A spectre is haunting Canadian roads: the real prospect of actually having to pay a fine for not respecting the speed limit. As speed cameras proliferate, particularly in Ontario, some drivers are showing their displeasure. Many of the cameras have been vandalized and one in Toronto cut down six times.
It’s time for a deep breath.
Speed cameras shouldn’t disappear, they should multiply. The cameras are effective and, because their penalty is so easily avoided, they are fair.
...
In fact, a recent poll for CAA showed majority support among Ontarians for the cameras. Politicians who pander to the minority of drivers who hate them are gambling with public safety.
Those politicians span the ideological spectrum, from Ontario’s Progressive Conservative Premier Doug Ford to former Ontario Liberal leader Steven Del Duca, now mayor of suburban Vaughan, and left-leaning Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow.
So busy trying to placate drivers, these politicians ignore that speed cameras work. The hit in the wallet is sufficiently unpleasant that it convinces people to slow down. For evidence, consider that the number of tickets issued by any given camera typically goes down over time.
That effect has been further demonstrated by research from a hospital and university in Toronto. According to their findings, referenced in a recent city staff report, the proportion of vehicles speeding went down 45 per cent after cameras were installed near schools and in high-collision areas.
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A person hit by a vehicle travelling at 30 kilometres an hour has a 90-per-cent chance of surviving. Increase the speed to 40 kilometres an hour, though, and the survival rate drops to 60 per cent. A person hit at 50 kilometres an hour has only a 20-per-cent chance of living.
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/editorials/article-sorry-speed-cameras-arent-the-problem/
OK, so what's the argument against using other traffic calming measures that don't steal money from people, and are just as, if not more, effective instead?
Sounds good. Let's do that too!
Flat fines mean it's only a crime for the poor
Fines should be proportional to assets and income.
They should be. But they aren't.
Which is especially egregious with the terrible investment in public transportation. You want poor people to stop speeding? Give them a decent alternative to cars.
You're right, we definitely need better public transport.
Mostly the financial cost and labor of installation. 2 people and a truck can install cameras and maintain them for relatively cheap compared to redesigning and resurfacing a road.
Yeah but the camera system can be abused to the detriment of the population. They can be modified to give tickets even when no law was broken.
That's no different than a cop smashing your taillight to give you a ticket.
Yep. Except you'd have a hard time proving it. I remember a story of a New York man who fought against a traffic light camera because he said it was tricked to give out more tickets. And he was right.
From your link, it sounds like the camera wasn't tricked at all and was working perfectly as intended, the city just modified the programming of a nearby traffic light to shorten the length of time the light was yellow so that more people technically ran red lights that the camera then recorded. That's a completely different, yet related, thing.
Either way, I'm sure you get my point.
I don't. All tools can be abused.
Perhaps, but it's much harder to abuse a speed bump for nefarious purposes.
Except then everyone has to suffer for the stupidity of few, and emergency vehicles can't got faster in an emergency....
How is a municipal government or authorities going to abuse speed bumps, narrow streets, or other physical deterrents for speeding compared to electronic devices, pray tell?
? You've never seen a cop park right over a little dip in the road at the bottom of a hill right where the limit changes?
I've never seen stupider argument than I have with these speed camera debates. Read the speed limit sign, look at your speed, follow that speed. I'd prefer your careless ass get a ticket in the mail from a camera than pay a dumb cop to sit there all day letting his buddies and "important" people go while giving everyone else a hard time.
Hey, don't get mad at me. I follow the speed limit. I follow the damn rules.
The problem is when the authorities start accusing law abiding people for extra money and to reach their quota.
Point your anger at the real problem.
Forgive me if you thought I was pointing at you specifically. I'm pointing at idiots who make all these stupid and childish arguments, in this thread, but in every Lemmy post about speed cameras.
The real problem is people incapable of adhering to societal rules. The real problem is children in adult clothes getting mad when they actually get in trouble for breaking rules. "Oh why dont they just redesign the whole town to make that impossible?!?! What if someone hacks the speed camera and gives innocent people a ticket!!!Why must I read and obey the speed limit??? Oh the injustice!"
Speed cameras are inexpensive, they are not prejudiced, and they work. They cause no trouble to anyone obeying the limit and send a ticket to those who do. To everyone who also argues about fines being legal for the rich, yeah, that's bullshit. Solve THAT problem. I'm all for it.
Yeah, I hear ya.
Like what, specifically?
Lane width restriction is my preferred method, but speed bumps are probably even more guaranteed to be effective.
Roundabouts are awesome. People are still idiots however.
I think you just have to commit to it. It's only a problem when people are unfamiliar with them. Once They're exposed enough, they'll get the hang of em pretty quickly. They just need to be fairly ubiquitous.
We have a lot of them where I live now. They keep them single lane in most places. This is good. There is one major 4 lane and it's a nightmare most days. Been in place for over 50 years and most still don't understand it.
I still think they're great and effective as well.
Speed bumps hinder emergency vehicles though.
They also increase noise in the neighborhood due to constant breaking ne acceleration. But tree, narrowing of streets and intersections, etc are all very effective and overall greatly improve residents quality of life.
Oh man, yeah. I didn't think about it initially, but I used to live in front of a nasty bump in the street. Trucks that passed by would rattle and slam every time they passed on it. It was so loud it woke me up at night.
Oh and I forgot the bumps also impeded drainage so now during heavy rain, or flash melts, there's a nice lake in the street.
Yup, they added bumps on my street at some points for God knows what fucking reason. McQueen sometimes has weird ideas. It was completely useless because it's already INCREDIBLY tight, there's no way to go more than 5kmh above the 30kmh speed limit. Right in front of my apartment, it seriously increased the noise level.
I think, on paper, it was a compromise because the street is so tight that they couldn't do those bump outs at the intersection, but truly it didn't need it.
Speed bumps can be designed to accommodate emergency vehicles.
Lane width restrictions only slow down bad and nervous drivers.
Trees, removing excess lane space, avoiding long straight stretches (ideally with street layout, but also chicanes), etcetera. If a road feels like a residential road, people treat it like one. And vice versa, if a road feels like a highway...
When it's the government, it's not considered stealing.