Canada

Hey you are right. A cop would have a stronger, more immediate affect. For the 8 hours they are sitting there. And while they aren't out of their car giving a ticket/letting their buddy or a hot chick off with a warning.

Cameras work. They are there 24/7. They don't discriminate.

Are they a replacement for an officer driving the streets? Nope. How come there wasn't an officer at that construction site or nearby to catch that 10x offender? Is it because it's incredibly difficult and resource intensive to do so?

I got a ticket when they changed the speed limit on a road I traveled daily twice in under a year and then added a camera. So speed change was 60-40, and I got a letter in the mail and a ticket for going 50. I was just going with traffic. I knew there was a new camera but every day day after day, you just start driving with traffic.

Well after that ticket, I stopped being lazy and started actually driving. And over the next month or so I could see who had gotten a ticket and who hadn't yet. And slowly traffic shifted down to the point where I was going with the flow of traffic again, enough people had either got a ticket or had got used to driving behind someone who had that everyone chilled out and started observing the limit.

That's how these cameras work. A cop could be parked there for years and not have that affect, and also a cop couldn't park there and wouldn't have anywhere to pull someone over without creating major traffic problems.