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Automotive News & Views Photo Radar
1788 messages, Last post on Nov 14, 2009 at 3:43 PM
You are in the Automotive News & Views Forum. Your Hosts are steve_ & claires
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Replying to: vcheng (Mar 06, 2009 12:58 pm) http://www.riverfronttimes.com/2008-03-05/news/red-alert-st-louis-officials-real- ly-don-t-want-you-to-know-too-much-about-those-pesky-traffic-light-cameras/4 "The industry wants a state law addressing the cameras so they can say, 'Hey, the legislature is OK with us,'" says Portwood. "But my fear is that they'll force movement of a bill that does nothing and doesn't have the checks and balances of the one I've crafted." The state representative also has a provision in his bill requiring that no fine from red-light cameras exceed $100 — including court costs — and that all the money collected goes to the local school district. "All I'm saying is that if it's really about public safety, then money should be no object," reasons Portwood. "It shouldn't matter if we spend it on the schools or whatever. But in theory, if the cameras worked as well as advertised, they'd already be coming down because there would be no revenue." --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Joe Scott speaks with the silver tongue of a criminal defense attorney — and for good reason. His Pennsylvania-based company makes and distributes PhotoBlocker, an aerosol spray that is said to make your license plate "invisible" to red-light cameras. "We're not encouraging anyone to run red lights or speed," stresses Scott. "All we're saying is that the system is rigged. It's not a level playing field. These cameras are notorious for making mistakes and police departments have been found to shorten the length of yellow lights to set traps. Under those circumstances, you have a right to protect yourself from unjust traffic tickets." PhotoBlocker leaves a glossy sheen on the license plate that reflects the flash from a camera, resulting in an overexposed image. "The law says that your license plate has to be visible, but nowhere does it say it has to be photogenic," argues Scott. "If they can't read the numbers on your license plate, they don't know who you are and they can't send you a ticket." Seven years after first crafting PhotoBlocker out of a secret recipe of shellac, varnish and sundry chemicals, Scott boasts he's sold nearly 600,000 cans of the ticket repellent. Dozens of Internet vendors sell the product for prices ranging from $19.99 to $29.99. Yet for all its popularity online, few — if any — local retailers stock it. "We do not condone it," states a matter-of-fact cashier at Advance Auto Parts in south St. Louis. Ditto the response from a clerk at a local O'Reilly Auto Parts. "We don't stock it, but I wish we did," says an employee at the AutoZone in Maplewood. "I've been looking to get some for my car. Let me know where you find it." In 2005 the Illinois General Assembly passed a law prohibiting the use of PhotoBlocker and any related products that "obstruct the visibility or electronic image recording of the license plate." But the product remains perfectly legal in Missouri. "We don't have anything on our books prohibiting it," confirms David Griffith, spokesman for the Missouri Department of Revenue. "But does it work? It sounds too good to be true," he adds. PhotoBlocker, according to Scott, has a failure rate of less than 1 percent. "If it doesn't work, why would the great state of Illinois ban PhotoBlocker?" he asks. "Illinois banning our product was the best thing in the world for us. Sales shot through the roof!" Television stations from Denver to Australia have put PhotoBlocker to the test. Most media reports conclude that the product works to some degree. We tested it out last month on the RFT Street Team machine, a garish red Mini Cooper. In doing so, it is possible we may have made a right turn on red without coming to a complete stop at the corner of Delmar and Skinker boulevards. Given that our paper's logo is plastered all over the vehicle, you'd think city officials would be able to pinpoint the perp, even if they couldn't view the plates. So far, we've yet to receive a ticket. Maybe it's in the mail. We'll keep you posted. |
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Photo Radar is a joke. It provides no safety benefits, and it INCREASES accident rates. It provides no due process, no innocense until proven guilty in a court of law, and no identification of the driver. It unfairly burdens the owner of a car to waste his or her time and money to defend a bogus ticket. All speed enforcement is a waste of taxpayer resources if you ask me, but PHOTO RADAR is particularly ridiculous. Most people drive safely and reasonably provided conditions are right. They should concentrate their efforts on UNSAFE negligent/reckless/drunk drivers, not speeders that are driving perfectly safely.
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Replying to: steve_ (Mar 06, 2009 10:52 am) Actually, that doesn't change much of anything. The governmental authority (state or local) has a clear revenue motive, and whether or not they share some of that revenue with a private company makes no difference in the shortcomings of photo enforcement. In fact, if it costs more for the government to install and operate the cameras and handle the paperwork, there might be more motivation to generate even more "tickets". In the end, the problem isn't who is running the program, the problem is the owner of the car is targeted, not the driver. |
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Replying to: andres3 (Mar 07, 2009 11:29 am) to defend a bogus ticket...........which they would not be getting if they were SIMPLY obeying the speed limit which is SO VERY EASY to do. INCREASES accident rates...completely unfounded and statistically untrue. All speed enforcement is a waste of taxpayer resources....so you are saying there should be ZERO speed enforcement in the USA? Let's make sure all the readers of the forum see this: Forum member andres3 is going on record as saying he thinks all speed enforcement is a waste of resources. From that point, the only natural following assumption is that andres3 thinks people should be able to drive as FAST as they want to, WHENEVER they want to, under ANY circumstances, and NEVER be held accountable for that action.
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Here is an interesting angle: from: http://www.motorists.org/blog/maryland-police-refuse-to-pay-speed-camera-tickets- / Maryland Police Refuse To Pay Speed Camera Tickets March 10th, 2008 Posted in Professional Courtesy, Speed Cameras Speed cameras in Montgomery County, Maryland have been ticketing motorists for quite some time now. Under their program, the tickets go to the owner of the vehicle instead of the driver. This is a common flaw in ticket camera systems across the country. Local authorities have decided that it’s acceptable to do this to avoid the hassle of tracking down the actual violators. The average motorist who receives a speed camera ticket can either fight it in court or send in a check. However, the amount of effort and time necessary to get a speed camera ticket dismissed is substantial. As a result, most drivers — even innocent ones — choose to just pay the ticket in order to avoid taking time off work to go to court. Limited court costs are a key reason why ticket camera programs are so profitable for local governments. According to the Washington Post, police in Montgomery County are bucking the trend and have decided to use their union resources to avoid paying camera tickets: Among the thousands of drivers who have been issued $40 fines after being nabbed by Montgomery County’s new speed cameras are scores of county police officers. The difference is, many of the officers are refusing to pay. The officers are following the advice of their union, which says the citations are issued not to the driver but to the vehicle’s owner — in this case, the county. So basically, they’ve decided to exploit the flaw in the system that they helped create. The article continues: That view has rankled Police Chief J. Thomas Manger and County Council Member Phil Andrews (D-Gaithersburg-Rockville), who chairs the Public Safety Committee. “You can’t have one set of laws for police officers and another one for the rest of the world,” Andrews said. Unfortunately, too often this appears to be the case, creating unnecessary tension between police officers and motorists: In recent weeks, officers have twice been photographed speeding past a camera and extending a middle finger, an act that police supervisors interpreted as a gesture of defiance. “There is no excuse for that kind of behavior,” said Andrews, who was briefed on the incidents. During the last eight months of 2007, the department’s cameras recorded 224 instances in which county police vehicles were nabbed traveling more than 10 mph over the speed limit, the department disclosed this week in response to an inquiry from The Washington Post. Of those citations, 76 were dismissed after supervisors determined that officers were responding to calls or had other valid reasons to exceed the speed limit. Nearly two-thirds of the remaining 148 fines have not been paid, including an unspecified number that remain under investigation, said Lt. Paul Starks, a police spokesman. He said the number of citations issued to police employees this year is not yet available. It will be interesting to see whether the officers will be held to same standard as normal citizens, who would most certainly face consequences if they refused to pay their tickets. Image Credit: MikeSchinkel
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While the full article can found at the British Medical Journal website at: http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/330/7487/331 what I am posting here is just the abstract that pertains to this forum as well. It certainly raises valid questions about the integrity of the reports that are used to justify the use of photo radar for increasing safety: BMJ 2005;330:331-334: "Effectiveness of speed cameras in preventing road traffic collisions and related casualties: systematic review " Objectives To assess whether speed cameras reduce road traffic collisions and related casualties. Design Systematic review. Data sources Cochrane Injuries Group Specialised Register, Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, Medline, Embase, Social Science Citation Index, TRANSPORT database, ZETOC, the internet (including websites of road safety and motoring organisations), and contact with key individuals and organisations. Main outcome measures Road traffic collisions, injuries, and deaths. Inclusion criteria Controlled trials and observational studies assessing the impact of fixed or mobile speed cameras on any of the selected outcomes. Results 14 observational studies met the inclusion criteria; no randomised controlled trials were found. Most studies were before-after studies without controls (n = 8). All but one of the studies showed effectiveness of cameras up to three years or less after their introduction; one study showed sustained longer term effects (4.6 years after introduction). Reductions in outcomes across studies ranged from 5% to 69% for collisions, 12% to 65% for injuries, and 17% to 71% for deaths in the immediate vicinity of camera sites. The reductions over wider geographical areas were of a similar order of magnitude. Conclusions Existing research consistently shows that speed cameras are an effective intervention in reducing road traffic collisions and related casualties. The level of evidence is relatively poor, however, as most studies did not have satisfactory comparison groups or adequate control for potential confounders. Controlled introduction of speed cameras with careful data collection may offer improved evidence of their effectiveness in the future. Thus, I think that this forum should be able to consider the following questions: Why are there no randomised controlled trials? Such trials are neither difficult nor unethical to carry out so why have they not been done? Is it because the results might not support the assumed merit of the speed camera? Or is the driver a soft target for revenue generation? Perhaps these trials exist but have been suppressed? After all we are talking about hundreds of millions dollars in fines and fees revenue. |
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Replying to: larsb (Mar 09, 2009 6:46 am) From that point, the only natural following assumption is that andres3 thinks people should be able to drive as FAST as they want to, WHENEVER they want to, under ANY circumstances, and NEVER be held accountable for that action. I think anyone and everyone should be allowed to drive as fast as is reasonable and safe to do so. On a clear day with high visability and nice warm sunshine, that may be 100 MPH when there are straight-aways with little to no traffic. If you are driving a Yugo, you should stay under 65 under those same conditions. If you have a Lambo, you could probably do 125 safely. You should always drive safely and prudently, depending on conditions. I'm saying most people don't need a sign with two numbers on it to tell them what that is (exception: curvy road with sharp turns). I can speak for California, since I've lived in the State for over 30 years. I find the local courts and CHP so corrupt and filled with unethical people among their ranks that it would provide MORE benefits to get rid of all of them (traffic related enforcement) than it would have negative effects. In other words, the benefits would greatly outweigh the faults to do away with traffic enforcement in California all together. The pluses outnumber the minuses. We still need law and order to enforce REAL crimes, but the way the Vehicle Code is written, and speed limits are set currently, only encourages lazy unethical behaviour among law enforcement. Frankly, I have no respect for cops in CA and I have little more for municipal courts or traffic courts. Serve and Protect? It is more like Harass & Extort than serve and protect. Is my solution to get rid of them extreme? Yes. Are the problems within those departments severe? Yes. From what I've seen, CHP officers lack good judgment and power of observation is lacking, however, Photo radar and cameras does not seem to do any better, in fact, it does worse! |
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Replying to: vcheng (Mar 09, 2009 8:12 am) Sounds like they don't like machines taking away their jobs.  And a gentle reminder - we're here to discuss photo radar, not other members. |
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Replying to: larsb (Mar 09, 2009 6:46 am) If you're going to make it a point to quote somebody, then at least have the decency to include the entire quote. Any reasonable person, reading the entire quote, would probably agree that the part of the quote you omitted would cover some speeders (ie those who are negligent or reckless). Any sane person would agree that at some point speeding does become reckless... |
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So may be THIS is why the Arizona politician's love photo radar. Now I do not care too much about what other may think in this forum, but this has to raise concerns of tempting corruption in at least my mind. http://www.thenewspaper.com/news/27/2712.asp Photo Tickets Pad Campaign Coffers of Arizona Politicians Arizona politicians have collected $36,265,795 in campaign cash from a tax on speeding tickets since 1999. A tax levied on speeding tickets funds the re-election efforts of two-thirds of Arizona's politicians and provides lawmakers with a personal financial incentive to protect controversial photo enforcement programs. In 1999, a ten percent surcharge was imposed on all traffic tickets to create the "Citizens Clean Election Fund." The fund allows politicians to avoid tedious fundraising efforts. After raising just $5 each from 220 people in a district, candidates for public office qualify for public financing money to match private expenditures. In effect, these lawmakers collect $16.50 for their campaigns each time a photo radar ticket is issued on an Arizona freeway. This adds up to big money. In 2008, traffic tickets generated $10,095,771 in revenue for the clean elections fund. Out of this amount, $7,710,739 million was disbursed to lawmakers and candidates during the primary and general elections -- an average of $72,063 each. In just the past four months, the new freeway speed camera program has already added another $3.3 million to the total amount collected for lawmakers. Over the past four election cycles, Arizona politicians collected a total of $36,265,795 in campaign cash from the tax on speeding tickets. Opponents of the state photo ticketing program are crying foul. "Photo radar pays for politicians to get elected," Shawn Dow, a volunteer for the activist group CameraFraud.com, told TheNewspaper. "Voters want the cameras gone but the politicians want them to stay since it pays for their election. This is the reason that the people believe our government is corrupt." Dow raised the election funding issue before the state House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee last Thursday while testifying against House Bill 2170. This legislation is portrayed as a repeal of former Governor Janet Napolitano's freeway photo program, but the text of the proposal actually allows freeway photo ticketing to continue against truckers and other holders of commercial vehicle licenses. Some of the biggest supporters of photo radar are recipients of significant ticket funding. "Photo-radar tickets aren't issued," state Senator Rebecca Rios (D-Apache Junction) told the Arizona Republic in February 2008. "They're earned." Rios herself earned $35,634 in campaign funds from speeding tickets last year. Other legislators appear less supportive of photo radar by introducing legislation that make minor modifications to the way programs are run. State Representative John Kavanagh (R-Fountain Hills), for example, introduced House Bill 2722 last year which would have mandated that the profits from any local jurisdiction's use of a speed camera on a state highway be directed into the Arizona Highway Patrol Fund so that it could be used to fund additional traffic ticketing details. Kavanagh has taken $156,654 in campaign funding from speeding tickets. The clean elections fund does have other sources of revenue besides traffic tickets. A $5 check-off on income tax forms generated about $6 million which was spent on "voter education" efforts directed by the Citizens Clean Elections Commission. Money left over in the fund from the off-years without elections goes into the general fund. |
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