7 ms·

Enforcing traffic laws is good, actually. Automated enforcement is even better so that we don't need to use armed police and can enforce consistently. Speeding

Enforcing traffic laws is good, actually. Automated enforcement is even better so that we don't need to use armed police and can enforce consistently. Speeding, reckless driving, running red lights and stop signs is absolutely rampant where I live and people really do die because of it. I'm tired of entitled assholes thinking that they can drive however they want, endanger everyone around them, and that they just have the right to do that. Even if they don't value their own lives, we value ours. So I strongly support red light and speed cameras, traffic calming, and physical pedestrian and bike barriers. Not sure sure about cars self-reporting, only because you could just buy a different car. There is a pretty strong argument that cars have no need to be able go 50+ mph over the speed limit like they can now.

bigthymer 2y ago
Maybe a better middle ground is that other people can record and report you instead of being forced to report yourself. This way, people can freely drive how they want so long as they are respectful of others around them.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago
  > better middle ground is that other people can record and report you instead of being forced to report yourself That’s what this is. The patent is about reporting other cars. The title is clickbait.
  - buildbot 2y ago
    Do you want to live an a semi-automated panopticon of your peers? I really don’t!
    - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
      > Do you want to live an a semi-automated panopticon of your peers? Within the context of speeding and the driver having control over when the report is sent in, I think the safety gains are worth the trade-off.
      - buildbot 2y ago
        If it’s manually reviewed, then that sounds much more palatable. Basically a dash cam with a submit the cops button, sure. Automation of this is very dystopian however.
      - Dylan16807 2y ago
        The safety gains for minor speeding are very small, and if it's under driver control then it will very often be targeted maliciously.
chank 2y ago
> Enforcing traffic laws is good, actually. Automated enforcement is even better so that we don't need to use armed police and can enforce consistently. We don't use armed police to enforce traffic laws. Police mainly monitor traffic as a revenue device. It's already been proven that monitoring traffic and automating fines in fact promotes reckless driving and causes more accidents than it stops.
- jimmaswell 2y ago
  They are all armed in the US at least.
  - chank 2y ago
    Do they really stop you at gun-point to get you to pull over? Didn't think so. Of course police are armed. You're taking the comment to literally.
    - jimmaswell 2y ago
      I took it exactly as anyone who understands English would take it. Try communicating better next time.
      - chank 2y ago
        Nah. Stop taking everything you read on the internet so literally.
- spankalee 2y ago
  > We don't use armed police to enforce traffic laws. In what world? In the US "manual" traffic enforcement is almost exclusively done by armed police and sheriffs. Unarmed civilian traffic enforcement is only done in Berkeley, CA, and a town in Minnesota, afaik. > It's already been proven that monitoring traffic and automating fines in fact promotes reckless driving and causes more accidents than it stops. Do you have a citation for that? There are numerous studies that show significant drops in accident rates in areas with red light cameras. On the order of 10-23%! - https://tti.tamu.edu/researcher/tti-study-underscores-safety-benefits-of-red-light-cameras/ https://tti.tamu.edu/researcher/tti-study-underscores-safety... - https://information.auditor.ca.gov/pdfs/reports/2001-125.pdf https://information.auditor.ca.gov/pdfs/reports/2001-125.pdf
jimmaswell 2y ago
For one thing, automatic enforcement is imperfect, and people who can't afford to miss work to go to court will be disproportionately impacted by false positives. More importantly, this kind of infrastructure as a whole is dangerous to put in the hands of the government. Next election cycle it could be put to use for purposes you certainly don't agree with. The government rarely gives any power back that it's given.
- spankalee 2y ago
  I don't personally know of false-positive rates, but I know you can contest automated tickets, and I wouldn't assume that the false-positive rate for cameras is actually worse than for human police. One thing that is true though, is that traffic fatalities are higher in poorer communities that tend to have less enforcement. Putting red light and speeding cameras in those areas will disproportionately save lives. Regarding the danger of it all - I think armed police are more dangerous.
  - oooyay 2y ago
    The best way I can describe the courts setup around automated red light cameras is as a kangaroo court. They have very little oversight, the owner of the vehicle gets ticketed regardless of the driver, and the fines are fairly high (depending on where you live). The fine tends to be some kind of civil penalty, but it also has the ability to block your drivers license renewal. Yes, it takes the cop out of the equation, but it also takes accountability out of the equation as well. There's also the fact that red light cameras just flat out don't improve safety, but they do increase municipal profits. The only reason they ever got installed over bumps and road barriers is due to lobbying: https://web.archive.org/web/20110526113001/http://www.motorists.org/red-light-cameras/objections https://web.archive.org/web/20110526113001/http://www.motori... Additionally, you got the point and missed the mark about traffic fatalities and poorer communities: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2590198222001567 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S259019822... The highlights, if you don't want to read the whole thing: Car ownership Lower-income households may be more likely to drive older cars with fewer safety features. Road design Poorer neighborhoods may have more high-speed roads, and fewer basic traffic safety measures like streetlights, crosswalks, and sidewalks. Systemic patterns Disinvestment and displacement may favor car owners and road expansions over community safety.
xscott 2y ago
> So I strongly support red light and speed cameras, traffic calming, and physical pedestrian and bike barriers. That's because you (naively) don't think it will be abused. You can easily find articles and news reports where they report shortening the yellow lights so that the cameras were profitable. https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=shortened+yellow+light+to+pay+for+red+light+camera&ia=web https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=shortened+yellow+light+to+p...
- coffeecloud 2y ago
  Why is the solution to the abuse "don't use traffic cameras" instead of "hold people accountable for shortening yellow lights"?
  - paulmd 2y ago
    because people don’t disclose when they’re acting nefariously, and there are no automated systems monitoring that, so you’ve got an uphill battle to prove that it even exists as a problem let alone that someone did it intentionally, etc. in short: because of the presumption of good faith and innocence on the part of the ticketing authority (and especially their agents, once it’s inevitably privatized etc)
  - yulingar5 2y ago
    [flagged]
freitzkriesler2 2y ago
"if you have nothing to hide you have nothing to worry about." People like you are why we have the current post 9/11 police state.
- spankalee 2y ago
  Sorry, you shouldn't get to endanger everyone around you with impunity.
  - gruez 2y ago
    You use an encrypted chat app? "Sorry, you shouldn't get to endanger everyone around you with impunity."
    - spankalee 2y ago
      40,000 people a year aren't dying from chat apps, and driving is a public activity done on public roads, unlike chatting. The analogy doesn't hold at all.
      - gruez 2y ago
        >40,000 people a year aren't dying from chat apps I'm sure you can get somewhere close to that amount of you include all the violence committed by gangs/organized criminals, and include indirect deaths like drug overdose or whatever. >and driving is a public activity done on public roads, unlike chatting. Fine, how about having your movements in public published for all to see
more_corn 2y ago
I just got a super annoying ticket for going a reasonable speed (30) in a spot with an unreasonable limit (20mph) pretty sure the automatic enforcement is about revenue not safety.
- spankalee 2y ago
  The solution to bad rules isn't to not enforce rules, but to change the bad rules.
chrismcb 2y ago
Enforcing traffic laws are good. Automating that is bad. Who is to say what the sure limit is? My car has sign recognition. There is some construction and the freeway drops to 35 mph. There is a sign that says that. But at the exact same place is an off ramp to another freeway. Speedlimit is greater then 35 mph, but my car thought it was 35 because it saw the sign. Sure it is an edge case, but there are a lot of edge cases. Automatic law enforcement is a bane on society. It is there to increase revenue, not to make the roads safer.

bigthymer 2y ago

Maybe a better middle ground is that other people can record and report you instead of being forced to report yourself. This way, people can freely drive how they want so long as they are respectful of others around them.

JumpCrisscross 2y ago
> better middle ground is that other people can record and report you instead of being forced to report yourself That’s what this is. The patent is about reporting other cars. The title is clickbait.
- buildbot 2y ago
  Do you want to live an a semi-automated panopticon of your peers? I really don’t!
  - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
    > Do you want to live an a semi-automated panopticon of your peers? Within the context of speeding and the driver having control over when the report is sent in, I think the safety gains are worth the trade-off.
    - buildbot 2y ago
      If it’s manually reviewed, then that sounds much more palatable. Basically a dash cam with a submit the cops button, sure. Automation of this is very dystopian however.
    - Dylan16807 2y ago
      The safety gains for minor speeding are very small, and if it's under driver control then it will very often be targeted maliciously.

chank 2y ago

> Enforcing traffic laws is good, actually. Automated enforcement is even better so that we don't need to use armed police and can enforce consistently. We don't use armed police to enforce traffic laws. Police mainly monitor traffic as a revenue device. It's already been proven that monitoring traffic and automating fines in fact promotes reckless driving and causes more accidents than it stops.

jimmaswell 2y ago
They are all armed in the US at least.
- chank 2y ago
  Do they really stop you at gun-point to get you to pull over? Didn't think so. Of course police are armed. You're taking the comment to literally.
  - jimmaswell 2y ago
    I took it exactly as anyone who understands English would take it. Try communicating better next time.
    - chank 2y ago
      Nah. Stop taking everything you read on the internet so literally.
spankalee 2y ago
> We don't use armed police to enforce traffic laws. In what world? In the US "manual" traffic enforcement is almost exclusively done by armed police and sheriffs. Unarmed civilian traffic enforcement is only done in Berkeley, CA, and a town in Minnesota, afaik. > It's already been proven that monitoring traffic and automating fines in fact promotes reckless driving and causes more accidents than it stops. Do you have a citation for that? There are numerous studies that show significant drops in accident rates in areas with red light cameras. On the order of 10-23%! - https://tti.tamu.edu/researcher/tti-study-underscores-safety-benefits-of-red-light-cameras/ https://tti.tamu.edu/researcher/tti-study-underscores-safety... - https://information.auditor.ca.gov/pdfs/reports/2001-125.pdf https://information.auditor.ca.gov/pdfs/reports/2001-125.pdf

jimmaswell 2y ago

For one thing, automatic enforcement is imperfect, and people who can't afford to miss work to go to court will be disproportionately impacted by false positives. More importantly, this kind of infrastructure as a whole is dangerous to put in the hands of the government. Next election cycle it could be put to use for purposes you certainly don't agree with. The government rarely gives any power back that it's given.

spankalee 2y ago
I don't personally know of false-positive rates, but I know you can contest automated tickets, and I wouldn't assume that the false-positive rate for cameras is actually worse than for human police. One thing that is true though, is that traffic fatalities are higher in poorer communities that tend to have less enforcement. Putting red light and speeding cameras in those areas will disproportionately save lives. Regarding the danger of it all - I think armed police are more dangerous.
- oooyay 2y ago
  The best way I can describe the courts setup around automated red light cameras is as a kangaroo court. They have very little oversight, the owner of the vehicle gets ticketed regardless of the driver, and the fines are fairly high (depending on where you live). The fine tends to be some kind of civil penalty, but it also has the ability to block your drivers license renewal. Yes, it takes the cop out of the equation, but it also takes accountability out of the equation as well. There's also the fact that red light cameras just flat out don't improve safety, but they do increase municipal profits. The only reason they ever got installed over bumps and road barriers is due to lobbying: https://web.archive.org/web/20110526113001/http://www.motorists.org/red-light-cameras/objections https://web.archive.org/web/20110526113001/http://www.motori... Additionally, you got the point and missed the mark about traffic fatalities and poorer communities: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2590198222001567 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S259019822... The highlights, if you don't want to read the whole thing: Car ownership Lower-income households may be more likely to drive older cars with fewer safety features. Road design Poorer neighborhoods may have more high-speed roads, and fewer basic traffic safety measures like streetlights, crosswalks, and sidewalks. Systemic patterns Disinvestment and displacement may favor car owners and road expansions over community safety.

xscott 2y ago

> So I strongly support red light and speed cameras, traffic calming, and physical pedestrian and bike barriers. That's because you (naively) don't think it will be abused. You can easily find articles and news reports where they report shortening the yellow lights so that the cameras were profitable. https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=shortened+yellow+light+to+pay+for+red+light+camera&ia=web https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=shortened+yellow+light+to+p...

coffeecloud 2y ago
Why is the solution to the abuse "don't use traffic cameras" instead of "hold people accountable for shortening yellow lights"?
- paulmd 2y ago
  because people don’t disclose when they’re acting nefariously, and there are no automated systems monitoring that, so you’ve got an uphill battle to prove that it even exists as a problem let alone that someone did it intentionally, etc. in short: because of the presumption of good faith and innocence on the part of the ticketing authority (and especially their agents, once it’s inevitably privatized etc)
- yulingar5 2y ago
  [flagged]

freitzkriesler2 2y ago

"if you have nothing to hide you have nothing to worry about." People like you are why we have the current post 9/11 police state.

spankalee 2y ago
Sorry, you shouldn't get to endanger everyone around you with impunity.
- gruez 2y ago
  You use an encrypted chat app? "Sorry, you shouldn't get to endanger everyone around you with impunity."
  - spankalee 2y ago
    40,000 people a year aren't dying from chat apps, and driving is a public activity done on public roads, unlike chatting. The analogy doesn't hold at all.
    - gruez 2y ago
      >40,000 people a year aren't dying from chat apps I'm sure you can get somewhere close to that amount of you include all the violence committed by gangs/organized criminals, and include indirect deaths like drug overdose or whatever. >and driving is a public activity done on public roads, unlike chatting. Fine, how about having your movements in public published for all to see

more_corn 2y ago

I just got a super annoying ticket for going a reasonable speed (30) in a spot with an unreasonable limit (20mph) pretty sure the automatic enforcement is about revenue not safety.

spankalee 2y ago
The solution to bad rules isn't to not enforce rules, but to change the bad rules.

chrismcb 2y ago

Enforcing traffic laws are good. Automating that is bad. Who is to say what the sure limit is? My car has sign recognition. There is some construction and the freeway drops to 35 mph. There is a sign that says that. But at the exact same place is an off ramp to another freeway. Speedlimit is greater then 35 mph, but my car thought it was 35 because it saw the sign. Sure it is an edge case, but there are a lot of edge cases. Automatic law enforcement is a bane on society. It is there to increase revenue, not to make the roads safer.