Variety of enforcement cameras

Also the lead in greed!

This is governments way of recouping overspending on various politically sensitive items.

What's most surprising to me, & I live just over the border in MD, is that the populace stands by & accepts it.

Fred

I support generating revenue from those who break the law. I would suggest that the populace does not have to support this method of generating revenue. If the populace just obeys the law, then the government will have to come up with another method of raising funds.

I also support generating revenue from people who are breaking the law. Most of the populace are not law breakers so it would stand to reason that most of the populace would be in favor of it (as it means more city services with out any increase in out of pocket costs since someone else is paying for it!).

It's easy to say someone else will pay for it. How can we be sure that these cameras will fairly nab those breaking the law? That's a price some are not willing to pay.

I support banning this method of generating revenue. This is unacceptable under any circumstances.

I support tomturtle.

You have to set-up enforcement correctly. Our officers here will only send the tickets if it they are certain that a red light was ran. Less than a quarter of the camera shots here actually generate a ticket. Those that do, are generally pretty clear cut: entire care behind line after the light has already gone red for a certain period followed by entire care in front of the line.

I ran a red light one day just because I was running late and has no good excuse, and I fully expected to get a ticket (since I had forgotten that there was a camera there), but no ticket was issued. Clearly the officer saw something he didn't like.

Of course we also have the advantage of having a wider shot. So for example, if a semi is in front of you, the officer might decide not to issue the ticket since it would have been hard to see the red light. Yes, technically you shouldn't be following that close that you can't see the light, but they use discretion. Remember, the goal of this for the Police Chief is to reduce damage to property and injury to persons and even if it just deters people from running the light in the first place, it has done it's job.

Then again this might all be a non issue in a few years. We are now testing technology to make running a red light impossible unless you are going entirely too fast or you deliberately try to make a light you had no chance in hell of making. We have these sensors now on our state routes that detect traffic moving toward the intersection such that if it sees you not slowing down for the yellow, it will either hold the yellow until you clear the intersection or go ahead and turn red but also hold the other side red until you clear the intersection. I'm not actually entirely sure which I prefer. (There's an option that also holds it green which we are exploring for nighttime when there is low traffic volumes) Very cool stuff and I think it'll be worth the money. Especially since it can tell the size of a vehicle and it knows the stopping distance of a semi or bus is probably much longer than a car.

This ultimately will be what we go to, and I think the traffic cameras we have now will help pay for this system (which in my opinion is a much better solution than the traffic cameras). The idea will then also be to put up speed cameras in the school zones to help pay for the maintenance of the light anticipation system.

I think that several of us have been saying that we prefer those who break the law to have to pay the fines due.

[C]an we be sure that these cameras will fairly nab those breaking the law? I do not believe any of us would claim 100% accuracy - any more than we would claim that all tickets issued by a police officer are fairly written. My personal opinion is that the overall camera observation process lets more people get off scott free than would be the case if an officer had seen the infraction first hand. If you are sending those ticketed (1) a picture of the vehicle behind the stop line with the light clearly red, and (2) a picture of the vehicle in the intersection with the light red, and (3) a link to video that shows 12 seconds or so of the infraction (which is what is done in my city), then I submit that the infraction is well documented.

Do some jurisdictions unfairly use cameras to generate revenue? Surely - and, we can count on you to inform us about them. I would think that each documented situation involving the abuse of cameras acts to deter other municipalities from thinking about pushing the envelope to get revenue.

Think about the fact that a huge number of people have smartphones that can take high definition video. If there is a yellow light that seems questionable, one only has to spend 10 minutes taking video of the yellow cycle and going to the local TV station to determine if the timing is off. Upload the video and let a reporter get a video engineer to time the light in thirtieth of seconds using the video editing equipment. If it is wrong, there is a great story for the TV station.

On the other hand, are there jurisdictions that use officer manned "speed traps" to generate revenue? Absolutely! ABC News is running a series this week on that very subject.

Why haven't there been links to those manned money grabs, I wonder. My feeling is that it would point out that there are abuses involving BOTH cameras AND "at the scene" police officers. Opponents of cameras want others to believe that it is only the cameras that are unfair.

With Quicktime player (at least with the Pro version) you can advance a video one frame at a time. Count the number of frames that the light is yellow and divide by 30 to get the yellow light duration in seconds.
Mark

if the proponents of cameras realize the depth and breath of traffic laws in this country.

@blake7mstr

Being a proponent of cameras, I noted your question but did not understand it. Can you amplify a bit or phrase it differently, please?