Speed Cameras in Maryland

We don't have them, but they wouldn't bother me. I always drive the speed limit.

Tom

 

So do I. But it doesn't help. I drive the speed limit of the powertrain, which, unfortunately, rarely matches the limit posted on the roads ...

 

...believe MD have some new ones on the I495 Beltway? Those are the ones that concern me. With the construction and traffic on our side in VA, lately we go the other way around thru the MD speed cameras. I can imagine they might give out a million tickets a year. Gotta hand it to MD. What'll those *folks* think of next, to quote Mel Brooks from Blazing Saddles...or was that Slim Picken's line?
:car::car::car::car::car:

 

Oh Lord they've made it over the Altantic. Good little money earner. Just think of all the ingenious places they can hide them, snapping away to catch criminals going 2 mph over the posted speed.

You know that it has been popular here from time to time to drop an old truck tyre over them and set it alight. Either that or fill them with that expanding foam that sets rock hard. Another favourite around here is to knock them over with the rear arm of a JCB at 3am

I'm sure in a Country where firearms are still legal you'll have people taking pot shots at them too?

 

Hooligans

No avg Joe Blow on this side of the pond is far more law obedient. After all if you loose your driver license you loose means to get to job, high court costs and our fees are pretty reasonable (50$ and no driving points). But the license obscuring covers are very popular.

PS. Arizona revoked speed cameras on safety grounds after several incidents of camera operators getting shot at.

 

Speed cameras and red light cameras don't bother me at all.
I've figured out how to beat them 100-percent of the time!!!

Drive the speed limit and stop when the little light turns red.

 

I could do that in complete safety when I was driving the Xebra. No more. I'd be scared sh!tless to drive my car at the limit of its power train. (125 mph, electronically limited. 201 km/h.) I do like getting to the speed limit quickly. Never tried to time it, but on surface roads I think it takes about two seconds. On the freeway I think I can accelerate for almost 5 seconds before I reach the 70-mph limit.

As for speed cameras, they're just doing what a cop could do, except stop you, so there's no legitimate argument against them.

 

There is that argument but just you wait. Once they realise what a great revenue earner they are you'll find all sorts of nonsense to try and increase this revenue. You'll find speed limits suddenly reduced for no good reason with the smallest sign they can legally get away with. Then hide said speed camera and wait for the money to come rolling in.

It's not about safety - it's ALL about increasing revenue. And to answer the other point, we have a similar licence system to yours. We have a 12 point licence limit within a 5 year period and usually you'll get 3 to 6 points for speeding. Get 2 tickets on the same stretch of road 2 minutes apart and you could get your 12 points and lose your licence and everything that goes with that. No discretion, just black and white.

It's easy to be smug about sticking to speed limits but in a strange city at night when it's busy in a bad area and then one moment of distraction you slip 2 mph over the limit and wallop 3 point (out of 12 max) and an £80/$125 fine and an increase on your insurance. Great.

And if you want proof that they cause more accidents because people are continuously looking at their speed rather than the road, you might want to read the following;

UK Speed camera switch-off sees fewer accidents - Telegraph

Speed cameras scrapped in England but reinforced in France « UK France bikers.com

Australia NRMA welcomes speed camera removal in NSW



I do agree with red light cameras though and I also agree with Police speed checks. If you take the piss you get a ticket, you're just slightly over the limit on an empty road then you're fine.

 

It all depends on how the city government chooses to use the lights, as a true deterrent for red light runners or for revenue generation. The City of Wilmington uses them for deterrent and the funds go to the school systems.

The criteria for getting a ticket is really fair. You have to be outside of the intersection at the time the light turns red and then enter the intersection. You also have to be going above a minimum speed so if you get caught by traffic ahead and are creeping through you will not get a ticket.

The ticket comes with three different camera shots including your car being outside of the intersection with the light red, you in the middle of the intersection with the light red and a closeup of your license tags. It also gives your speed and it also gives the time in tenths of a second that the light was yellow before turning red.

Wilmington used to be the red light running capital of the world. You never ventured into intersections when the light first turned green. You always looked both ways and then eased in to the intersection.

It has stopped the red light running at intersections with the cameras. The problem is that everyone knows where the cameras are and just run the other lights without the cameras

 

From my reading of those, it's not proof that they cause more accidents... just proof that they don't necessarily prevent them. It's always rather difficult comparing those numbers too, as so many factors are involved. Weather alone can cause a large variability in the number of accidents (rain reduces visibility and increases the necessary distance to stop, ice can reduce the ability to stop, etc) from one year to the next.

Further, the one article that had actual numbers compared a period when the camera was on to one immediately following it turned off - while it certainly supports an indication that turning the camera off does not increase accidents, it doesn't tell you what affect the camera had. It's possible that the camera (and knowledge of the camera) had changed local driving patterns prior to being turned off. In other words, when it was installed, people became more aware of the risk of being fined, so they slowed down, and never sped back up after it was turned off.

All that said, I'm not a fan of speeding camera's. They encourage people to find the locations of the cameras, and then slam on their brakes when entering range to avoid getting ticketed - possibly leading to an increase in the number of rear-end accidents at that location. Further, they encourage the introduction of speed traps (sudden, unexplained drop in the speed limit) for revenue purposes, which pose a similar hazard. I live about 1.5 miles from work, and all but the last 100 yards of that is on the same street. In that simple 1.5 miles, I have 3 different speed limits. There is no practical reason for the difference - you could take one section of the road and its surroundings and swap it with another without any real difference. But I do see someone pulled over 3/5 mornings as I come to work. $$!

 

In Montgomery County, MD, you have to go 12 MPH over to trigger the camera.

The most annoying part about these speed cameras is that drivers tend to slam on the brake at the last seconds to get well below the limit then "pedal to the metal" the second after they are away from the camera.

 

Really?

How often are the speed measuring devices calibrated against a known standard? IOW, how do you know the devices are accurate? How often are they serviced? How do we know that the tree branches 50 feet away aren't producing the speed you're being accused of?

How exactly does one cross-examine a camera in court?

It's not bad enough that most motor vehicle violations have been magically morphed into "civil infractions," which is cop-speak for "you have no constitutional protections in court, so pay up and avoid the hassle." This is nothing more than a further deprivation of the rights that too many have fought and died for.

Lest we forget, accusation is not proof, and proof depends on that hoary concept, "due process of law." Just because someone sends you a citation in the mail (thankfully illegal where I live) does not mean you are guilty of the charge. Make them prove it.

 

There are jurisdictions where you can get a ticket for one mph over the limit. Every place I've lived, you won't get a ticket until you're 5 mph over. Note that "limit" means you're supposed to stay BELOW that speed, though nobody does unless it's enforced.

I've never traveled in the South, but I've heard that some Southern towns use speed traps, where out-of-towners are unlikely to see small, hidden signs, and one mph over gets you a ticket. On the Indian reservations of New Mexico you'll get a ticket for one mph over, but the signs are clear and conspicuous.

When the law says "you're not allowed to go faster than X" it means that as soon as you are 0.01 mph over X or 0.00001 over X you are breaking the law. If the cops choose to wait until you are 5 mph over before they ticket you, they're doing you a favor. If "they" lower the speed limits to generate more ticket revenue, you can organize and vote "them" out of office. If the camera or the cop's radar are mis-calibrated, gather evidence and present your case. You are in no worse a case than anybody falsely accused by the cops (something that happens constantly!) And there's no difference between a miscalibrated camera and a miscalibrated radar gun. Your options in court are the same.

It's mainly people who want to get away with breaking the law who complain about speed cameras.

IIRC, I've gotten 3 speeding tickets in my life. I was guilty in all three cases, though I normally don't speed, and so I mailed in the fine. I also got a parking ticket once after losing track of the time.

When I'm ticketed for speeding I pay my fine. When I'm arrested for trying to dig a nuclear missile silo out of the ground with a pick and shovel, I serve my time. There's a saying in prison: Don't do the crime if you can't do the time. That applies to speeding also: Don't do the crime if you can't pay the fine. Complaining about the camera that caught you is pretty pathetic.

 

I'm not a LEO (Law Enforcement Officer) and I don't play one on TV, but a very high percentage of LEOs are military vets, and many of these affiliate in the reserves to fill out their retirement requirements.
So......many of my troops are LEOs.
If you've spent any time with them at all, you'll immediately understand why they HATE to do traffic. Everybody has a story. Everybody has an excuse. Those daffy laws about stopping when the little light turns red doesn't REALLY apply to THEM, because they're much too busy trying to get to work on time.
Until......YOU'RE the one who gets smashed by a reckless driver, or some cretin turns one of YOUR family members into tomato puree at an intersection because they "thought they could beat the light."

Me?
I like LEO's busting drug dealers, chasing down armed robbers, and solving rapes and murders.....NOT babysitting a radar gun and listening to some Bravo-Sierra, sea-lawyer tripe about Doppler radar cross-talk, and whether the light was red, yellow, or pink around the edges.

It's really very simple.
If you're following somebody, and they see a camera (manned or unmanned) and they slam on brakes, and you hit them----guess what?
You're at fault.
It's called "following too closely", or "tailgating."

Like I said before....you can foil their evil plots to make lots of moolah, or to revoke your driving privileges (they’re not rights!)
It's easy!!!!
Just obey the law.......

 

Proof? Never mind...you have none.

If you want to bury your head in the sand and play the "the law is the law" game, go right ahead. We won't stop you. But more than just a few of us are fed up with the morphing of traffic enforcement into a revenue collection scam which doesn't deter drivers from breaking laws they feel are unfair or unfairly enforced.

I will continue to complain about revenue collection schemes masquerading as concern for my safety. The rank hypocrisy of such a scheme is right up there with our so-called leaders in Washington.

And I say again: I refuse to be accused of a law violation by an inanimate object, which is an outright abrogation of my rights as a US citizen, especially when that object is subject to breakdowns or miscalibration.

Some of us refuse to be sheep.

 

Are you saying that you were driving within the speed limit when the speed camera clocked you as speeding, or that you had not run a red light when the camera said you did?

You can "refuse" to be accused by an inanimate object all you want, but it won't do you any good. Most of the people in jail are either innocent, or were convicted of a "crime" in which nobody was hurt. Compared to that, a speeding ticket issued by a camera is a pretty minor thing, especially when all you have to do is stay under the limit. Driving a car, or riding in one, is the most dangerous thing most of us ever do, and most of us pretty much have to. Anything that makes the roads safer is fine by me, and if you insist on speeding, or running red lights, I'm glad they have those cameras.

What you're really saying is that you feel you have a right to break the traffic laws as long as there isn't a live cop to catch you. Well, you don't have the right to put other people in danger, and society has the right to use machines to enforce traffic laws.