5 ms·

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

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.
- gruez 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). I'm not sure how this is a kangaroo court. If the machines are generally known to be working correctly, and have an up to date calibration certificate, it makes sense that you can't dispute the validity of the evidence. It's not any different than limiting the avenues of appeal for breathalyzer results in DUI cases. Otherwise, the courts would swamped with people trying to drag out the case by doing the same appeal process over and over again. The fact that the owner gets penalized rather than the driver is more sketchy, but if the owner authorized someone else to use his car, why shouldn't he be on the hook for infractions? For instance, you lent your car to someone else and it got towed, do you think it's acceptable to use the "you can't prove I did the parking/driving" excuse to get off of it?
  - ozgrakkurt 2y ago
    Not sure what you are arguing here, people should be penalized without justice and there shouldn’t be accountability on the part of the blaming party because these people will block the court if they have a chance? Are you reinventing the law?
    - gruez 2y ago
      I'm not sure where the "penalized without justice and there shouldn’t be accountability on the part of the blaming party " is coming from. At least where I live if you get such a ticket you can always dispute the ticket in court, although you'll be rarely successful because the cops/government has done this enough times that the usual excuses (eg. "the machine isn't reliable!") doesn't work.
  - oooyay 2y ago
    Ref: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kangaroo_court https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kangaroo_court > A kangaroo court may ignore due process and come to a predetermined conclusion. Ref: https://www.cnet.com/science/tickets-issued-due-to-red-light-cameras-are-illegal-says-florida-court/ https://www.cnet.com/science/tickets-issued-due-to-red-light... > The City is not authorized to delegate police power by entering into a contract that allows a private vendor to screen data and decide whether a violation has occurred before sending that data to a traffic infraction enforcement officer to use as the basis for authorizing a citation. This is generally how all of them work and that is why you go to civil court to fight a civil penalty if you appeal the ticket. That is a de facto kangaroo court when the consequence can overlap with drivers license revocation for a civil matter.
    - gruez 2y ago
      >This is generally how all of them work Source? At least in my jurisdiction they're reviewed by police officers. A recent story[1] about red light cameras work in a town in Florida also describes something similar. Moreover, while delegating ticket issuing powers to a private company might come with procedural issues and raise questions about impartiality, it's hardly enough reason to call it a "kangaroo court" if you're able to dispute it in court. That's the case for both my local jurisdiction and the florida town mentioned in the story. That's not to say that there aren't any red light camera kangaroo courts out there, or even that most of them aren't, but there's no reason why red light cameras are "kangaroo courts" in and of themselves. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40910776 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40910776
cherry_tree 2y ago
> and I wouldn't assume that the false-positive rate for cameras is actually worse than for human police. Seems like a strange assumption. A 24/7 camera system automating tickets will produce infinitely more infractions than any human, leading to infinitely more false positives.
- defrost 2y ago
  Would that be aleph-null infinite or higher? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aleph_number https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aleph_number Regardless, the challenge is to implement a robust system that allows for and streamlines appeals. Here in our jurisdiction traffic infringements are issued with a clear good resolution image of an alleged infraction, a link to view raw data on police servers, and fast means to pay and a choice to lodge an appeal. To appeal means full raw evidence can be viewed in person, frames before and after event can be seen, and individuals can challenge equipment calibration or assert they were not driving or that the plates were on wrong vehicle (stolen vehicle ID), etc. Appeals have been won on the grounds that "other events" caused infraction making it reasonable, that vehicle was incorrectly ID'd, that another person was driving at time, etc. Technical nerds have even won appeals by arguing that radar gear wasn't calibrated and angle of setup made accurate reading impossible with the margin of error claimed.
  - cherry_tree 2y ago
    > the challenge is to implement a robust system that allows for and streamlines appeals. The challenge is how do we get people to not commit infractions. Any other goal creates perverse outcomes. Automating those other goals creates even worse outcomes.
    - defrost 2y ago
      There is no such solution that doesn't in the process eliminate free will, given the ability to speed (or drive the wrong way, turn against signal, etc) some will speed (or otherwise infract) to some degree or another. A well implemented and fair system that catches a proportion of speeders will result in fewer speeders overall. The more that pressure to catch them all increases the more unrest and pushback is provoked. At some point there's an acceptable comprimise between the public and the system employed by the public to improve order on public assets. Or you can go full autocracy if you wish. Most prefer not to.

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.

gruez 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). I'm not sure how this is a kangaroo court. If the machines are generally known to be working correctly, and have an up to date calibration certificate, it makes sense that you can't dispute the validity of the evidence. It's not any different than limiting the avenues of appeal for breathalyzer results in DUI cases. Otherwise, the courts would swamped with people trying to drag out the case by doing the same appeal process over and over again. The fact that the owner gets penalized rather than the driver is more sketchy, but if the owner authorized someone else to use his car, why shouldn't he be on the hook for infractions? For instance, you lent your car to someone else and it got towed, do you think it's acceptable to use the "you can't prove I did the parking/driving" excuse to get off of it?
- ozgrakkurt 2y ago
  Not sure what you are arguing here, people should be penalized without justice and there shouldn’t be accountability on the part of the blaming party because these people will block the court if they have a chance? Are you reinventing the law?
  - gruez 2y ago
    I'm not sure where the "penalized without justice and there shouldn’t be accountability on the part of the blaming party " is coming from. At least where I live if you get such a ticket you can always dispute the ticket in court, although you'll be rarely successful because the cops/government has done this enough times that the usual excuses (eg. "the machine isn't reliable!") doesn't work.
- oooyay 2y ago
  Ref: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kangaroo_court https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kangaroo_court > A kangaroo court may ignore due process and come to a predetermined conclusion. Ref: https://www.cnet.com/science/tickets-issued-due-to-red-light-cameras-are-illegal-says-florida-court/ https://www.cnet.com/science/tickets-issued-due-to-red-light... > The City is not authorized to delegate police power by entering into a contract that allows a private vendor to screen data and decide whether a violation has occurred before sending that data to a traffic infraction enforcement officer to use as the basis for authorizing a citation. This is generally how all of them work and that is why you go to civil court to fight a civil penalty if you appeal the ticket. That is a de facto kangaroo court when the consequence can overlap with drivers license revocation for a civil matter.
  - gruez 2y ago
    >This is generally how all of them work Source? At least in my jurisdiction they're reviewed by police officers. A recent story[1] about red light cameras work in a town in Florida also describes something similar. Moreover, while delegating ticket issuing powers to a private company might come with procedural issues and raise questions about impartiality, it's hardly enough reason to call it a "kangaroo court" if you're able to dispute it in court. That's the case for both my local jurisdiction and the florida town mentioned in the story. That's not to say that there aren't any red light camera kangaroo courts out there, or even that most of them aren't, but there's no reason why red light cameras are "kangaroo courts" in and of themselves. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40910776 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40910776

cherry_tree 2y ago

> and I wouldn't assume that the false-positive rate for cameras is actually worse than for human police. Seems like a strange assumption. A 24/7 camera system automating tickets will produce infinitely more infractions than any human, leading to infinitely more false positives.

defrost 2y ago
Would that be aleph-null infinite or higher? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aleph_number https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aleph_number Regardless, the challenge is to implement a robust system that allows for and streamlines appeals. Here in our jurisdiction traffic infringements are issued with a clear good resolution image of an alleged infraction, a link to view raw data on police servers, and fast means to pay and a choice to lodge an appeal. To appeal means full raw evidence can be viewed in person, frames before and after event can be seen, and individuals can challenge equipment calibration or assert they were not driving or that the plates were on wrong vehicle (stolen vehicle ID), etc. Appeals have been won on the grounds that "other events" caused infraction making it reasonable, that vehicle was incorrectly ID'd, that another person was driving at time, etc. Technical nerds have even won appeals by arguing that radar gear wasn't calibrated and angle of setup made accurate reading impossible with the margin of error claimed.
- cherry_tree 2y ago
  > the challenge is to implement a robust system that allows for and streamlines appeals. The challenge is how do we get people to not commit infractions. Any other goal creates perverse outcomes. Automating those other goals creates even worse outcomes.
  - defrost 2y ago
    There is no such solution that doesn't in the process eliminate free will, given the ability to speed (or drive the wrong way, turn against signal, etc) some will speed (or otherwise infract) to some degree or another. A well implemented and fair system that catches a proportion of speeders will result in fewer speeders overall. The more that pressure to catch them all increases the more unrest and pushback is provoked. At some point there's an acceptable comprimise between the public and the system employed by the public to improve order on public assets. Or you can go full autocracy if you wish. Most prefer not to.