Information not mentioned in this article:
In Italy speeding fines are a fixed amount based on how far over the limit you’re going, which makes them a regressive tax on going fast - wealthy people can sinply afford to speed as much as they like while the poor suffer. That woman they quoted who clearly thought the cameras would meaningfully deter speeding was full of shit; the cameras are there to generate revenue, not reduce speeding.
Just because some rich people can effectively ignore laws does not make fines for breaking those laws a tax. Not being financially able to ignore speed limits isn’t “suffering”.
I believe it’s more complex than this: governments have some obligation to create infrastructure that’s safe for everybody. Simply slapping a speed camera to fine drivers doesn’t make the road safer. By comparison, the Dutch have a terrific way of designing roads in such a way that drivers adapt to the conditions, for instance through the road surface and deliberately placing vegetation near the road to help drivers accurately perceive their speed.
None of this is relevant to my comment. The Dutch don’t just not have speed limits, they have speed limits AND traffic calming. And speed cameras do make roads safer:
I love how ‘simply respect the speed limit’ is often not considered as an option :D
They don’t have punishments like taking away the license (for a time) after a certain amount of fines?
For some reason you can also pay your way out of it: they take some points from your licence but you can buy them back from driving schools.
you don’t ‘buy them back’, you attend a paid driving course and obtain some points
They do. Driving licenses are a point based system, points are taken proportionately to the infraction, they are slowly added over time if no infraction happened in the time range, but there is a cap. Once they get to zero your driving license is suspended.
In the article it says Italy has a high death rate due to people speeding. I was curious how it compares to the of the EU. This data is from 2021 though, and apparently numbers today are slightly higher.
- Romania: 85 road deaths per million inhabitants.
- Bulgaria: 81 road deaths per million inhabitants.
- Latvia: 78 road deaths per million inhabitants.
- Croatia: 72 road deaths per million inhabitants.
- Poland: 59 road deaths per million inhabitants.
- Greece: 57 road deaths per million inhabitants.
- Hungary: 56 road deaths per million inhabitants.
- Lithuania: 52 road deaths per million inhabitants.
- Portugal: 52 road deaths per million inhabitants.
- Cyprus: 50 road deaths per million inhabitants.
Looks like Italy was 52 per million in 2019, and the United States was 129 per million in 2021 so that’s exciting for my country…
'Murcia needs to start taking road safety seriously.
But of course, the “muh rights” crowd won’t shut the fuck up, so here we are…
You could say America needs to start taking a lot of things more seriously.
Yes we do, but per-capita numbers are useless without figuring in mileage. I drive from the southern tip of Italy to the Italian alps, twice on a round trip, to pick up my kids.
Yes. And if you had infrastructure, they could have done that trip on a high speed train instead of you having to drive.
Keep in mind that traffic in the US is simply more dangerous then in Europe. Traffic in the US consist of a large number of pick up trucks which are heavy and not designed to be friendly to other traffic in an accident. There are more factors, but my key takeaway is accidents versus deadly accidents.
What’s the argument here? That because you drive twice as far, it is expected you run over twice as many people?
Why are they so far away? There is logic to what you’re saying, according to this website Americans drive on average twice as far as Italians/Germans etc. so if you scale by that America is still slightly higher but not as bad.
As she headed to her son’s grave, she told the BBC that the Fleximan enigma reflected a culture that tells people they have the right to feel that rules do not apply to them.
Do the rules apply to the rich? It’s how many poorer think it is. Maybe, the authorities should begin with applying them to the rich with for example higher taxes and better welfare aka reducing poverty.
She’s fine with her son dying as long as that driver gets a ticket 2 weeks later in the post.
These cameras obviously don’t solve the problem…
I agree.
Am American living in Italy. I can’t explain it, but Italian drivers are the most aggressive drivers I have ever seen (and I’ve lived in three different continents). It’s odd because getting a driver’s license here costs upwards of 800 euros (think about this number in a country where the median income is close to 1,500 euro /mo). Also, the roads are extremely treacherous and narrow, further exacerbating the problem. But every time I get on the road I fear it’s my last day on earth.
A “vigilante” isn’t just a person acting outside of the law that some people agree with. They’re usually about punishing wrongdoers, not protecting them.
They’re punishing whoever put those cameras up
