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There you go little guy
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this post was submitted on 01 Oct 2024
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If only speed cameras worked to lower the speed anyone travels at... Realistically, people are going to drive the speed that feels safe for that road, and a speed camera is just going to disproportionately punish people without the money to pay the fines.
Make roads that are designed for the speed you want people to drive at, not wide open expanses that give no actual reason to slow down.
They do. They objectively do. How are there so many people all over this thread just confidently asserting complete, disprovable bullshit, and why is it getting upvoted? From the Cochrane systematic review:
Interesting. Mostly what I see is people slam on their brakes near the camera, then take off again after it.
My theory: There's so little enforcement of the traffic laws here, they might as well not exist. You're almost certain NOT to get caught, so people will do whatever they want and will practically always get away with it. I don't really want to argue for more cops, but when I've driven in areas with more traffic enforcement and visible police presence, people tend to drive much more sedately.
I drive and ride bicycle, and I would LOVE if the cops came riding with me some time. I see some of them doing the 100 mile ride for charity in our county, so I know they have people on the force who ride fairly seriously. Join one of our regular group rides wearing cycling clothes (not police gear), get another cop stationed ahead in a car or motorcycle...and start pulling over some people who buzz us or roll coal. Word would get out very quickly.
For me personally, I think more cops isn't the ideal solution. Instead, I think traffic calming measures should be introduced to make drivers feel less safe if they choose to speed.
Better enforcement is 100% necessary, and I think speed cams can be a good way to prevent dangerous driving through the threat of enforcement. That said, I also think in terms of cost efficiency that direct preventative measures such as speed cushions, bollards, trees, medians, sidewalk extensions, lane narrowing, roundabouts, etc. will be more cost-effective to some point than and should be used in conjunction with speed cams.
I can see those kinds of things working in or near cities, but out where I am - fairly rural - there's just too many miles of road to install a bunch of speed humps or similar things. It would take a monumental amount of money. They don't even have shoulders on most of the roads. I admit even I speed when I'm driving them, although I'll slow down for bends in the road so as not to clobber a deer, cyclist, pedestrian, etc. that might be lurking out of sight.
(I got into a fun argument here on Lemmy a few months back with someone who insisted horse and buggies should have lights, and I was like, "What happens when you come around the bend too fast and there's a tree laying in the road?" He just couldn't accept the problem is the driver, not the horse and buggy. Basically, that's what's wrong with drivers in the US: We, as a group, have a bizarre expectation that things will always go to plan.)
I'm also nervous about these solutions for another reason - I've seen towns install those kinds of calming measures in a way that hurts cyclists. In one example, they extended the curbs out to the lane, which does slow down traffic - but it forces cyclists who could previously ride on the shoulder into the lane, thereby further enraging drivers. I had one asshole pass me in that very narrow section some years ago, so now I make sure to ride in the middle of it, so they'd actually have to hit me. They won't do that because they don't want to damage their precious car, so I'm safe.
And I say this as someone that lives in an area that's actually pretty good for cycling, that is, most drivers are actually pretty good about passing safely and all that.
Rural areas are an interesting case, admittedly. Most of my personal suggestions are for urban areas, even so far as my general loathe of cars - they suck in cities but are practically required for rural living.
I'd be curious to see the difference in fatalities for an optimally set up city versus a current rural setup. My gut tells me that, just due to the relatively sparse density of cars, rural driving is already significantly safer, and if you DO drive like shit, you're likely to only injure yourself.
Ultimately, rural and urban driving are COMPLETELY different beasts, and what works for one doesn't for another.
Edit: and, any implemented traffic calming measures are only worthwhile if they incorporate pedestrian and bike friendly implementations. Otherwise you're just trading one problem for another. For instance, instead of just moving the curb inward, keep it where it is and install bollards every 10-15 feet or so, so cars can't use the area but bikes can.
Fatalities are typically more common in rural areas (proportional to population). Likely because of higher speed roads and higher drink driving rates in rural areas. And maybe due to truck drivers and people driving long distances driving sleep deprived.
There are a lot of clarifying information needed regarding rural fatalities. Are most of the fatalities from people who live in the area, or are they people passing through? What about the proportion of fatal:nonfatal accidents? Is it that you're less likely to get into an accident, but when you do it's more likely to be fatal?
Overall, like I said, I don't really have any ideas for change for rural areas, except maybe limiting the routes trucks can take, and maybe more abundant rest areas. I truly think cars are practically a requirement as you get outside of the city, and don't really have any notion on how to fix their issues without introducing more or worse ones.
I would love to see a more recent study. Safety tends to be a weird subject, particularly the treadmill of introducing safety features, which means more drivers drive unsafely because safety features give an appearance of safety.
Overall, I still stand by what I said outside of maybe the very first sentence. Even if they DO slow traffic, there are vastly better ways that don't have a disproportionate impact.
My city started putting in speed cushions at roads that were constantly over-traveled. Neighborhoods that would see increased traffic during rush hour, for instance. They're aggressive, you have to go BELOW the speed limit to safely drive the route. Those roads see SIGNIFICANTLY less traffic, and the traffic that is there is slower.
Fines just don't work to deter your average driver, or at least not as much as physics does.
Oh yeah, just to be clear, I'm a massive fan of urbanist channels like NJB and absolutely stan the shit out of traffic calming measures. Give me more trees on the sides of the road to make it feel narrower. Give me speed humps. Give me medians. Give me sidewalk extensions. Give me roundabouts. Inject that shit into my veins. I see speed cameras as just one tool in an arsenal to create safer driving conditions, and mercifully, it seems like the US is starting to warm up to those.
I'm pretty sure we're 100% on the same page here as far as traffic calming measures go, and I think we'd both agree too that if there are fines, they need to be adjusted to account for income. (Here's an upvote by the way to counteract that downvote; this is one of like two reasonable takes I've seen in this thread against speed cameras.)
((yeah it seems like there's a down vote hitting each comment in this thread hahah. Fwiw, same sentiments to you, very good points.))
I can broadly agree with these sentiments. I think speed limits, as they're implemented right now, are largely folly and should be replaced with something that can't be abused for revenue. And even if we agree that MOST cameras and speed fines aren't revenue focused, we HAVE to acknowledge the possibility of abuse.
I think in an ideal world, I'd set speed limits to be higher than they are now - say, (spitballing) 100mph for interstates. It's HARD enforced, at even 1mph over, and a criminal offense. I know this level of enforcement is already in place, technically - usually speeds like, 20 over are considered criminal - but it's subject to too much discretion. Those cases need to be enforced almost unilaterally.
From there, addressing the rest of the speed issue is the job of urban planners. Make the roads just not fun(safe, convenient, whatever) to drive at speeds even approaching the limit. From there, enforcement becomes far more justifiable, and will consistently target people driving the most unsafe.
Obviously, reckless driving and other such penalties would be in place, to catch anything else reckless, and that's going to be case-by-case, still subject to discretion, but at least it's something.
I suspect many cars on the road can't even be driven safely at that speed, and then you have to account for the driving ability of the average person.
You'd have more cases where there are high speed differentials too with some only going 60mph, and others going 100mph, increasing the amount of passing.
The speed limit, in this scenario, would be set at what is absolutely, inarguably, a dangerous speed. A speed at which NO ONE can argue what you're doing is dangerous. The bulk of speed management would be done by better urban planning. If no one feels safe going over 50, yeah, you may have the rare dumbass pushing it, but you're always going to have dumbasses.
Germany would like a word 🙄
That's not true. They are not traveling at safe speeds. Crashes over 70 mph have a sharply increased risk of fatality. Yet people routinely choose to go faster. They even choose to bully people who won't go faster on 65 mph roads.
Rules are put in place for a reason, but people treat speeding like an oopsie daisy because that's how the law treats it. We need more speed enforcement and tougher penalties. Not less. This is an area where people's feelings are very very wrong.
I don't disagree with anything you said. Slowing down is a good thing.
The problem I have with this approach is that speed limits either do nothing, or do marginal work compared to designing roads that aren't able to be driven at excessive speeds. Narrower lanes, chicanes, medians, speed bumps or cushions - all VASTLY more effective at actually slowing traffic than a camera or cop saying "hey! Slow down or pay the toll!"
We can't do that for most of the roads. We really do just need more traffic cops, tougher penalties, and more cameras. Part of the reason people speed is because getting caught is like getting struck by lightning. I've seen people do 80 right by a cop and the cop doesn't stop them. The level of enforcement is not commensurate with the safety risk.
And as long as the penalty is fines, it's literally "pay the toll to go fast". At very best, this leaves a class of people completely unimpacted by traffic enforcement. But, without a drastic change in the public perception of speed limits, we can't just say "ok 1 mph over is now criminal. Go to jail." That'll do way more harm than good.
Well there's three ways to fix that. A state max over which it's a criminal offense and you go away in handcuffs. A sliding fine that hits for percentage of income. And making all of the penalties criminal. Make it an actual crime for which you have to be taken to jail, booked, and arraigned. Make sure to write in language extending the liability to employers for chauffeurs.
And often even this is too generous. Most drivers I've seen in the US treat speeding like a calculated risk that they feel out over time. They will with an unambiguous understanding of what the speed limit is choose to not just exceed it, but to actively target a speed that's (usually 5 mph or 8 kph) over it.
Honestly not even that a lot of the time. Speeding is their god given right and speed limits are just freedom stealing commie bullshit, so it's actually a good thing that they speed.
That's because eons ago a judge determined the error rate for speedometers and radar guns was around 10 mph and we couldn't punish people for something they don't realize they're doing.
Completely rushing past the fact that not realizing your speed is itself a giant red flag.
And that has absolutely contributed to the sense of entitlement to speed.
Traffic jams are caused by speedcameras because those who are speeding hit the fucking break paddle as hard as i want to slap you for saying bullshit
I'm not sure what I said to make you reply about traffic jams? Want to elaborate?
What the hell this is new, so road safety was created to hinder the poor? Just drive below the speed limit and stop making stupid excuses
I didn't say it was created to hinder the poor.
I said fines DISPROPORTIONATELY PUNISH THE POOR.
If you have $1000, a $200 fine is 20% of your money.
If you have $2,000,000 a fine of $200 is . 0001% of your money, basically nothing.
This means that, relative to their money, a poorer person hurts more from the same fine. This is a BAD IDEA for enforcing rules everyone is supposed to follow. Essentially, we're encouraging people to drive slow, unless they can pay the toll for speeding.
There are ways to mitigate this - sliding scale fines, for instance. I personally don't like fines as punishments in general, though. I'd rather use neutral traffic calming features, that always invariably impact people who use the route the same, and make it a criminal offense to drive recklessly, akin to drunk driving.
Finland have it sorted:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jun/06/finnish-businessman-hit-with-121000-speeding-fine
"A multimillionaire businessman has been hit with one of the world’s highest speeding fines – €121,000 (£104,000) – for driving 30km/h (18.6mph) over the limit in Finland, where tickets are calculated as a percentage of the offender’s income."
I don't disagree it's disproportionate. But you know how rich and poor can avoid fines? Just fucking respect the limits
People should follow the law because it benefits everyone not because they want to avoid a fine
I address all of this in other areas in this thread. I don't feel like rehashing it with you, given your unwarranted aggression out of the gate. If you want to read some actual rebuttal, go for it. Otherwise, enjoy your life.
Sorry if it sounded aggressive. This topic hits close because I have at least 2 very close friends that continuously ignore speed limits and no argument dissuades them of the "speed limits are a way of controlling the people, and fines are just for the police to earn money" mindset, et al. And I feel they'll have a nasty accident one day
Do you think speed cameras will slow them down? Or do you think they'll just figure out how to get away with it? When my city put in speed cameras everywhere, it didn't slow me down. After the first one (which was a surprise btw- same route I drove to work every day, but after they put in the speed camera, the speed limit was reduced by 10mph mysteriously...) I researched the fuck out of the topic and found
A: they can't act on a mailed ticket unless you voluntarily respond (so I didn't) or it's delivered by a process server (which costs money, and the local government isn't going to bother when there are plenty of pigeons that don't know better)
B: they have to be able to identify the driver- as in see your face. There was a famous case of a guy wearing various zoo animal masks, and I have a couple pictures of me in a cheap Spartan mask doing 90 in a 65 that never went anywhere.
C: even if they serve you, and even if your face is plainly visible, it may still be worth a shot going to court. I did the one time one was properly served, which was another surprise one, not one of the times I was taunting them. It was another case of the speed limit being temporarily reduced, this time for construction - except the speed camera had been set up after the end of the construction zone, and I had just gotten on the highway, there was no signage indicating the construction zone or the reduced speed between the on ramp and the camera, and again it was a familiar area where I knew the limit was 65 normally... Anywho, tangent. I went to court, and I got to see which arguments worked and which didn't. It was pretty comical, one woman was trying to argue that she didn't know the speed limit had dropped, but she had been clocked at 79- the judge yelled at her "even if you thought it was 65, you still would have been going nearly 15 over! Pay the fine and get out!" Anywho, one thing I noticed was they always gave the measurements of how far the speed camera was after the speed limit sign, so that was going to be my angle- I would just ask how far that was from the on ramp- but I didn't get the chance. They got to me, and the prosecutor said he didn't have the evidence to pursue my case, so he moved for dismissal. No further explanation.
So that's just what works in my jurisdiction, it's likely other places close some of those loopholes, but introduce some of their own. And you can bet assholes like me will be better at figuring it out and will overall pay less in fines than suckers like you that just get caught by surprise once in a great while. Is that fair?
You're so kwel and super smart, little guy
Oh I agree with that, I'm just saying that bthese types that do these things aren't doing it for the principle of it, they do it because they're assholes that want to speed