WAR IS PEACE.
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY.
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH.

Look! The BYOND Staff!
Deadron is on the left.
Nadrew is on the right.
Tom is the one on top of the sign..
But wait!
Where's Dan? Oh that's right..

I'm a little ambivalent about cameras in public spaces. Speed/red-light cameras, though, I have no truck with. Even though I've never been the victim of one, they violate due process. Red-light cameras have in several cities tempted authorities to screw with the yellow light timing in order to increase revenue, which not only bilks people but also drastically reduces their safety (safety being the entire purpose of having the law). Speed cameras encourage authorities to lower speed limits well below where they should be; regular speed traps do so too, but they at least require an officer on patrol so there's a deterrent to overuse them.

In England the public has been demonstrating their time-honored traditions of civil disobedience by destroying speed cameras on a regular basis. While ordinarily I don't support vandalism, in this case I think the people have right on their side; I wish them all the best.

To me the argument to kill such cameras is nailed shut based on four points: Due process is not upheld; accidents are more likely; mistakes in reading plates have caused the wrong owner to be ticketed; and the system is not only sujbect to abuse, but has been abused in quite a few documented cases. This isn't just garden-variety stuff like abuse creeping in over time, but over the relatively short time period that the cameras have been in use at all.

Add to this the fact that our traffic laws are predicated around the idea that a lot of them will be sporadically or weakly enforced. If you got a ticket for every technically illegal thing you ever did on the road, you'd be in debt slavery to the government or in prison. If speed limits were enforced absolutely, they would have to be far higher than they are now because traffic would be completely dysfunctional otherwise. For this reason, the fact that we rely on patrols and on the judgment calls of individual officers is a good thing.

Conclusion: Automated traffic enforcement is asinine and needs to go away.

Exactly what I mean. If our traffic laws were enforced 100% of the time instead of 2%, they'd have to be substantially modified because breaking them by accident is incredibly commonplace. And some, like speed limits, are routinely broken on purpose, but to the betterment of traffic in most situations. The only reason we have speed limits at all is because we can't count on every driver (or even one a day) having the brains to know you shouldn't do 50 near a school.

I know a few times I've done stupid stuff behind the wheel because my brain was on autopilot. But I'm not one of those people who feels it's safe to use the cell phone while they drive, or blow through stop signs routinely, faily to signal as a rule, or drive drunk. Good drivers are going to make occasional mistakes. Bad drivers make little else.

Even a good driver can, in a bad moment, easily slip over the speed limit or even on occasion run a red. It does happen. The problem with speed enforcement is, the limt sign is a big psychological cue to drive exactly that speed, but even 1 unit over is considered speeding; it seems we'd need a legally codified +5 or +10 rule to handle this fairly. The reason most cops only pull over the idiots doing way over the limit is that there's usually no shortage of said idiots, and it's not worth their time to issue a citation for 2 MPH over. This puts a natural check on speed enforcement, which is good because it only works well when it's enforced loosely. In your rosy "everyone just shouldn't speed then" world, the speed limits would need raising.

For the most part, speed limits are typically only tangentially related to common sense. Giving law enforcement a better reason to futz with them, because then it costs them very little to issue citations over a wide net vs. on a limited basis, is not a wise idea. And yellow light timing should be entirely based on safety, but when it's connected to revenue it suddenly becomes a target for greedy weasels to change, and as a result people become less safe.

We also set the consequences of speeding fairly high because obviously we want a guy not to do 85 in a 65, but at 66 in a 65, who really cares? Should the latter guy get a point on his license, have his insurance rates go up, etc., etc., for doing something that literally everyone does? Selective enforcement has the advantage of catching the idiots who are dangerous, which is the only reason we need traffic laws at all. Widespread, absolute enforcement would make criminals out of 99.99% of drivers.

Also, screw Kant right in the ear. If a law is arbitrary and stupid, I will break it if it impedes me and I can get away with ignoring it. So will anyone else with common sense. Good example: On the street where I used to live, two years ago they installed a sign at the end: No right turn. It was dumb because it was obvious the real sign should have been no left turn, because only the left was dangerous. Result: People kept turning right. These days the sign has been changed to no left turn, what it should have been. People still ignore it if they're in a situation where they can see cars coming around the bend.

In the US there's also an increasing penalty--but I still think removing human judgment from the equation is retarded. And if there is a boundary zone, it's probably mostly just to protect from counterclaims against the camera's accuracy. If you're talking a buffer of a mere 5 kph, that's no buffer; it's a tease. 10 MPH is a buffer.

Anyway, how long before we start to see such buffers erode in the name of "safety"? After all, even though speeding citations have an increasing fine level, the base fine alone makes the ticket worth issuing. The only cost to law enforcement is what they pay an external company (the one handling the cameras) to process the tickets. If anything, they save in bulk, which is why this system has been so badly abused, so quickly.

55 in a 50 is too fast? That's kinda thin; it's not worth counting.

Red light cameras reportedly also have a tendency to trigger on legal right-on-red turns.

Even with forgiveness, a purely automated system just doesn't work. It's overly aggressive in enforcing a law that works best when enforcement is minimal; it decreases overall driver safety by prompting sudden reactions; it tickets the car instead of the driver, when it even gets the right car at all; and its near-total lack of cost to law enforcement to issue tickets leaves no checks and balances on the system, but does provoke a mighty temptation to try to suck in more revenue. The already-widespread abuse of these systems is proof enough that they're no good.

Perhaps I am just used to Los Angeles driving habits, but it seems here that if you are not going at least 5mph over the speed limit, you will have someone on your tail.

I drive as safe as I can, but its hard to obey the speed limits when doing so obstructs traffic. Traffic in LA, (when it is actually moving), tends to move at 85 in a 65mph zone (On Freeways); or even the main streets where the speed limit is 40mph traffic moves at 50. I am not saying it is safe, but from the police I know in the area, as long as you are not driving erratically (extreme excessive speed >20mpg over, swerving) and you are keeping up with traffic they will not cite you.

As for red-light cameras, I do not support them at all. Although the one run in I had with one was relatively positive. It took my picture, but because I didn't actually run the red-light--I was waiting in the intersection until traffic cleared to turn left (It was stupidly installed in an intersection without a protected left turn arrow)--I didn't receive a ticket.