For those that have never lived in DC, the cameras are everywhere. Inside the district they have a bunch of white lines where you are being measured for speed so that the camera's two photos' time stamps can (presumably) be examined to make sure you were actually speeding.
The speed limit sign before the camera area also has a yellow sign beneath it saying Photo Enforced, I've found it very easy to avoid getting a ticket.
My impression is that they're also pretty popular among residents. I think many--probably most--DC residents support the cameras, at least in principle. See, for example, the comments in this thread: http://www.reddit.com/r/washingtondc/comments/1jagry/yes_som...
Well, DC is the special case in the area. Over a third of residents don't own a car and just a hair under half (49.5%) walk or use public transit to get to work. Contrast that with MD or VA where the numbers are 11% and 6.6% respectively. In MD/VA 83%/87% drive or carpool to work. (http://factfinder2.census.gov/)
I expect the majority of people ticketed in DC are those commuters coming from the surrounding suburbs. It's logical that people who aren't negatively affected by the cameras have a better opinion of them. Even then, the survey linked in that thread shows a fairly narrow majority (55%) approval.
There's more cheering for red light cameras and requests for box block cameras than traffic cameras in general. Anecdotally, most find red light cameras more acceptable than speed cameras.
Personally, I commute into DC every day, but rarely by car. I don't mind the cameras outside of the uncharacteristically low-speed ones posted along empty stretches on the main arteries in and out of town. They're automated toll collectors targeting tourists and first-timers.
Also, what a typical Reddit thread. Every comment that's remotely critical of the cameras has been downvoted negative despite some perfectly valid points.
I pass by two of those cameras twice a week. Sometimes I'm over the limit since it changes rather drastically from 60 to 50 (though normally I'm way under since the assholes in front of me slow down way too much).
But either way, I've not been ticketed a single time.
Obviously the big issue here is trust, you can't automate it. You can try, but then it's going to come up in court that this was rubber stamped. This makes me think of other situations where "authority" is contracted out to external companies for the government. i.e. privtization of government is going to be a real problem when it comes to proving anything in court.
I guess to me there's a big difference between automating speeding tickets and subcontracting prisons. I think the controversial issue on cameras is "What else are they doing with the pictures?"
fixed place cameras catching you speeding is one thing, all the recent stories about cop cars scanning EVERY license plate they pass are an example of how its really out of control.
I don't mind nabbing speeders provided its an important place to nail them, like school zones. Its the free for all photographing of license plates that gets me irate.
To provide a small anecdote; on my 10 minute commute to work each morning, I pass no fewer than 6 speeding cameras, potentially more that I haven't noticed, and frankly, the sheer prevalence and "sneakyness" by which they are deployed convinced me long ago that the goal here was to rack up tickets rather than to prevent speeding. (Cameras hidden in bushes/behind trees, 2 cameras on the same block, within ~20 seconds of each other, both hidden behind shrubbery on the right hand side of a right hand turn). In writing this I admit I have second guesses of whether I'm being too tin foil hat with the suspicions, but it's basically a checklist of "where would I put cameras if I wanted to accumulate the maximum # of violations", with no regard to where the most dangerous roads on this commute are.
Let's even take a step back here and look at the program itself. It's not really "news" that behavioral modification (which, in a perfect world, is the end goal of ticketing, getting speeders to stop speeding) doesn't really work well when the punishment is long after the action that it is reinforcing. One could make a very hand wavy argument about the flash, but it's a weak reinforcer (the monetary punishment being very delayed), and the swapping with infrared is the nail in the coffin of that argument.
the goal here was to rack up tickets rather than to prevent speeding
You're just now realizing this? This has always been the primary goal of speeding laws (and many other traffic laws). They're a revenue source for state and local governments.
the end goal of ticketing, getting speeders to stop speeding
If that's really the goal (which it isn't, see above), it's the wrong goal. The goal should be to make driving safer. Punishing people when they haven't caused any actual harm does not serve that goal; in fact, it works against it, by reducing people's respect for all traffic laws and rules of the road. People view driving as a game, trying to evade being caught, instead of viewing it as what it is, being in control of a large and complex piece of machinery that can cause serious harm if misused, because the definition of "misuse" has been blown out of all proportion by a combination of nanny-state thinking and governments not wanting to openly admit their sources of revenue.
Sorry if I was unclear; I meant to express that I had indeed quite some time ago come to the realization, but due to placement as I said and not due to any solid proof as is cited in the article.
Secondly; I'm not sure I completely see you as disagreeing with my stated end goal. We want people to realize they are driving a potential weapon, and I think that's a change that'll have to come in far more areas than just traffic enforcement (better education, assessment of readiness, etc), but even in this dream world where we've made those changes, I don't think it's unreasonable to assume we will still find places in which if drivers tend to exceed a certain speed, there comes a higher likelihood of said harm. And if someone is putting others at risk by violating this, it comes down to a question of how you respond to that, and I at least would pen a reasonable solution at trying to proactively influence their behavior patterns. (unless I totally misunderstood how you were approaching my statement and this just went off in a random direction...)
even in this dream world where we've made those changes, I don't think it's unreasonable to assume we will still find places in which if drivers tend to exceed a certain speed, there comes a higher likelihood of said harm
But the question is not whether people's behavior affects the likelihood of harm; of course it does, in all areas of life, not just driving. The question is what is the appropriate response. See below.
And if someone is putting others at risk by violating this, it comes down to a question of how you respond to that, and I at least would pen a reasonable solution at trying to proactively influence their behavior patterns
And you do that, IMO, by attaching punishments to actual harm, not to an increased likelihood of harm (which must always be an estimate only).
First of all, the legislator who drafts the speeding laws and the bureaucrat who sets the speed limits for particular roads can't possibly know as much as the driver who's actually on the spot about what a reasonably safe speed is in a particular situation; speeding laws can't adjust for varying conditions.
Second, if punishments are attached to actual harm, and fall on the person who causes the harm, then that person has an incentive to make accurate estimates of the risk of harm. The legislator and the bureaucrat have no such incentive; but if the law can only impose punishment when there has been actual harm, the legislator and the bureaucrat can only do a limited amount of damage by trying to game the criteria.
However, if punishments can be attached to just an estimated increase in risk of harm, rather than to actual harm, legislators and bureaucrats have an incentive to exaggerate the estimated risk of harm, since it allows them to lower the threshold for penalties and thereby bring in more revenue. But drivers themselves, who can see perfectly well that the criteria are being gamed, respond by trying to evade the law. The end result is that the costs of the system that is in place to catch speeders, and the escalating arms race between the speeders and the government, far outweigh any benefits that might accrue from imposing punishments when there has been no actual harm.
This does two things that I don't agree with though. One, assumes that people can accurately judge -anything- appropriately about what is safe in their surroundings. I'll trust someone so far as to not be too afraid to go outside lest someone decide to run me over with a crop thresher, but I've seen enough "No officer I'm not too drunk to drive" (with car wedged in a tree) to trust that judgement carte-blanche.
Secondly, it seems to ignore two things, first, you say that with limits, people game the system. I don't disagree. But without limits, I expect the exact same gaming, "I feel comfortable driving at 100mph on this road", but far more unbounded. Combined with some pretty reasonable evidence towards higher speeds increasing the risk of accidents (http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/Pubs/97.835.PDF), one can see the outcome this would lead to.
I think that your interpretation of the report is incorrect. What that report shows is that fatal accidents are more likely on roads that have higher speed limits, which is quite a different thing from saying higher speeds caused the accidents.
And, in fact, there is evidence that people do in fact judge safe speeds appropriately. Look at report FHWA-RD-92-084 [1], which was sponsored by the Federal Highway Administration and concludes that raising speed limits did not have a significant effect on speeds of motorists. Lowering the speed also did not have a significant effect on speeds, with the result that people simply ignored the speed limit and drove what they thought was appropriate in both cases.
There was also evidence that lowering the speed limit did not, in fact, decrease accidents.
One, assumes that people can accurately judge -anything- appropriately about what is safe in their surroundings.
I didn't assume that; I only assumed that the people actually on the spot can judge what is safe better than legislators and bureaucrats who aren't even there, and who have plenty of incentives to distort the judgment anyway.
you say that with limits, people game the system
When I talked about gaming, I wasn't talking about people trying to avoid being caught speeding. I was talking about legislators and bureaucrats distorting the data about risk to justify lower speed limits and higher fines, when the real reason for them is just that they need a revenue source.
As far as drivers themselves taking more risk in the absence of speeding laws, evidently you missed the part of my post where I said that people should suffer appropriate punishment if they cause actual harm. That gives people a strong incentive to avoid causing actual harm, i.e., to get better at assessing the risks of the things they do, including driving.
To the extent that we actually allow this incentive to operate in our society, I think it works reasonably well, certainly better than trusting governments to get things like this right. shpxnvz provided some evidence for that. Another piece of evidence is the fact that states with no-fault auto insurance have higher accident rates, indicating that uncoupling people's decisions from unpleasant consequences, even partially, causes them to make worse decisions.
I wouldn't think so; in fact, if anything, I would expect the opposite. If there is an accident in a state with ordinary (i.e., not no-fault) insurance, one party (the one not at fault) is always going to have an incentive to report it. If there is an accident in a no-fault state, it's possible that neither party will want to report it (because it might cause both of their premiums to go up).
>And you do that, IMO, by attaching punishments to actual harm, not to an increased likelihood of harm (which must always be an estimate only).
If you restrict the basis of decision-making to certainty rather than "estimated likelihood", you would have to throw out pretty much everything mankind has ever learned using the scientific method (where evidence can support, or inrease the likelihood of a theory, but never prove it).
For example, the link between smoking and lung cancer. It's impossible to say of any specific case of lung cancer that it was definitely caused by smoking, but there is enough evidence for increased risk, so that deciding to quit based only on a likelihood is a reasonable thing to do.
>the legislator who drafts the speeding laws and the bureaucrat who sets the speed limits for particular roads can't possibly know as much as the driver
In the case of speed traps, that's irrelevant; the limits there are not abnormally low because the legislators and bureaucrats are using unsound information, but because they intentionally ignore (or don't even bother acquiring) recommendations which indicate that a higher speed would be safe.
If you restrict the basis of decision-making to certainty rather than "estimated likelihood"
That's not what I said. I said that the law should not be able to impose punishment based on likelihood of harm, only based on actual harm. That has nothing to do with whether or not people should take into account likelihood of harm when making their own decisions; of course they should.
the limits there are not abnormally low because the legislators and bureaucrats are using unsound information, but because they intentionally ignore (or don't even bother acquiring) recommendations which indicate that a higher speed would be safe
Which is exactly what I have said elsewhere in these posts. In what you quoted, I was only pointing out that in fact, even if the legislators and bureaucrats were trying to set the "right" speed limits; they can't, because they can't possibly have all the relevant information. So the common belief that the legislators and bureaucrats are "helping to keep the roads safe" by setting speed limits is wrong in two ways: (1) that's not their real motivation; and (2) they're not capable of doing it anyway.
I moved from Maryland a couple of years ago. Very surprised to see how many speed cameras pop up each time I go back for a visit. I don't speed, but whenever I see a sign for one it really stresses me out. Glad I don't live there anymore.
This is no surprise to me. The company in question, American Traffic Solutions, has been caught engaging in some ethically questionable behavior by the Everett (WA) Herald. Some choice articles:
If the ultimate goal, as it should be, is safety/deterrence, then a camera flash (reminds other motorists) is surely a decent idea?
I drove in the UK recently and there are speed camera warning signs everywhere, usually followed by quite obvious cameras.
Here in Australia, police have been known to hide around corners or position cameras disguised as roadside garbage bins, though I haven't heard much on this front for a while so maybe public outcry have pulled them a little into line. For the most part though, the cameras are not unreasonably located and an unspoken leeway of about 10% applies (e.g., can get away with 54 in a 50 zone).
I think government malaise and/or regulation vs privatisation is a real balancing act. Companies motivated by profit and using some of that to lobby for less regulation or whatever can lead to real trouble.
A privatised prison system lobbying for harsher sentences, or against legalisation of marijuana can get ugly fast. In the case of speeding cameras, deterrence as an ideal works very much against the profit motives of privatised providers.
I live in MD and got a few of these speed camera tickets around the state. My registration was up so I went to the MVA (dmv) to take care of it. Nope. Cannot do anything about that because these X private companies have a hold on your account. Okay, I'll pay right here right now, I just need my registration taken care of. No, sir that isn't possible. You must drive around to every corner of the state with this sheet of paper and have them sign off saying that you paid. It took me a month to get my registration together.
By cropping every photo, DC hearing adjudicators should now throw out every alleged traffic violation (regardless of what the photographs purport to show).
It is simple why:
1. "DC hearing adjudicators have been throwing out citations whenever another vehicle was visible, creating the possibility of a spurious radar reading"
2. The accused to do not need to prove their innocence; rather the court has to prove the guilt of the accused
3. It now becomes impossible adjudicators to know if the another vehicle interfered with the radar
4. There is now __always__ reasonable doubt that the accused is guilty (since the camera system always crops photos)
5. The accused should always be found not guilty
It is really a detestable perversion of justice for prosecution to systematically hide evidence.
Why doesn't the prosecution just make their lives easier by throwing out all cases where there are other vehicles in the photo?
It would be interesting if people were able to get the full digital copies, because many times edits will leave evidence behind. If you have EXIF or other data on the camera, you might know what size the photos are supposed to be and can then prove that they've been cropped because they're some oddball size. Also, software like Adobe Photoshop may leave behind things like a thumbnail of the original picture in the metadata. I seem to remember a few people being embarrassed by that one.
What is the state of tag-obscuring devices these days? I would imagine this piece of crowdfunded hardware might prove useful: http://www.nophoto.com/pages/how-it-works
Here in NZ, they have started putting up signs that show your speed instead of taking a picture and issuing a fine. They have found that displaying a vehicle's speed has a much stronger impact on speed (and accidents) than tickets.
I wonder if that has more to do with the number of drivers passing it per day, the immediate response to the drivers actions, or an assumption that the signs take a picture anyway. I would assume people choosing to speed would not care about a sign.
The problem is that cities want more revenue and so aren't motivated by public safety but rather ways to bring in more money, hence the desire to suppress evidence that in some cases may make people safer (like the flash bulbs, for example).
We had those in Maryland before the speed cameras, but the crack of speed ticket money is too good for our law enforcement to put down. It's unfortunate, speed cameras have been shown to have a negative impact on accidents.
Light turns orange? I hit my brakes hard if an intersection has cameras. Who knows whether the light is set to stay orange for the required X amount of seconds, or if it has been lowered to Y seconds to try to make money off people.
The people behind me better hope they weren't tailgating me AND have brakes just as good as mine ...
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[ 2.6 ms ] story [ 123 ms ] threadI expect the majority of people ticketed in DC are those commuters coming from the surrounding suburbs. It's logical that people who aren't negatively affected by the cameras have a better opinion of them. Even then, the survey linked in that thread shows a fairly narrow majority (55%) approval.
There's more cheering for red light cameras and requests for box block cameras than traffic cameras in general. Anecdotally, most find red light cameras more acceptable than speed cameras.
Personally, I commute into DC every day, but rarely by car. I don't mind the cameras outside of the uncharacteristically low-speed ones posted along empty stretches on the main arteries in and out of town. They're automated toll collectors targeting tourists and first-timers.
Also, what a typical Reddit thread. Every comment that's remotely critical of the cameras has been downvoted negative despite some perfectly valid points.
But either way, I've not been ticketed a single time.
I don't mind nabbing speeders provided its an important place to nail them, like school zones. Its the free for all photographing of license plates that gets me irate.
Let's even take a step back here and look at the program itself. It's not really "news" that behavioral modification (which, in a perfect world, is the end goal of ticketing, getting speeders to stop speeding) doesn't really work well when the punishment is long after the action that it is reinforcing. One could make a very hand wavy argument about the flash, but it's a weak reinforcer (the monetary punishment being very delayed), and the swapping with infrared is the nail in the coffin of that argument.
You're just now realizing this? This has always been the primary goal of speeding laws (and many other traffic laws). They're a revenue source for state and local governments.
the end goal of ticketing, getting speeders to stop speeding
If that's really the goal (which it isn't, see above), it's the wrong goal. The goal should be to make driving safer. Punishing people when they haven't caused any actual harm does not serve that goal; in fact, it works against it, by reducing people's respect for all traffic laws and rules of the road. People view driving as a game, trying to evade being caught, instead of viewing it as what it is, being in control of a large and complex piece of machinery that can cause serious harm if misused, because the definition of "misuse" has been blown out of all proportion by a combination of nanny-state thinking and governments not wanting to openly admit their sources of revenue.
Secondly; I'm not sure I completely see you as disagreeing with my stated end goal. We want people to realize they are driving a potential weapon, and I think that's a change that'll have to come in far more areas than just traffic enforcement (better education, assessment of readiness, etc), but even in this dream world where we've made those changes, I don't think it's unreasonable to assume we will still find places in which if drivers tend to exceed a certain speed, there comes a higher likelihood of said harm. And if someone is putting others at risk by violating this, it comes down to a question of how you respond to that, and I at least would pen a reasonable solution at trying to proactively influence their behavior patterns. (unless I totally misunderstood how you were approaching my statement and this just went off in a random direction...)
But the question is not whether people's behavior affects the likelihood of harm; of course it does, in all areas of life, not just driving. The question is what is the appropriate response. See below.
And if someone is putting others at risk by violating this, it comes down to a question of how you respond to that, and I at least would pen a reasonable solution at trying to proactively influence their behavior patterns
And you do that, IMO, by attaching punishments to actual harm, not to an increased likelihood of harm (which must always be an estimate only).
First of all, the legislator who drafts the speeding laws and the bureaucrat who sets the speed limits for particular roads can't possibly know as much as the driver who's actually on the spot about what a reasonably safe speed is in a particular situation; speeding laws can't adjust for varying conditions.
Second, if punishments are attached to actual harm, and fall on the person who causes the harm, then that person has an incentive to make accurate estimates of the risk of harm. The legislator and the bureaucrat have no such incentive; but if the law can only impose punishment when there has been actual harm, the legislator and the bureaucrat can only do a limited amount of damage by trying to game the criteria.
However, if punishments can be attached to just an estimated increase in risk of harm, rather than to actual harm, legislators and bureaucrats have an incentive to exaggerate the estimated risk of harm, since it allows them to lower the threshold for penalties and thereby bring in more revenue. But drivers themselves, who can see perfectly well that the criteria are being gamed, respond by trying to evade the law. The end result is that the costs of the system that is in place to catch speeders, and the escalating arms race between the speeders and the government, far outweigh any benefits that might accrue from imposing punishments when there has been no actual harm.
Secondly, it seems to ignore two things, first, you say that with limits, people game the system. I don't disagree. But without limits, I expect the exact same gaming, "I feel comfortable driving at 100mph on this road", but far more unbounded. Combined with some pretty reasonable evidence towards higher speeds increasing the risk of accidents (http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/Pubs/97.835.PDF), one can see the outcome this would lead to.
And, in fact, there is evidence that people do in fact judge safe speeds appropriately. Look at report FHWA-RD-92-084 [1], which was sponsored by the Federal Highway Administration and concludes that raising speed limits did not have a significant effect on speeds of motorists. Lowering the speed also did not have a significant effect on speeds, with the result that people simply ignored the speed limit and drove what they thought was appropriate in both cases.
There was also evidence that lowering the speed limit did not, in fact, decrease accidents.
1. http://www.ibiblio.org/rdu/sl-irrel/index.html
I didn't assume that; I only assumed that the people actually on the spot can judge what is safe better than legislators and bureaucrats who aren't even there, and who have plenty of incentives to distort the judgment anyway.
you say that with limits, people game the system
When I talked about gaming, I wasn't talking about people trying to avoid being caught speeding. I was talking about legislators and bureaucrats distorting the data about risk to justify lower speed limits and higher fines, when the real reason for them is just that they need a revenue source.
As far as drivers themselves taking more risk in the absence of speeding laws, evidently you missed the part of my post where I said that people should suffer appropriate punishment if they cause actual harm. That gives people a strong incentive to avoid causing actual harm, i.e., to get better at assessing the risks of the things they do, including driving.
To the extent that we actually allow this incentive to operate in our society, I think it works reasonably well, certainly better than trusting governments to get things like this right. shpxnvz provided some evidence for that. Another piece of evidence is the fact that states with no-fault auto insurance have higher accident rates, indicating that uncoupling people's decisions from unpleasant consequences, even partially, causes them to make worse decisions.
If you restrict the basis of decision-making to certainty rather than "estimated likelihood", you would have to throw out pretty much everything mankind has ever learned using the scientific method (where evidence can support, or inrease the likelihood of a theory, but never prove it).
For example, the link between smoking and lung cancer. It's impossible to say of any specific case of lung cancer that it was definitely caused by smoking, but there is enough evidence for increased risk, so that deciding to quit based only on a likelihood is a reasonable thing to do.
>the legislator who drafts the speeding laws and the bureaucrat who sets the speed limits for particular roads can't possibly know as much as the driver
In the case of speed traps, that's irrelevant; the limits there are not abnormally low because the legislators and bureaucrats are using unsound information, but because they intentionally ignore (or don't even bother acquiring) recommendations which indicate that a higher speed would be safe.
That's not what I said. I said that the law should not be able to impose punishment based on likelihood of harm, only based on actual harm. That has nothing to do with whether or not people should take into account likelihood of harm when making their own decisions; of course they should.
the limits there are not abnormally low because the legislators and bureaucrats are using unsound information, but because they intentionally ignore (or don't even bother acquiring) recommendations which indicate that a higher speed would be safe
Which is exactly what I have said elsewhere in these posts. In what you quoted, I was only pointing out that in fact, even if the legislators and bureaucrats were trying to set the "right" speed limits; they can't, because they can't possibly have all the relevant information. So the common belief that the legislators and bureaucrats are "helping to keep the roads safe" by setting speed limits is wrong in two ways: (1) that's not their real motivation; and (2) they're not capable of doing it anyway.
http://www.heraldnet.com/article/20110517/BLOG48/705179793
http://www.heraldnet.com/article/20110818/NEWS01/708199929
If the ultimate goal, as it should be, is safety/deterrence, then a camera flash (reminds other motorists) is surely a decent idea?
I drove in the UK recently and there are speed camera warning signs everywhere, usually followed by quite obvious cameras.
Here in Australia, police have been known to hide around corners or position cameras disguised as roadside garbage bins, though I haven't heard much on this front for a while so maybe public outcry have pulled them a little into line. For the most part though, the cameras are not unreasonably located and an unspoken leeway of about 10% applies (e.g., can get away with 54 in a 50 zone).
Because the government never participates in abuse?
I think government malaise and/or regulation vs privatisation is a real balancing act. Companies motivated by profit and using some of that to lobby for less regulation or whatever can lead to real trouble.
A privatised prison system lobbying for harsher sentences, or against legalisation of marijuana can get ugly fast. In the case of speeding cameras, deterrence as an ideal works very much against the profit motives of privatised providers.
A: Too easy to abuse.
If some change makes for easy abuse, the private industry will lobby for it to be made public policy.
Motherfucker jinxed me. I gave everything away in 1996 and was furious.
You try to be perfect and give everything away and someone saves your shit and you throw it away and they dig it up. Motherfucker.
God says... relax pwned kick_back how_about_those_yankees could_it_be___Satan don't_have_a_cow Greece kick_back that's_for_me_to_know well_I_never hit you_know_a_better_God I'll_think_about_it it'd_take_a_miracle far_out_man downer end didn't_I_say_that jobs wont_you_be_my_neighbor it's_hopeless outrageous wanna_bet programming
It is simple why: 1. "DC hearing adjudicators have been throwing out citations whenever another vehicle was visible, creating the possibility of a spurious radar reading" 2. The accused to do not need to prove their innocence; rather the court has to prove the guilt of the accused 3. It now becomes impossible adjudicators to know if the another vehicle interfered with the radar 4. There is now __always__ reasonable doubt that the accused is guilty (since the camera system always crops photos) 5. The accused should always be found not guilty
It is really a detestable perversion of justice for prosecution to systematically hide evidence.
Why doesn't the prosecution just make their lives easier by throwing out all cases where there are other vehicles in the photo?
The people behind me better hope they weren't tailgating me AND have brakes just as good as mine ...