Submitted by Maleficent-Ad6523 t3_127qdpk in Connecticut
i just saw something about how the day after easter CT will implement traffic cameras on I-84 route 8 I-95, all the major highways. and if detected going 15 mph or over you get a ticket in the mail. however i can’t seem to find if it’s just in work zones or along all of the highways, some sources say just work zones others say throughout the highway. just curious as to what the truth is lol
Forreal, mofos will ride your ass at 75 mph, pass you, and then do 65 mph once they get in front of you
Yup. Passed a semi this morning and had to push it to 80 in a 55 and by the time I got around the truck I had a line of 6 people that had accumulated behind me. Some folks need to chill, I swear.
I will have someone up my ass in the right lane for miles while I’m going 60-70 when the left lane is completely open for them. Or if I go into the left lane to pass (only time I use that lane) car in the right lane will speed up like crazy preventing me to pass then when I finally get back in front, they continue to drive the usual crazy slow speed like before.
Good thing we got all those speed limit signs. That outta keep the bad drivers out and our kids safe.
While I wish that traffic cameras would improve/change driver behavior in CT and elsewhere, the evidence is mixed/against improved driver behavior.
First, we don't need another administrative infrastructure that puts costs onto generally law abiding citizens. These tickets are mailed out based on your registration. If you are registered, your car is insured. Thus, there is no pressure to change the behavior of unregistered and uninsured motorists, IMHO a bigger threat to drivers at large.
Second, will traffic camera enforcement punish the driver or the owner of the vehicle? How can you prove who was driving when? In the absence of such proof, the burden shifts to fines on the owner of the vehicle. Is this what we want to do?
Third, who is paying for the tech? Will we outsource this to a private firm? How will that firm get paid? From a share of the fines levied? In CA, judges reduced fines and awarded community service which inadvertently reduced municipal, county and state revenue, making the system too costly to operate as the government had to pay for the cameras whether or not the cameras generated enough money to pay for themselves.
Fourth, what will the state do with that data from speed cameras? We've already seen the abuses with automated license plate readers. See the article at EFF about those abuses.
>Fourth, what will the state do with that data from speed cameras? We've already seen the abuses with automated license plate readers. See the article at EFF about those abuses.
This is often overlooked by the authoritarian crowd. They should be careful what they wish for. The first thing the state will do is sell the data to the private sector, if not specifically prohibited by law..
The first customers will be the insurance industry.
You raise excellent points.
there was that ars technica report a few years back where they simply asked the san fran pd to access all the plate data, which they freely handed over.
they used this information to accurately determine the workplace and home of a city councilperson, for example.
neat!
> Fourth, what will the state do with that data from speed cameras? We've already seen the abuses with automated license plate readers. See the article at EFF about those abuses.
See also American Dragnet:
> The agency [ICE] has access to the driver’s license data of 3 in 4 (74%) adults and tracks the movements of cars in cities home to nearly 3 in 4 (70%) adults.
It’s a pilot program for work zones. School zones were supposed to be in the pilot as well, but cops complained too much.
Well of course they did. If there are camera there, they don't need to sit there and get paid double or triple time for doing nothing.
They had a school zones camera in Nassau County (NY) a few years ago the backlash was enormous and after a few months it was repealed.
Because at the HS the kids are road hazards and need to be enforced but the parents don't want to cough up the cash. At the lower schools the parents want to drive recklessly on their way to work. Schools zones are just as important as construction zones.
Work zones today, everywhere else tomorrow, it's just how laws work unfortunately.
Yup. Lamont, who I like, said as much. He wants them everywhere. He actually said - we’ll be able to keep an eye on you. It’s just horrible for civil liberties and govt surveillance.
The 46,000 annually produced dead will be tracked by death certificates. No privacy. Fyi.
I don’t understand your point.
Death ends your civil liberties. Causing another’s death while driving, well, just be careful and avoid that. There are 5 killed every hour of the day in the USA. No other transit system kills so many, so what’s the issue with a bit of government intervention?
Oh. I got you now. Here’s the thing. Driving is actually a pretty safe endeavor. And it’s extremely safe if you wear a seat belt, don’t speed, don’t drive drunk and don’t drive with your phone in your hand. It’s safer than walking! Check this out
Not for certain jobs...
Heavy highway construction is extremely dangerous because of the motorists, this law is aimed at their safety not the drivers safety.
and if you don’t speed you also won’t get a speeding ticket so this won’t affect you
Who knows if I’m speeding or not. It’s impossible to argue with a computer.
You assume the speed limits are reasonable
You voted for this.
I wrote to his office and my state senate and house reps and told while I’ll never vote for the fascist party I may very well become a single issue voter in Dem primaries for defenders of civil liberties if this garbage continues.
So you don’t like fascim but you’re not cool with them putting cameras up, but you vote for them anyways?
You may be shocked to hear this, but no one agrees 100% with everything a political leader does. With 332 million people in this country and a choice of two candidates to represent them, you can work out the probability that one of the two candidates will check off every box of all 332 million people. So what do you do? You vote for the guy that best represents you and your values. In our case, the choice is between Lamont or whoever the Jewish Space Laser party nominates.
Then enjoy the cameras on the highway. Can’t blame the Jewish space lasers for that one
I won't enjoy the cameras on the highway and will email and call my representative letting them know. If Lamont does this one thing I hate, but 10 other things with which I am in favor, who do you think should get my vote? You act like our politics are like a buffet where you can choose some of this, a little of that, and end up with the perfect dinner plate, but the real world doesn't work like the Bacchanal buffet.
You got it.
Once politicians get addicted to that sweet new cash influx, they can't say no to more.
good
How will the cameras handle off duty cops that are speeding? I assume police vehicles are exempt at all times, but what about an officers personal vehicle? No way police will allow themselves and their families to be ticketed.
They will have plead not guilty and get their court to dismiss it. As it’s fully automated they will be issued the ticket.
Around the DC area, they don't care. My friend is a Federal Officer and gets hit if traffic cams. And there's no 15mph leeway.
Love the sarcasm
This is for work zones only, I'm sure cops aren't speeding through work zones. They know how dangerous it is for the workers
They speed through everywhere lol see cops run red lights all the time. Some cops believe they are above the law
They speed everywhere else irregardless of how dangerous it is for anyone.
These are not cameras in the traditional sense. They are vehicles (typically white SUV's) they place in an area that has a camera on them and if you are speeding in a work zone it takes a picture and mails you a ticket. It's more like a red light camera. If they are like the ones I have seen (they are used in work zones in MD & WV) you will know without a doubt you are getting a ticket because when they take the picture there is a noticeable flash. I don't think they're a bad idea at all as they will deter speeding through a work zone which helps keeps the workers safe.
What about work zones with 0 workers and just old signs posted there for weeks. Money grab for the state
I'm not arguing the money grab point but they typically don't leave them there all the time, they move them around and they usually either use them when there is daily active work happening or in an area where they have reduced the speed due to a narrowing of the road so it's not really safe for cars to be flying through there at any time, at least that has been my experience with them.
I’m originally from IL and in Chicago and the suburbs red light cameras have been in place for a long time and it ABSOLUTELY changed behaviors. Anyone who drives in the New Haven area should welcome something like this given the blatant and rampant running of red lights that happens there. If this change is a pathway to this, then I am in favor.
I retired BECAUSE it was getting too scary on 84 every morning, and every evening. People drive crazy now. 30 years ago, people drove in their lane until their exit came, and then they got off the highway. Now, people drive like it's a pinball machine, and they're they only car on the road. weaving from right lane to left lane through the middle lane, far too many times as I was in the middle lane 2 cars passing me on both sides only to try to both be in front of me in the middle lane at the same time, only for one of them to veer off just before the collision right in front of me.... I finally said fuck it. My life is worth more than this. I've been wishing for these ticketing cameras for a few years now. Don't give a damn if the driver owns the car or not. If he/she's driving the car, fine. you get a ticket. If you don't own the car but let someone else drive it, fine. You won't do that again.
The problem with using cameras is there is no way to prove who was driving the car. The registered owner will get the ticket but it could have been a family member or friend driving at the time.
The registered owner will get the ticket and possible points on their license when they weren't even the one driving.
This argument holds no water with me, the same thing happens if the car is involved in a hit and run today. If you’re a parent and you kid is driving, then you punish them and if it’s someone else…don’t let someone you can’t trust drive you’re car.
There systems usually don’t give points.
It’s a regressive tax since the wealthy with their beemers and Porsches Can easily afford the $150 fine
Just work zones, the cameras are portable and mounted on top of a vehicle, seen the news story. They showed the cameras mounted on top of a police vehicle
It's just work zones.
The pilot program is only for construction zones. But that will change.
The US has no intention / interests in reducing auto fatalities
it'll just be a trial around work zones if anythng
Speaking as a member of the private sector who is involved in road safety and is extremely interested in reducing auto fatalities, let me say that "the US" is not in total agreement on whether we should try to improve traffic safety.
Things have backslid really badly since I started my career, it's heartbreaking. Fatalities were increasing even before the pandemic, up about 15% from 2013 to 2019. Now they're up about 30%. (They were level in 21-22, so maybe we've arrested the upward trend, but it's time to bring it back down.)
It's gotta be distracted driving. The sad part is, even knowing that, I still can't say fully truthfully that I never look at my phone for a second when I'm driving.
It's far too vast of a topic to be attributed to any one metric. Miles driven have plummeted the past few years, yet deaths are way up. All the following and many many more factors are all at play:
Vehicle miles traveled has rebounded; it was about 99.3% of its 2019 levels in 2022. (Maybe like 95-97% of what would be expected if growth had continued uninterrupted.) Those are all good places to look for improvement, though.
Speed and Enforcement: Speed has definitely gotten a lot worse, since speeding was essentially legalized during the pandemic and enforcement has not kept up with the need for it since.
Big Cars: Bigger cars a problem, especially when they get in crashes with much smaller cars. It's also a problem that people feel safer in bigger cars - and they actually are, statistically. But everybody else is less safe, and their feeling of safety might make them more careless at the wheel.
Lack of pedestrian infrastructure: Not sure about this one... modern design practices should be, if gradually, leading to better outcomes for pedestrians, but instead they're getting worse. I think pedestrians are just in more danger for the reasons that drivers have gotten more reckless overall.
Another thing that might be playing a factor is an over-reliance on safety features like adaptive cruise control, or worse yet, the Tesla stuff, resulting in drivers who aren't ready to take control when they need to be.
I think the best thing we could do for traffic safety, really, is to have the Ad Council blast out the message that you need to leave proper following distance and should generally try to maximize your distance from other drivers.
Too much hurry and distraction. Driving a car so simplifies modern life that few regard driving as a deadly serious activity rife with potential terrifying consequences. Every message from manufacturers is happy, dandy, freedom and power themed. Car culture has us all conditioned to overlook death and destruction daily and internalize it as an acceptable result of cars everywhere. As a pedestrian, biker and transit rider, it’s infuriating.
That makes me think of another problem with car culture, that's kind of the mirror image of the phenomenon you're describing...
Like you said, a lot of people just forget driving is dangerous. But for people who haven't forgotten, we just get used to living at a certain level of life-or-death stress, for possibly hours a day, when we're in our cars. I don't think it's very conducive to overall happiness.
Don't get me wrong, driving is a really easy game, and it's fun to play sometimes, but the consequences of slipping up and losing can be pretty rough.
RE infrastructure.......I come from TX where gentrification is dramatically densifying old urban cores that lack proper infrastructure.
However, that gentrification is also driving lower incomes to fill up the suburbs / exurbs that were never planned with proper pedestrian infrastructure to begin with.....no will it be affordable for decades to come.
Thanks and agreed on all points.
My wishlist is just no passing on the right, speed cameras, and fines tied directly to a percentage of income.
The problem with speed cameras is they can't prove who was driving, so the registered owner gets the ticket when it could have been a family member or friend that was driving the car.
(6)insufficient mass transit infrastructure to reduce highway traffic volume.
>Things have backslid really badly
As a licensed engineer, it’s really depressing and frustrating.
This is the stupid. We spent billions every year on traffic safety and safer cars. Up until the last couple years the number of fatalities per capita per year was almost always going down.
Sarcasm, but still.......It's like the lowest of low hanging fruit. I could congratulate my kid for doing subtraction, but he should be doing algebra.
Up until recently it was by far the most likely way my child, myself and my family would all die. I don't consider that acceptable.
Ah! Your sense of risk is all out of whack. Compared to the number of miles we drive, driving is quite safe and like I said, until very recently, it was getting less deadly every year. Take a look at these charts.
Idk why your getting down voted. You are correct. This isn’t to stop people dying, it’s more of a money grab than to prevent death.
How fast are those getting destroyed. I’ll give it 3 months.
Just a few work zones.
They have a system like that in the UK
Yeah and the technological capability of their system is fascinating and terrifying at the same time. Their camera system has facial recognition and they use it to instantenaously profile people in transit to and from major transit hubs like train stations and airports. By the time you hit the first roundabout at Heathrow by vehicle, you've already had a background check, criminal record check for warrants, and a verification that you're on a flight manifest.
London has the most CCTV than any city in the world's.
1mJustALurk3r t1_jefgg1s wrote
In CT if you're only going 15 over the limit people will be honking and flipping you off as they pass at 30+ over.