Speed cameras A deterrent or a cash cow?

[VictorCharlie]

A few years ago we had a lot of them in urban areas but when citizens started bringing them up at city/county meetings it became clear it was not meant as a deterrent but rather a means to raise revenue. Compound that with people realizing that the "ticket" was not an actual court ordered fine and could be ignored the legal challenges pretty much finished it off. Thankfully we aren't so much a fascist nation that we couldn't throw off this big brother racket.

[Dia bando]

Trouble is with a speeding fine over here, comes 3 points if you accumulate 12 point in a 3 year period
you are banned off the road, depending on the of offense you may have to retake your driving test.
You may have to pass a advance driving test, to get back on the road.

[Andre]

Yeah we got the points off thing too. Around schools times in school zones its 40 kilometers or about 15 mph now thats a good thing.

Cops should sit there all morning and make certain but they dont, they are at the front of the freeway getting dudes doing 110 instead of 100.

Meanwhile the odd chick in a big four wheel drive blasts through the school crossing zone looking at herself in the mirror and gets away with it.

Im all for spraying the lenses and writing warning signs. Ive put signs up the bend before the cops once, years ago, time to start again .

[0james0]

100% there to make money.

Just like adding tax to alcohol is supposed to act as a deterrent. Blatant lies.

There are 3 relatively new things on the road that annoy me. Speed camera I have come to accept and avoid, these annoy the fuckwich out of me:

Average Speed Cameras
They clock your number plate using one of many cameras, then once you have left the final camera, they average your speed and fine you if it was over the limit. This means people crawling along perfectly good straights on dual carriage ways.

Bus Lane Cameras
If you should stray into a bus lane, even if its empty, is safe to do so and follows the natural racing line to where you want to go. Bam! Fine in the post. Even if you are helping to cause a jam in the lane you are, exiting into the empty stretch of road (which if everyone could do it there wouldn't be half as much traffic) you still get fined. It's not as if buses are hard to spot before you nip in the lane quickly to get to a junction shortly up the road.

Camera Cars
These little fuckers drive around with a camera on top. They scan and snap and catch loads of people. Bus bays, yellows etc. all without stoping. Drive and snap! Bastards!

Ones like this

[Andre]

I think a five foot piece of pipe swung would remove that camera clean off that car. Or spray paint the lenses .

We havent got them here yet.

[greynotsoold]

Years ago I read an article about them in the LA Times, the red-light cameras. They started out putting them at intersections that had either a lot of crashes due to people running red lights, tickets, or complaints. Now, the company that monitors these cameras charges a pretty substantial fee, and the fee went up as the city added more cameras.
But, at first, they were giving out a lot of tickets so it was a profitable venture. And they worked- fewer crashes, fewer people running red lights, which meant fewer tickets being given out. But the monitoring fee remained the same, so it was now a losing proposition.
So the city started shortening the length of the amber light...thus encouraging people to run red lights, thereby increasing the likelihood of crashes and smashed pedestrians. All to generate more revenue.

[Andre]

Years ago I read an article about them in the LA Times, the red-light cameras. They started out putting them at intersections that had either a lot of crashes due to people running red lights, tickets, or complaints. Now, the company that monitors these cameras charges a pretty substantial fee, and the fee went up as the city added more cameras.
But, at first, they were giving out a lot of tickets so it was a profitable venture. And they worked- fewer crashes, fewer people running red lights, which meant fewer tickets being given out. But the monitoring fee remained the same, so it was now a losing proposition.
So the city started shortening the length of the amber light...thus encouraging people to run red lights, thereby increasing the likelihood of crashes and smashed pedestrians. All to generate more revenue.

Assholes,pack of rotten assholes!