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[–] 5 points 10 months ago (3 children)

The only purpose of law enforcement traffic cameras is to generate revenue. The people operating the cameras take roughly half of the revenue, with the other half being divided up between your local police and other local departments they might say they are supporting (like road crews fixing potholes and the like). But, generally these things are set up to "trap" people and to extort money from them.

Red light cameras, in particular, have been proven to adjust the timing of lights, giving people less time to get through a light and create more stressful traffic patterns. This does two things. One, it creates red-light violations that would not exist without the camera (since the camera slowed down the yellow light timing) and it causes accidents as people brake early to avoid the fine, get rear-ended by people behind them expecting to make the light, and potentially pushing them into traffic causing further damage. That's why a lot of cities have gotten rid of them. The money they were making wasn't worth it, and they were paying scummy people to make their streets less safe!

The more safe solution is to fix what is congesting traffic in the first place. Roundabouts in place of intersections are a nice, short-term solution. Better public transportation is better.

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  • [–] 2 points 10 months ago (1 child)

    Just one correction: the cameras aren't changing light timings. It's the city changing them, often in violation of the state's transportation code, to generate more revenue.

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  • [–] 2 points 9 months ago

    Cameras went up all over the Seattle area and last I checked... Deaths on the road increased.

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  • [–] 2 points 9 months ago

    US/west manufacturing consent for more surveillance. We will see more of these papers 'approving' certain aspects of US surveillance..

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  • [–] 3 points 10 months ago

    The fines should be adjusted by wealth, otherwise it doesn't dissincentivise the wealthy from speeding...

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  • 2 comments in c/fuckcars@lemmy.world view that post
    [–] 5 points 11 months ago (1 child)

    That makes sense.

    I personally think unequal enforcement of traffic laws is fundamentally unjust, anyway. If it's really only safe to drive 25mph, enforce that equally. Don't let it be a vector for harassing minorities.

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  • [–] 5 points 10 months ago

    The struggle here is that so much of how fast people feel safe to travel is based on the built environment - narrow roads along with other physical traffic calming measures lead to people naturally driving slower. In the US roads were over engineered to be "safe" at higher speeds for people in cars, but speed limits are much lower due to the actual uses of these roads. Poor neighborhoods are often closer to stroads and interstates (interstates have been used to destroy poor communities historically) and are less able to fight high speed traffic bullshit and advocate for meaningful traffic calming measures, they've gotten less investment in general over decades.

    It's a problem my city is about to face - the city installed speed ticket cameras this year and took steps to distribute them equitably to not specifically target poor neighborhoods, but based on the inequitable nature of the built environment the traffic cameras in the poor and minority areas will issue a lot more tickets.

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  • 2 comments in c/science@lemmy.world view that post
    [–] 4 points 11 months ago* (1 child)

    analysis finds that cameras lead to persistent and sustained reductions in crashes.

    You should have put that in the title.

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