Minnesotans support speed cameras

I admit that I haven't been following the "enforcement cameras" discussions too closely, but generally speaking are speed cameras as reviled as red light cameras? RLCs seem (to me) to be more likely candidates for abuse as "revenue generators".

Both can be abused. I remember in one state the speed cameras in construction zones were issuing tickets when workers weren't even working at the time. Or this article where speed cameras ticketed a stationary car: http://www.poi-factory.com/node/38501

The thing is, one officer could be reviewing up to 1200 possible citations per day and he's not going to be that careful. This opens the door for the company operating this equipment to start rigging it. When a company's profits are based on how many tickets it gives out, there will always be a possibility of corruption.

These "safety cameras" always sound good at first. After all, if I don't break the law, I have nothing to worry about, right? Well, you will because eventually there will be the temptation for corruption and even innocent people will be cited. The only oversight these cameras have is the city themselves, yet they get part of the revenue! They'll shorten yellow intervals, reduce speed limits to unreasonable levels or just plain rig the radars and cameras to trap more people. Even if half of the contested tickets get thrown out, they'd still make money on the ones that don't. They know this.

actually speed cameras would be, try and prove you were not speeding when you get a ticket

I wonder if they will be as happy when they start seeing things like this in their own cities.

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/sun-investigates/b...

I can't find that paper on-line yet. It is probably too new, but the author's other works that are available on-line show that he has a strong bias toward using technology such as cameras for enforcement. So when the Minnesota DOT funded the research, they had a good idea what the results would be.

I believe that the basic survey itself is on-line and it looks to be designed to produce the desired results. It doesn't just use leading questions, the entire survey is designed to lead the respondent to the desired answers.

Finally, the survey didn't ask about speed cameras, but instead asked about "the use of automated camera and radar devices." By asking such a double-barreled question, it skews the results. No matter what, the answer was not about the use of speed cameras.

If they had asked that question, I'll bet the results would have been different.

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Bud

The car is moving! The earth rotates at what 700 miles an hour? Obviously, the car was not standing still, but hurtling through space. I think they should pay the fine, and stop driving all together.

I'm not a fan of unmanned mechanical devices monitoring "our" movements.

That said, as a highway construction worker something needs to be done with speeding through work zones.

I actually thought about taking a job up there. The lack of safety cameras was an advantage to living in the area. I would have been very disappointed in reading this had I moved up there. (I ended up moving someplace else for a different job)

600 Minnesotans questioned and that's a definitive study? Done by the Center for Transportation Studies, not a disinterested party? My survey says it smells of BS.

I'd get less biased results from a shopping mall survey.

Assuming a good, random sample, 600 people is fine is fine. There's been a lot of work in statistics as to how big a sample you need to get a certain level of accuracy. That's why you (should) here something about a 4.7% (or whatever) margin of error.

Now, if the sample is bad, then increasing the size won't do much unless the sample consists of the only people in the state who think that way. I doubt there are only 600 people who would answer the questions the same way.

The more likely problem is the test itself. As has already been stated, the questions look leading and easy to misinterpret. So the conclusion stated may not be the only interpretation of the questions.

But given the lean of the state, it wouldn't surprise me that they're in favor of state action. Generally the Left assumes that the state is correct unless proven otherwise. without hearing horror stories about speed cameras in action, it wouldn't surprise me that they supported them.

Once they get a taste of the practice (where revenue-hungry municipalities drop the speed on a road from 45 to 15 with little to no warning or opportunity to slow down in a reasonable manner), rather than theory, my guess is they'll be singing a different tune.

Can you speed in the winter or is it to icy?
lol

Smile, you're on Viking Cam!

Q. What is difference between a government funded study and a shopping cart with a wobbly wheel?

A. The shopping cart has a mind of its own.

I have noticed that a lot of posts opposing RLCs and speed cameras reference articles published in The Newspaper. Perhaps the perception of objectivity and validity of a report is more a reflection of the reader than the author.

You can get whatever response you want depending on how you word the questions and who you ask. A more valid survey would be to put it on the ballot and let voters actually vote for it and see if it passes. My guess is that it won't as photo enforcement has been rejected by voters in most referendum issues, in places where it actually has been put on the ballot.