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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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"The D.C. police department has spent nearly $74 million in overtime payments to have officers sit in cars monitoring the city’s “automated” photo radar guns, records show. The money spent represents almost four-fifths of the revenues earned from the tickets the radar guns are issuing, records obtained under the Freedom of Information Act show." ‘Automated’ radar racked up $74M in police OT (washingtonexaminer.com)
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Replying to: steve_ (May 04, 2009 11:50 pm) People in DC not very good at electing their leaders who then presumably appoint officials in police department. Didn't people reelect Mayor Berry "after" he spent time in jail for drug conviction? No reason that stand-alone photo radar cannot be checked and calibrated regularly whether daily, weekly, etc. Would think that with today's technology, a photo radar unit would be linked by telphone or data line (hard wire, wireless) to a central monitoring and control station that would continuously check functionality, settings, etc. DC police department inept. Betcha that the police authority in town of the Duke Boys would be smarter in using tech than DC. With proper maintenance and calibration, and leeway to give 11 mph to speeders, no reason why photo radar speed detection should not be used. If any driver cannot keep vehicle within 10 mph of the Limit, then the driver is inept and stupid and should have his/her license revoked. In Illinois, the Illinois Tollway system set up I-Pass years ago to allow paying of tolls by drivers/owners having transponders mounted on windsheilds of vehicles. Anyone going through these toll stations without a transponder has photos of their vehicle and license plate taken and a fine is then sent in mail. This has eliminated stopping at toll stations to deposit exact change in hopper lanes or at manned booth lanes. The I-Pass system no doubt eliminated many jobs of toll takers and probably a lot of overtime for these takers on busy weekends and holidays. |
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This is a good representation of how people who enjoy obeying traffic laws feel about those who do these things mentioned in the column. You'll almost NEVER find some who is opposed to photo radar thinking like this fellow does: Drive Like a Grownup Phone booths are immobile, so your car isn’t one. Hang up and drive. Yes, even though you’re such a fabulous driver, even though you are so important. Don’t tailgate me on the highway. It makes me adhere to the posted speed limit. If I’m in the center lane flowing with traffic and you come up and try to pass me on the right, you’ll find I’ve moved into the right lane. It’s not my job to police your speed—please drive faster than I do, so the cops won’t see me—but pass me on the left. Don’t tailgate me on surface roads, or I’ll want to make a compleeeeeeeeeeete stop at each stop sign. If you don’t back off, I’ll take care to let people in ahead of me from side streets and parking lots, and you’ll have to wait. Time is precious for all of us alike. Rev your engine all you want, it’s your gas money and piston rings; I won’t menace or mow down pedestrians or block traffic to complete my left turn. I’m waiting behind pedestrians. You’re waiting behind me. We’ll all eventually get through, and the sun will rise in the East tomorrow. A yellow traffic light means “clear the intersection if you’re in it; don’t enter it if you can safely stop”. Not “you’ve waited long enough”, not “speed up and dash through”. Pay attention to what’s going on up ahead. I can almost always stop safely at a yellow, even in an old car with small drum brakes. If you let that upset you, it’s your blood pressure. If you want my lane in front of me, use your indicator and the space in front of me is yours as soon as I can safely cede it. Otherwise I don’t know what you want, and you’ll have a difficult time finding lane space in front of me. Synchronised traffic lights are wonderful. You sail along; lights turn green right in front of you. Trying to buck the system is dumb. By rabbiting away from a green, you’ll only get stopped by a red in exactly one block, and every block thereafter. I passed you long ago; I accelerated moderately to the speed limit at the first light and have caught every green since. You may notice my speed drifting down midblock. It’s humiliating to show off your prowess at vengeful overtaking only to have to show off your prowess at phone dropping, coffee spilling, and stopping short at the red light you suddenly see. It was about to turn yellow when I saw it. My vehicles are in excellent condition but sometimes develop intermittent problems that are a real bitch to trace. When less than a second elapses between a light going green and a honk from behind, sometimes my vehicle stalls and won’t restart until after the light’s red. It’s in the ignition or fuel system or somewhere else; I won’t have any time to investigate for awhile, so it’ll be best if you don’t honk. If you’re riding a bicycle at night with no light or reflector, I can’t adequately see you with my low beams, so I will have to use my high beams. They’re very powerful, and you won’t like riding into the glare. Get a light and use it. I’m not impressed with your blue or “extra white” headlight bulbs or black light covers. Nobody else is, either. And your car’s brake lights were originally red and its turn signals were originally amber because those are the colours they’re supposed to be. They’re safety devices, not toys. We’re piloting one to two tons of steel down the road at high speed; let’s be grownups, wanna? On the other hand, if you like those windshield nozzles with an LED, please install them. These loser beams let me know you’re a dweeb not to be trusted to drive safely. If someone flashes you—headlamps, not trench coat—it’s not a challenge for a who’s-got-the-brightest-high-beams contest; keep your damn hand off the dipswitch. There’s something wrong with your lights or how you’re (mis)using them. Burned out bulb, misaimed lamp(s), high beams in traffic, daytime running lights instead of full lights after dark . . . maybe a cop ahead. Think. Your unnecessarily loud exhaust or stereo doesn’t make you a badazz, it just makes you an azz. If you are a bored white kid from the suburbs, I’m so sorry, but borrowing mom’s Camry, driving into town and playing gangsta rap at top volume won’t change that. You listen to your stuff in your car, and I’ll listen to mine in mine. If you just cannot live without a loud exhaust system, route the pipe into your passenger compartment, which will solve—amongst others— the problem of my having to hear it. |
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Replying to: larsb (May 08, 2009 1:27 pm) I do like the blaring stereo and light comments though. I can't see how a person who was conditioned to form thoughts and opinions of their own can find "enjoyment" in blindly obeying arbitrary laws imposed by the least accountable segment of society. But I can see how some who are also conditioned to be compliant sheeple in a regressive Orwellian new world order would enjoy that.
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Replying to: larsb (May 08, 2009 1:27 pm) (It must really suck getting old enough to think that guy is funny). |
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Replying to: fintail (May 08, 2009 3:20 pm) There we go again. Stereotyping Buick drivers. I'm trying to decide if the "old" describes "Buick" or "driver." But there are lots of "young" (or "younger") Buick drivers.  Maybe getting used to old Toyota drivers as a phrase would work better. That's more what I'm finding in drivers who are inconsiderate or slower than normal.
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Replying to: imidazol97 (May 09, 2009 6:17 am)  I agree Toyota has been stealing Buick's flame in the slowpoke realm, and will continue to do so as the boomers age (roads are going to be much scarier in 25 years, if we are not in a completely thought controlled surveillance grid with all vehicle speeds 24/7 managed by a central planning grid with credentialed credible responsible public employees pushing all the buttons by then). However, Toyota taking over that ideal just means less customers for new Buicks (the only Buick driver I know within 10 years of my age drives an inherited 1994 model with a less than inspiring interior), which doesn't bode well for the survival of the brand on this continent.
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Here is a newspaper piece that should trigger some healthy debate in this fourm:  from: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/road-and-rail-transport/5300462/Speed-res- tricted-car-a-review.html Speed-restricted car: a review They said the speed-curbing technology would make it impossible to get a ticket. By David Williams Last Updated: 7:54PM BST 10 May 2009 What Transport for London did not warn me about, as I became the first journalist to test-drive the prototype car equipped with Intelligent Speed Adaptation, was the reaction of other drivers. My attempts to exceed the speed limit on a trial run in central London were, as predicted, futile. The Toyota Prius sprinted up to 30mph as I turned onto the Embankment by the former Labour party headquarters at Millbank and joined a fast-moving stream of traffic. I floored the throttle and the car whined noisily, to keep pace. But as I approached a speed camera and the speedometer jumped to 30mph, an eerie silence descended on the cabin. It was as though the car was being held back by an invisible hand. The engine stopped revving and other vehicles sailed past. Suddenly I was the lone adherent to the limit and no matter how hard I prodded the accelerator, the car refused to let me break the law. I was rewarded by the ISA screen's smiley face but a line of frustrated drivers behind, baffled by my stubborn compliance and bullying me to go faster by driving too close. It was intimidating but I resisted the impulse to hit the override button and join the headlong rush. As I continued towards Whitehall – surely the rule of law would apply here? – even a bus tooted at me; I was in his way and going too slowly. Statistics from TfL show that 58 per cent of people exceed the 30 speed limit, which must mean that 42 per cent obey it. But it felt a lot lonelier than this in the rush hour. I drove to Kennington, on the south side of the River Thames, where the council has installed 20mph zones to tame rat-run traffic. As we entered Fentiman Road the ISA screen – which had been showing 30 – blinked, flickered, and displayed 20. Again, that invisible hand embraced the car, slowing it to a speed more suited to this residential area dotted with pubs, gardens and schools. Who could fault the ISA's system's quiet, insistent logic here? And that's the point. Like most motorists I want to be law-abiding. Up until now I'd believed I was. But this clever car exposes such self-delusions. Normally I try to keep to 30mph in town but in reality I must have been doing nearer 40 as I never drive this slowly. Does ISA work? Yes. Will it catch on? That's far harder to answer. We all want traffic to slow down in our own road but it seems we want to speed along other people's – and certainly out in the countryside or along motorways. This experiment is less about the technology, more about whether the public will accept it. That is the real challenge.
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Replying to: vcheng (May 11, 2009 6:47 am) An even better idea I thought about this weekend: A camera system in a car which recognizes STOP signs and FORCES the car to come to a COMPLETE STOP when approaching a STOP ( not called a "Slow Down and Roll Through Sign, but a STOP sign ) sign.
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Replying to: larsb (May 11, 2009 7:17 am)
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