net increase of 3 accidents.

              • Naich@lemmings.world
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                12 hours ago

                Different sorts of accidents. Red light cameras result in more fender benders, fewer T-bonings. In your example, 9 fewer T-bonings at the expense of 12 extra fender benders.

                • kuhli@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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                  11 hours ago

                  From the article: “We found no evidence that red light cameras improve public safety. They don’t reduce the total number of vehicle accidents, the total number of individuals injured in accidents or the total number of incapacitating injuries that involve ambulance transport to a hospital.”

                  If you have any research that contradicts it I’m open to reading it but the evidence indicates there are just as many serious accidents.

    • tomiant@piefed.social
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      1 day ago

      “Sir! The unfed masses are tearing down cameras to sell them for food!”

      “BUT WHAT ABOUT PROPERTY VALUES? HAVE THEY NO SENSE OF COMMUNITY?!”

        • tomiant@piefed.social
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          6 hours ago

          Look, I will tell you this: I hear you, and I will. I know, I read some of my general comments today and, well, I should chill out a little. Sometimes it’s a lot of stress about the state of the world you know, sometimes about my life situation, about existential musings, about this and that, sometimes I vex revolutionary, what are you gonna do about it, fight me? Just kidding, I just wanna let you know that I read what you said, and yes, I should calm down. Sometimes it just gets to you, you know? It just like a hollow echo inside your soul, bouncing from one point to the other trying to find its place, like, and it just won’t stop buzzing around in there, but I guess that’s the case for most people anyways, so, anyway, likewise, and may god have mercy on our souls.

  • DylanMc6 [any, any]@lemmy.ml
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    1 day ago

    surveillance like this violates the non-aggression principle (which, being someone who’s left-libertarian, should be rewritten and reinterpreted to say ‘DON’T use force or coercion on anyone, except for self-defense, or the defense of your community’)

  • dan69@lemmy.world
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    22 hours ago

    only reason you shouldn’t is have accountability for maybe not you, but for the bad drivers.