Ford will have blood on his hands over this BS
post
Put in dynamic speed bumps that come up when the driver is going too fast but that can lay flat for emergency vehicles
People drive the speed they feel is safe. Occassionally, they read speed limit signs. Occassionally, they drive slower after a ticket. But mostly: people drive the speed they feel is safe.
If you want people to drive slower, it needs to feel (not be, just feel) unsafe to drive fast.
This is the only correct answer here. You want drivers to slow down? Stop building big, wide, straight roads. You need to add curves with trees and barriers, narrow the lanes, and (gasp!) even remove some lanes. Everything else is theatre.
The city of Ottawa study shows that drivers also slow down when traffic laws are enforced.
We should definitely build safer roads, but while we're waiting for that, we should bring back speed cameras.
Enforcement is the issue. If you see everyday on your drive to work dozens of vehicles using the HOV lane when they aren't allowed to, and only ever see a cop pulling someone over once every 4-6 months, how often before you also start using the HOV lane when you aren't supposed to?
No, we need to determine if the speeders are safe enough drivers at the speeds they are driving.
This is sarcasm, right? It's hard to tell sometimes.
As a former speeder (changed only because GAS COSTS, NOT TRAFFIC TICKETS, CAUCASIAN MALE & WANTING TO BECOME A BICYCLIST, FOR THE ENVIRONMENT)! & who never caused a accident, though out of anger with another driver & in the zone, for at least 5-blocks in nearby city, passed people like crazy, along with the other driver ahead me (passed me first). I say hell no, who
The stats from the city of Ottawa show that drivers slow down when speed regulations are enforced.
I fully support improving roads to make them safer. In the meantime, enforcement of existing rules seems like a low cost alternative.
Problem is people aren't good judges of what is, in fact, a safe speed.
Edit: the second problem is that making it feel unsafe while not being unsafe (or unfeasible to maintain or prohibitively costly) leaves very few options.
Design speed > Posted speed. If you want people to slow down, narrow the streets so they’re worried about losing a side mirror.
Eliminating speed cameras is tacit approval of speeding.
Building wide straight lanes with huge shoulders is tacit approval of speeding.
I'd say it's an explicit approval of speeding, but I'm splitting hairs.
My favourite part is that our tax dollars are going towards radio ads about this ON gov't bs /s
“Why are you speeding in a school zone?”
Because people are selfish assholes. Bring back the damn cameras.
Bingo, &/getting a affordable speeding ticket does not do that.
Plus, if you live in a community with too many drivers, police bother minorities communities to keep the communities in line & jobs moving farther away from you (both happened in my community) making is so you can speed to make on time to a job or obey the rules & make it to work late, risking firing, what are you going to do?
Plus is it fair to blame you?
They botched the rollout.
When you introduce new technology you have to get buy in from the users. That means transparency (open publishing of error models, printing speed error on the tickets issued), warning periods for a driver during which tickets are issued but without payment required (eg first ticket is a warning), and there should have been regulations against municipalities putting them everywhere, even in places that were nowhere near schools or other CSZ buildings.
If they had put in a bit of care, they could have built goodwill without giving the impression right out of the gate that it was a cash grab and if you contest it or ask for details, it's "trust me bro".
The only effect zone for these cameras is the very small area they are visible for. By all means, leave them up, but to think that cameras slow drivers down for anything more than a few meters is disingenuous. Getting a big justice boner over them is the silliest thing imaginable.
Traffic calming measures, actual enforcement with real consequences like license loss, those things slow people down. Cameras are just theatre and revenue models.
Studies done up and down streets and in areas with rotating speed cameras show a long lasting impact in the areas most likely to have children crossing the roads.
Its not a fix-all solution for everywhere, but its sure as shit better than what we have, and the revenue from them was legislated to be used TO create those traffic calming measures you want.
We never had rotating speed cameras anywhere near where I live. I've seen them in Quebec though.
- Put up speed cameras. Remove cops.
- Take down speed cameras. Don't put cops back .
- With no cops, people drive like dicks
- Politicians blame lack speed cameras instead of lack of any enforcement, but it has nothing to do with the big speed camera cash grab.
Anticipate porky speed cameras coming back.
I did not notice a drop in officer presence or radar traps in my area while cameras were operating. Sometimes I would even see radar not far from the camera. If anything the culture of cops won't pull you for 20 over or less is the bigger issue.
No city in North America has ever "removed cops" or even reduced their budget.... I mean I fucking WISH we reduced cops but that's basically a made up fact you just made up.
You need to design slower roads for people to drive slower.
Speed limits are dumb. Don't ask, FORCE people to slow down.
Exactly. I got a ticket for Huntclub west of Conroy back in August. When it turns to a 60 zone nothing changes and nothing indicates that you should pay that “60” sign, which look an awful lot like an “80” sign, any extra attention. Like, a 60 zone with merge lanes?!? And a central median two lanes wide?!?
I asked for a trial and, if needed, I’m straight-up going to say that I don’t see why I need to take this seriously if the city won’t even do that. Of course, they’ve completely fucked up getting me that trial so that time may never come.
For context: I’m a huge advocate for walkable cities, public transit, etc. I’m not against the slower speed limit, I’m against the stupidity.
The principle of the trial or the principle of telling them to stuff it? Because I know that’s not a way out, but if I’m stuck with it I’m still happy to tell them to fuck off if it won’t cost anything extra.
I’m not gunna cuss ‘em out, and it’s still poignant. Besides, people are individuals no matter which department they work in so it’s not like I’d be ranting at a machine that literally cannot accept outside information.
Though, in this case it would be a question of the reception of punishment. Why should I be punished for something that those punishing me don’t even seem to care about or take seriously?
You do that, and people will complain about the traffic.
The best way to reduce car crashes is to build public transit infrastructure.
But that's about as likely as repaving all the roads to force drivers to slow down.
The dirty secret of speed limits is that they're often just the engineer's best guess as to how fast the drivers who use the road will go, on average. Because they know that speed limits are useless for actual regulation.
Yup, they estimate the 80th percentile.
Basically, civil engineers estimate the top speed that 80% of drivers will be comfortable going on the road. And that estimated number is now the speed limit. That’s also the number they use to time traffic lights for ideal flow. That means 20% will naturally feel like it’s too slow, and will naturally end up speeding unless they constantly watch their speedometer. Because the number is estimated off of comfort, and 20% of drivers naturally feel comfortable going faster… And anyone below that 80th percentile will end up causing congestion as they crawl along below the limit and cause traffic lights to stop drivers who otherwise would have had a green.
And it’s worth noting that, in many cases, very little actual math or real world data goes into that estimation. It frequently boils down to a civil engineer basically going “well other streets like this one have a speed limit of 40, so 40 will probably work for this one too…” Civil engineering does have a lot of math for traffic, (for instance, turn lane length is determined by how many vehicles they expect to use it per hour,) but speed limits are often just a best-guess situation.
That's because driving the speed limit on those roads feels downright painful and the speed cameras were just a bandaid solution to begin with. You want people to slow down? Change the road design so it doesn't feel like driving on a highway. Narrow it down and make it windy. People will naturally slow down and will feel comfortable doing it too.
Eliminating speed cameras is tacit approval of speeding.
It's a little insane to me how speeding is handled.
If it's a serious law, it should be uniformly enforced. None of this "cops pull over some people" nonsense that opens the door to harassment and quotas.
Furthermore, fines need to scale with wealth.
“If it’s a serious law, it should be uniformly enforced. None of this “cops pull over some people” nonsense that opens the door to harassment and quotas.”
I agree, but I disagree with speed limits all together, or better put not also deciding whether the speeders are good enough at those speeds to be safe!
“Furthermore, fines need to scale with wealth.”
I love that when I heard that a EU country is already doing this.
It must become illegal to use cameras in any public setting, for any reason(s), PRIVACY & ELIMINATE THE PROFITS MOTIVE, FOR MOVED-UP TO RICH-SUPER RICH ECONOMIC CLASSES/OWNERS.
all 3 comments