They aren’t for safety…they are totally for revenue.
With regards to school zones, specifically, if they cared about safety, they would be putting in mechanisms to slow traffic naturally. Raised crosswalks. Rotaries. Narrower lanes. Crossing guards.
They don’t put any of those in.
A couple towns over from me, they just put a brand new highschool right on the intersection of two major state highways, about 1/4 mile from the interstate. If they cared about the kids, they’ve put the school in a less busy area to begin with.
But instead, they demo’d an old pedestrian bridge that was keeping kids off the road for crossing, and set up a speed cam and issuing tickets in the spring before the school even opened.
And of course the school zone creates a bottleneck for people exiting the highway in rush hour, with ripple effects well down the freeway.
Fucking assholes.
But at least Theil gets paid. Most of the money doesn’t even go back to the city. What a ducking ripoff.
I thought of different ways to word a response and then I saw another user put it perfectly already:
If the goal is to reduce speeding, road design plays more of a factor more than cameras.
A fine means that it’s a revenue grab.
I would just also add that anecdotally they don’t seem to slow many people down in my city. I have gotten at least 5 speed camera tickets since I moved here, and every time I was going the speed of traffic and was unaware a camera even exists there. This city also has a huge problem with horrific driver behavior that goes unaddressed. I’ve seen some of the craziest shit ever here but I’ve yet to see anyone pulled over for a reason that didn’t appear to be related to a “worse” crime, as in they’re searching the person’s car and it looks like they’re about to go to jail. So I have to believe that the primary concern is making money, and if they work overall (providing the data people always tout) it’s a coincidence/accident. Most of that money goes to corporations too so even if you wanted to argue it doesn’t matter if money is the main driving force, you have that additional layer of the whole thing being corrupted from the start by capitalism.
From where I am, they are 100% slowing everyone down. In fact, so much that I am getting annoyed by that. Thing is, people will go 60 in 50 zone, then see a camera sign, slow down to fucking 40, roll pass it and then pedal to the metal back to 60.
Easy optional solution how to make people actually slow down on the camera: make fine indexed. If they earn a ton, they get a huge ass fine. Say 5% of a monthly income. Stacks to 50% if they are a serial rule breaker. That way not many will speedup.
Tell me again how traffic cameras make us safer and we can totally trust them to be applied objectively for public safety and no other purpose?
They aren’t for safety…they are totally for revenue.
With regards to school zones, specifically, if they cared about safety, they would be putting in mechanisms to slow traffic naturally. Raised crosswalks. Rotaries. Narrower lanes. Crossing guards.
They don’t put any of those in.
A couple towns over from me, they just put a brand new highschool right on the intersection of two major state highways, about 1/4 mile from the interstate. If they cared about the kids, they’ve put the school in a less busy area to begin with.
But instead, they demo’d an old pedestrian bridge that was keeping kids off the road for crossing, and set up a speed cam and issuing tickets in the spring before the school even opened.
And of course the school zone creates a bottleneck for people exiting the highway in rush hour, with ripple effects well down the freeway.
Fucking assholes.
But at least Theil gets paid. Most of the money doesn’t even go back to the city. What a ducking ripoff.
I’m surprised no one has challenged you on this. (I agree with your point, but people do tend to defend cameras zealously)
Wait, I’m a zealous camera defender, what am I missing?
The one they put up temporarily by my kid’s school noticeably calmed traffic near it (myself included—I’m not perfect).
I thought of different ways to word a response and then I saw another user put it perfectly already:
I would just also add that anecdotally they don’t seem to slow many people down in my city. I have gotten at least 5 speed camera tickets since I moved here, and every time I was going the speed of traffic and was unaware a camera even exists there. This city also has a huge problem with horrific driver behavior that goes unaddressed. I’ve seen some of the craziest shit ever here but I’ve yet to see anyone pulled over for a reason that didn’t appear to be related to a “worse” crime, as in they’re searching the person’s car and it looks like they’re about to go to jail. So I have to believe that the primary concern is making money, and if they work overall (providing the data people always tout) it’s a coincidence/accident. Most of that money goes to corporations too so even if you wanted to argue it doesn’t matter if money is the main driving force, you have that additional layer of the whole thing being corrupted from the start by capitalism.
Tear them all down.
Maybe in US…
From where I am, they are 100% slowing everyone down. In fact, so much that I am getting annoyed by that. Thing is, people will go 60 in 50 zone, then see a camera sign, slow down to fucking 40, roll pass it and then pedal to the metal back to 60.
Easy optional solution how to make people actually slow down on the camera: make fine indexed. If they earn a ton, they get a huge ass fine. Say 5% of a monthly income. Stacks to 50% if they are a serial rule breaker. That way not many will speedup.
Kinda works already somewhere.