I’m not generally in favor of obeying rules but enforcing them on 2+ tons of metal that people drive around is kinda where I start being in favor. With large dangerous objects should come some semblance of responsibility and social demand.
Or if we’re shitposting, every one of those cars contains at least 10k in scrap metal.
If they’re just enforcing speeding rules, then I’m all for it. But something tells me the speed limit enforcement is an ancillary side effect of them keeping a record of every car that passes the thing and when.
It in incentivizes lowering speed limits below what the actual reasonable speed is for an area to increase profits. There are literally speed trap towns where their largest revenue stream comes from their speed traps.
Funny that you would use an article about cops writing tickets to argue that speed cameras are bad. We all agree that speed traps suck and are wrong, but nothing in your article is about the topic, unattended speed cameras, and it mentions nothing of them doing anything shady, outside of aggressive enforcement.
In California speed limits are set by survey to the 85th percentile of speeds. I think it’s a decent approach, it means the vast majority of people are driving at this speed.
Lowering speed limits is a good thing always.
15mph on freeways, 1mph on city streets. Go!
Yes. Let’s make cars useless and make our planet a better place. Go!
Fair enough, I can get behind that.
All the cool thieves know stealing catalytic converters for the platinum in them is the way to go. Way easier than hauling away multiple tons of scrap metal.
I thought it was the palladium, but yeah they are valuable.
Or if we’re shitposting, every one of those cars contains at least 10k in scrap metal.
most of those cars can just be resold as uh. Cars.
Or if we’re shitposting, every one of those cars contains at least 10k in scrap metal.
From what I’ve heard from folks who have had worn out beaters with no miles left in them crushed, its like a $500-1000 in scrap metal, so not as bad as you might think actually
Red light cameras actually cause more accidents. Speeding cameras are cool though I think.
they sometimes do but the kinds of accidents they create are less dangerous - approx half of deaths from running reds are pedestrians/cyclists and run red collisions are often T-bone collisisions etc whereas rear ending people from not running lights is usually a front to back collision, which is significantly safer for all parties.
So if there is any pedestrian traffic at all or high traffic in both directions then photo enforced intersections are still a good tradeoff.
Noooo you don’t understand, having my property slightly damaged is waaaaaaay worse than taking a pedestrian’s life
One major problem is that the incentive of increasing income from tickets causes authorities to shorten the time the yellow light is visible, meaning that drivers have less time to react and run a larger risk of actually running a red light and entering those dangerous situations you mentioned.
One way of dealing with this would be to ensure that the ones receiving the money are not the same ones issuing the punishment.
Fuck people who drive recklessley. There’s more copper in their car than the camera. Heaps more as we move to EV’s and not micromobility solutions.
I’ve heard they keep a packet of meth right behind the lens as a desiccant. Just smash the lens and it falls right out.
Some do, some don’t. If you don’t find one right away you gotta keep trying and you’ll find one eventually.
I’m calling bullshit on this. There is no way there is that much copper in one of those cameras. However, if you find a red light camera that looks like a big birdhouse or a mailbox… I’ve heard that those cameras might be more worth your time
Those cameras are specialty built. There was some guy that stole a bunch of those cameras and got busted because he wasn’t able to offload the cameras and eventually tried craigslist.
Why does that need so many cameras? That seems like overkill.
Because they’re not just taking a picture when triggered - they stream full motion video back to HQ full time. That should tell you how much money is up for grabs.
What are those cameras for?
Because they have different functions.
I want to play with those lenses so bad.
Maybe don’t run red lights instead of trying to get meth users to take the cameras down?
I know it’s a joke but drivers are assholes by me and enforcement is low so these cameras are the best option.
The problem is that red light cameras incentivizes cities to encourage dangerous driving, because it is now a revenue source. Multiple cities have been caught illegally shortening yellow lights because shorter yellow lights cause more red light violations, yielding more money for the city and also increasing the rate of accidents at those intersections.
Changing a yellow light for that reason is messed up in so many ways.
Yep, that and the inconsistencies of timing. Some areas yellow are very long, some are short, and some seen to vary within the “allowable range.” In other words, encouraging people to slam on the brakes because God only knows when the lights will change.
I hate the cameras (I spend most of my work day driving city/suburban areas) and think that if they’re going to exist, they should have longer yellows to give more opportunity for drivers not to panic between getting ticketed or rear ended.
Euro Truck Simulator taught me that some countries have ways of indicating how long is left in a light. Some have progress bars, some go from solid to flashing to indicate an imminent change, and some do creative stuff with extra lights
You seem to be arguing that the cameras are making it less safe by causing drivers to slam on their brakes. Can you point me to any evidence that they are making it less safe? Everything I’ve read has been unequivocal that these reduce risky driving behaviors and have increase safety.
I read up on it a few years back. Long story short, the number of “T-bone” type accidents where the side of the car gets hit decreased, while the number of people getting rear ended significantly increased (allowing that some rear end collisions also go unreported due to lower degrees of damage.)
There was a whole rethink of the use/benefits and disabling/not installing them further, but I can’t remember the outcome.
Like I said, I spend a lot of time driving, so forgive me for not pulling sources in the middle of my work day. Gotta drive to the next patient’s house lol.
How about we compromise and just get rid of cars?
Removed by mod
Is there any actual hard evidence of this? Or is it all anecdotal?
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/08/130813201430.htm
There are also a bunch of court cases where tickets have been thrown out because the yellow time was too short, but maybe you think that counts as “anecdotal” because I can’t find a source to cite that’s tallied them all up.
People say this all the time, and I’ve never seen any kind of proof, either.
The only thing people point to is one area in a Houston suburb where they installed red light cameras, and people were so scared of running the lights, they would stop short in the yellow, resulting in more rear end accidents. Hardly a compelling reason to be against these cameras nationwide.
God bless America, just like its for-revenue prisons.
That is the dumbest argument I ever heard.
How does it encourage dangerous driving when it actively punishes dangerous driving?
The fact it is a revenue source has more to do with people not following the law than the system.
If there were no dangerous drivers, it wouldn’t be a revenue source and thus those cameras wouldn’t need to exist in the first place.
If anything, asking people to break traffic cameras is encouraging dangerous driving.
How does it encourage dangerous driving when it actively punishes dangerous driving?
Because the people who habitually drive badly find out pretty quickly how to game the system and not face the consequences, and/or consider the fines part of the cost of driving how they want. Fines don’t stop bad behavior, they just put a price on it.
Before you dismiss me by saying I just want to get away with speeding, consider that it’s easy to fight a ticket from a camera- in most cases, you just don’t respond and it goes away, though of course that varies with jurisdiction. If I wanted to get away with dangerous driving, I’d be all for replacing cops with cameras.
The fact it is a revenue source has more to do with people not following the law than the system.
The problem is cities reducing the timings, because it’ll go from green to red without sufficient time to safely stop. The whole purpose of the yellow light is to give you wiggle room to either stop or get through the intersection before the next cycle. If a sudden red forces you to slam on the breaks hard enough to risk being rear ended (or worse in icy conditions risk sliding into the intersection)
Plus if the timings are tight enough someone trying to stop/complete their menuever might find themselves in the intersection with opposing traffic now trying to enter
Traffic cameras are just trying to put out a greese fire by throwing water on it. If you don’t know better it seems like a good idea, but in reality it just makes the problem worse
Drivers are assholes by me too and enforcement is low here too, but that doesn’t justify a camera watching every driver 24/7, plus pedestrians in some areas.
If you want more traffic enforcement, get the cops to do their fucking jobs.
Lol good luck with getting the cops to do anything. They love abusing traffic laws themselves.
But these cameras do not watch people. They take a picture when they detect a car is going too fast or blows a red light, not constant surveillance.
Plus cars are on public roads, peds are on public streets. I don’t really care about the privacy argument tbh in this case. Much more people are harmed from cars speeding and blowing red lights then any sort of abuse involving public cameras.
But these cameras do not watch people. They take a picture when they detect a car is going too fast or blows a red light, not constant surveillance.
Speeding ticket like many other crimes are an issue on;y if you are poor. Making presecution more agressive and non-fines based or limiting the cars sold\registered there are probably the quick fixes to this systemic trouble.
It’s a black box we don’t have much info about in this or other states. What makes the overseer abstain from OCRing every car plate and having it’s trajectory mapped at every junction? There are many justifications to do so, like car theft or general tracking of wrongdoers, but with it’s automation comes the understanding that every ride in your car is tracked A to B without you knowing it.
The best fix is to have the fine scale with income.
Probs, but it also has it’s ways to be obscured.
Are you sure about that?
Not only are those not cars running red lights, you can clearly see the intersection and sidewalks where pedestrians would be.
Those are traffic cams dude, not enforcement cameras.
Traffic cameras watch traffic and a lot of them are open to be viewed by anyone.
Enforcement cameras take shots on motion and object detection. Just like toll cameras which snap a pic of your license plate as you drive under them, they aren’t meant to view traffic live. The cameras have very different tech as they are for a specific purpose.
I’m sure this meme applies just as well to traffic cams if you want to be pedantic about it.
It’s not pedantic if I’m addressing your assertions based on the article you linked in reply to the guy saying your not being watch via what are basically just really high tech photo cameras.
Meme aside.
It’s beyond hilarious that flying squid would whine about someone else being pedantic, because most times when we’ve butted heads, pedanticism has been their go-to once their argument starts to falter.
But it’s especially funny here when you aren’t even being pedantic, but pointing out that the article they provided is talking about something almost completely separate.
I’d much rather an almost unbiased and passive camera making the decision rather than a likely racist, and certainly biased in other ways, cops enforcing the law. Certainly considering I would rather cops doing more important work than handing out tickets. Maybe even spending that time getting training to be less fuckwits.
If you said they should be put in cars, I would agree that is watching it very driver 24/7, but strategically placed cameras in dangerous areas seems like a good idea to me and certainly not watching everyone all the time.
Unbiased cameras? Obviously the bias would capitalism. More tickets more revenue. Lol who do you think is reviewing the tapes? Clearly not the racist cops and judges you spoke of /s.
…how would cops attempting to pull over drivers, and then shooting or chasing the black families help?
We live in dark times. We’ve always been living in dark times.
I mean, if they didn’t do the second part…
Until everyone behaves within acceptable societal standards traffic / red light cams are a reasonable part of the strategy to steer assholes towards the goal. As much as awareness campaigns, improving training, lowering vehicle velocity when it sees yellow automagically maybe…
Which doesn’t mean there aren’t unfortunate abuses by cops or city wrt shortening yellow duration to pocket more cash or such like.
And I strongly believe that cops should be doing more interesting cop stuff then enforcing traffic tickets in our days and age.
There’s also the aspect of designing roads in a way that discourages driving dangerously, like in the Netherlands. Raised crosswalks, speed bumps, narrowed lanes, physical barriers, etc.
If we make completely straight, flat roads with wide lanes going through neighborhoods, people are just going to drive down them fast because that’s what subconsciously feels like the correct speed.
And those preventive measures as well indeed - on top of those cameras because some assholes don’t learn unless they get hit in the bank.
I don’t know how it works in America, but in Germany and presumably most parts of Europe, red light cameras are triggered by coils under the road (similar to speed cameras). There’s usually one coil right past the stopping line (for cars being halfway over) and another coil somewhere closer to the center of the intersection (for fully running a red light).
A cop standing at every intersection would feel a lot more uncomfortable to me but each to their own
Is that how you think they used to do it before red light cameras?
If you want more traffic enforcement, get the cops to do their fucking jobs.
How do you imagine the cops do it so it’s the same as with the cameras? Or would you be fine with worse enforcement, as long as you do away with cameras?
There can be a middle ground between almost no enforcement and taking a photo every time someone might be breaking the law, but also the camera might be miscalibrated or malfunctioning somehow.
How else would you enforce people to follow the law if cameras aren’t an option?
The fact it wasn’t enforced in the past doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be enforced today. People were allowed to drive drunk in the past as well.
Last I checked, there weren’t drunk driving cameras, so I’m not sure how that’s relevant. If anything, that makes my point for me. Human cops enforce anti-drunk driving laws.
How about we do mechanical speed limiting like they do with ebikes.
If they did that, they would just have a load of people going “why aren’t you catching real criminals?” Just don’t go through red lights. It’s not difficult.
Just don’t surveil people 24/7. It’s not difficult.
It’s not surveiling people, it’s surveiling an intersection.
Intersections devoid of people?
The solution to shitty drivers is fewer drivers, not more cameras.
All these cameras accomplish is forcing people to brake strongly and spontaneously, which is unsafe. In truth, they’re a revenue stream first, second, and third; for the government, insurance companies, and automotive shops. It’s a selective tax system that also nudges your bumper every other week. I don’t believe they’ve ever actually improved traffic conditions.
CDC says they reduce injury crashes.
https://www.cdc.gov/transportation-safety/calculator/red-light.html
“For right angle crashes, the review found a decrease in overall crashes and a decrease in injury crashes. For rear end crashes, the review found an increase in overall crashes but no significant difference in injury crashes“
You’re not wrong and neither am I.
Here’s a brilliant idea: do not speed, and you won’t have to put the brake pedal to the metal.
If someone speeds in front of you, unless you speed too, this won’t be an issue.
0 cares given about speeding drivers.
Impeding traffic, increasing accident rates, and arriving more slowly make for a poor lifestyle pitch. Speed differentials hurt everyone, including you.
Legitimately good bait, but preventing someone from driving exactly the speed limit, a construct lagging severely behind current safety standards, is more important to me than simply calling it out.
Arriving 10% later is well worth additional safety. And for any accidents due to drivers around me not respecting the speed limits, they are to blame. I’m honestly baffled by the “you are the problem for following rules” proposition. No, you are the problem for breaking them. They are there for a reason.
The safety standards were set when roads were not dominated by multi-ton trucks - something that eats away all the progress we’ve made to both braking and safety systems, and then a bit more.
Thinking everyone is just a backwards thinker who didn’t bother to change the limits would be far from truth.
The most lawful evil comment I’ve ever seen on Lemmy. And I didn’t downvote, someone else did.
Lol :D
Also yes, it sucks that it doesn’t show who votes. Makes for a lot of confusion in discussions.
I’m just saying, copper prices are HIGH right now too yall
$30+ for each camera easy
Unfortunately, all the other prices are high right now, too.
Only $30?
You know who has never paid a speeding ticket his entire life? The guy who rides the bus.
If there were a bus closer than two miles and across a four-lane highway from me, I would be that guy.
Yeah, the system is fucked. But I can’t help notice we install speed traps rather than bus lanes, almost as though we see drivers as revenue streams rather than traffic risks.
My city is installing red light cameras because of course milking drivers for missing the yellow by 1/2 second is better than actually fixing the problem of having hundreds of right angle crossings between roads with speed limits over 40mph (so people routinely go 50+ simply because they can)…
If we replaced some of those with roundabouts, others with over/underpasses, that might actually reduce fatal collisions, but that would cost money rather than rake it in, so…
If we replaced some of those with roundabouts, others with over/underpasses
That’s definitely another approach, although these kinds of infrastructure changes are expensive and come with their own risks. Roundabouts take up more space than four-way stops, while underpasses flood and overpasses freeze. Your essential problem - moving too many overlarge vehicles through too small a space - is mitigated, but not resolved.
But yes, a camera that functions as a revenue stream is far more attractive than anything that might actually save lives.
underpasses flood
I’m in the Phoenix area, while that can happen, it’s a rare occurrence.
overpasses freeze.
Even rarer.
Really it all comes down to cost- we spend millions on adding more lanes to highways, but very little on local connecting roads… Why spend anything to fix a problem when we can profit from the problem?
I’m in the Phoenix area, while that can happen, it’s a rare occurrence.
Sure, its always a rare occurrence. But when it happens, it can create a huge mess. Also points thumb at climate change less rare day-by-day.
Really it all comes down to cost
For a city like Phoenix not to have a modern mass transit system is a criminal waste of money and manpower. You’re talking about billions of dollars in highway expansion and tens of thousands of potholes getting filed, all so people stay in their cars.
FFS, its not even as though buses and trains are unpopular. Just ask folks in New York or DC. Even the Houston transit lines are commuter gold - filling up with tens of thousands of passengers every morning and evening who don’t need a place to park once they get downtown.
Why spend anything to fix a problem when we can profit from the problem?
Privatize the profits, socialize the losses. No more successful business strategy has ever existed.
What I’d really like to see is more cycling infrastructure… But in this climate, that’s less likely to happen than public transportation. But hey, we’re improving that, we have light rail that runs… On the streets.
You know who has never had a commute where they didn’t want to throw up because of B.O.?
i agree that more money should be put into improving public transport
My brother in christ, have you ever been in a cab or on a plane?
Is this really true? Pipes, heat exchangers and motors all have lots of copper. Why would a camera have a lot of copper in it?
Google is not being helpful and just returning results of this meme. There is a story out of Houston implying they do not have a lot of copper. And a story out of Honolulu that’s pretty ambiguous.
You’d think they basically just be a digital camera, a big lens, power supply, hardwired internet. So I mean I guess you could just cut and harvest the power line, but that will eventually lead down the pole and into concrete. The internet line is apparently fiber optic in many cases.
"Google is not being helpful and just returning results of this meme. "
Google? Not providing helpful results in 2024???
:O
Did they try adding glue to it?
I’m sorry to go against the echo chamber but it’s clearly user error in this case. they were probably looking for results relevant to what they put into the search field when they’re supposed be looking for ads.
Oh, THAT’S what that is! Oooooooh, ok. Yeah. That makes sense. Couldn’t be a bunch of out of touch CEOs with more money than brains leading us down the worst possible path in the pursuit of profits by any means needed. That’s why they get paid the big bucks!
…I swear I’ve posted messages with 10x more sarcasm, and I was mistaken for being sincere, and starting a fight. So if it’s not blatently obvious by my words and tone, apperently we now need to point out sarcasm on the internet. So this is me letting you know I’m agreeing with you, and egging the joke on.
I swear society sucks today. I guess they sucked yesterday too. Probably will suck tomorrow too.
to be fair, you need to point out sarcasm because some people lost the plot so hard that there are genuine comments that go beyond your wildest sarcastic ones.
just like how Don’t Look Up was supposed to be an over the top satire of climate/science deniers but by the time that movie came out that side already went way beyond the level of crazy they could even satirically depict.
musk fans who had a terrible time with the cybertruck still acting like it’s the best thing ever is another example. satire is dead because real people are crazier.
Definitely, I would be shocked if there’s more than a pound of copper in that camera assembly. It’s all low voltage electronics.
Picture is of an archaic camera. New cameras have no lbs of copper. Maybe oz
Cameras from the 90s, maybe. New cameras don’t even weigh 5lbs.
The housing is probably pretty heavy and there may be a back up battery. But unless there is a powerful motor somewhere to turn the camera (unlikely) then yeah there’s only going to be a few ounces of copper.
If you want to end the enforcement cameras just take a picture of the plates of your least favorite high ranking political figure. Print a ton out and go a sports bar or chad gym and paste over all the plates in the parking lot. Prioritize cars with big fins or stance. That driver’s infraction are re routed to the copied tag. Rinse repeat once they catch on to that tag.
If you want to end the enforcement cameras, drive responsibly and don’t break the rules that are written in blood.
There are many instances of dystopian government overreach in many places. This ain’t it.
Eh…
There’s quite a bit of low tax rates mixed in with that ink. Politicians want to boast about low taxes, but that revenue needs to come from somewhere and now it’s fines and fees.
Thank you. People will eat organic vegan, apply sunscreen, exercise regularly, but when they get behind the wheel suddenly loose a certain sense of self preservation. And me preservation too! Cause I’m that asshole walking on the too small sidewalks. Assholes
The speed cameras aren’t there to keep anyone safe, they’re there to collect revenue.
Which you can easily counter by following the rules for once.
The solution is as simple as that, and if you feel compelled to break the rules - let it at least be a source of revenue.
Yeah, but I can counter the guy who 's speeding, SLAMS on his breaks right before the camera, then floors it once he’s past.
That is why we have traject control cameras which calculate the speed between 2 cameras.
If the following car doesn’t speed, the guy will roam past, making braking a non-issue for the lawful driver behind as the distance between them will continuously increase.
The only place where it is an issue is when he tries to get in front of someone right before the stoplight.
But in any case, this is reckless and dangerous driving and I’d much prefer each country would have rules against that.
The guy that starts speeding is a danger to everyone around them. A lot of the time that speeding includes erratically weaving between other cars, even if they barely have the room to get through.
Absolutely true. Speeding often correlates with such behavior, which brings even more danger to the roads.
Our state has speed cameras in school zones. I would like to see before-and-after statistics showing that fewer kids have been hit since the installation of the cameras.
Of course, said data doesn’t exist, because no one bothered to collect it. It “feels” safer and generates revenue, so they do it.
5.5lbs of just copper alone?! WTF… that’s a heavy ass camera.
Yeah im calling bullshit on this one
How about we just change to roundabouts without any lights and everyone just has to carefully merge
But that would make too much sense
Not every intersection can or should be replaced with a roundabout, but its a tool that is certainly underutilized in the American road designer’s tool belt
Yes, but it’s like 90% at least. And for the remainder, there are other options. You can make an overpass for a really important road with right exits only. That lets a lot more traffic through, while letting you get off in the middle without being stuck on it.
Roundabouts bring other issues and aren’t necessarily the safety haven people claim they are.
Eh, they’re generally safer. They do tend to increase number of accidents, but because they force you to slow down and merge, they’re generally minor. More fender benders, fewer fatal wrecks, isn’t that a good thing?
Traffic enforcement cameras are good for all road-users, including car drivers! We need more of them, tbh. And I say that as a petrol-head.
Enforcing traffic laws is one thing, but sooner or later they’re going to get hooked up to a central archive and database and be used to create a license-plate-tracking panopticon.
There was a study done about this in the late 90s. With existing analog cameras in New York City police were able to track cars license plates with 90% accuracy. Keep in mind this was pre-GPS, pre-digital processing, and pre-image recognition.
Just think how much further camera technology, computer software, and image recognition has come since then. Not to mention that your phone and car or GPS enabled and constantly tracking your location.
This has been here for over 30 years.
“Is that a barcode scanner? That can be used by the government to track my purchases!”
–Burt Gummer (Tremors 2, 1996)
The government already tracks your car with its GPS transmitter.
Already happening
I used to agree with this until I had one false positive me a few years ago. Now I think they’re bullshit since the cops that sign off on the citations don’t even look at them.
I too throw my phone in the trash can after the spell checker made a single mistake.
Yeah, where I live (Seattle), automated systems are basically the only traffic enforcement we have because our police are a bunch of deadbeats who decided a few years back that enforcing laws was beneath them.
Well, this just happened recently in my local area. Easy pickings…
Those cameras wouldn’t be needed if people didn’t drive so fast it endangers the people around them.
The many decades cars existed before those cameras also had speeders.
And they were dangerous idiots back then. Be glad there’s finally an automated way to catch them instead of relying on a biased cop to be here.
The ‘automated way’ can be miscalibrated or just malfunctioning. What are you going to do when you go legally through a green light but the camera says you didn’t?
You have recourses. People fight tickets all the time.
How do you convince a judge that the photo they are looking at is a lie?
The pictures are worthless if you don’t see the light on them.
And yet, many don’t.
And then there are cases like this- https://abc7chicago.com/rosemont-red-light-camera-violation-village-of/10892854/
Could well just be a Utah thing, but here they take your information/look at your ID when you first scrap metal some/most(?) places, so this would be a tough one to sell, if you pulled it off. Like a smaller, less profitable version of stealing a car. Now what?
copper melts, make bars
Ugh I have to run a business now too? What’s next, taxes?
(because context ‘bars’ mean ‘of copper’ but also generally ‘liquor establishments’… this thing on?)
