Speed Cameras in Maryland

Implementations in the US, at least the ones I'm aware of, mitigate most of these concerns.

Since the camera cannot tell who is driving, points are not assigned. Insurance surcharges are also not applied for the same reason. Road signs are de facto regulated, and authorities have very little discretion on sign size and placement. Cameras are usually configured to not give tickets between 0-10 mph over the limit (since that is de facto legal in most jurisdictions).

 

lol for now. We had all these assurances back in the early 1990's when speed cameras first came out over here. Then when the local council, area, authority (call them what you wish) realises how much money they make they'll slowly move the goal posts in their favour.

When speed cameras first came out here I thought they were a good idea. We were promised they'd only be at accident blackspots etc etc.

Ha ha ha. Just you wait guys

 

there were legal actions taken, /thanks to UCLA&privacy advocates/ so they can only make a pic of rear #. That usually gives you opportunity to spot camera before you pass it.

In US the red light and speed camera tickets are issued to car owner on basis of "misplaced property" (basically glorified parking ticket). The only way you can fight it off if you prove you were out of town. But then again for $50 most opt just pay it.

BTW municipalities do not own cameras; operators (several companies off Texas) bid, install and operate them. They just pay a slice to local government(s).

 

And you didn't vote them out of office because... ??? Oh, maybe because most folks thought a tax on speeding was a good idea.

 

Neither. I've never been caught by either one because my state refuses to legalize them...to their everlasting credit.

Then what are they doing in jail?

A minor thing? Higher insurance rates for the next six years, plus the cost of the fines? That alone makes every single traffic ticket worth fighting.

Don't presume to put words in my mouth. You have missed the point entirely.

 

In the upside-down world of traffic enforcement, you are guilty until proven innocent, so it doesn't matter who was driving. The registered owner, who will get the citation in the mail, will have to prove that it wasn't him/her, otherwise the fine sticks like glue.

Just proving once again that too many people have no idea what their rights are, or in this case, were. When traffic citations magically morphed into "civil infractions," the presumption of innocence went flying out the window, never to return.

 

Most of the people in U.S. jails are there because they had no money for bail or a decent lawyer after being arrested for something that:

1. No sensible person would call a crime; or
2. Something they didn't actually do; or
3. Something that the police only enforce against poor people and people of color, but not against rich white folks. (Example: They'll kick down doors in Watts, guns blazing, looking for a small amount of pot, but they never do the same in Beverly Hills.)

Other times, when a minor crime is committed, a rich person gets out on bail and hires a good lawyer to get them off, but a poor person sits in jail, and is convicted after an incompetent or over-worked public defender presents a lackluster defense.

The vast majority of jail and prison inmates are there because they are poor.

Even if you are guilty? I say, if you are guilty, man up to it and take your medicine. And yes, higher insurance rates and fines are minor compared with spending ten years of your life in prison for something you didn't do.

What point have I missed? You oppose the use of traffic cameras. Traffic laws are among the few laws we have that actually make sense. When you are operating a car on a public street there is no presumption of privacy. You are acting in public and if you break the traffic laws the cops have the right to ticket you. And states have the right to enact laws making it legal to use cameras.

To oppose cameras is to quibble about what procedures may be used to monitor safety on the public streets, when the real issue is keeping the streets safe. I am a 100% supporter of all Constitutional protections, but the state has a right to monitor the public streets.

 

In addition to Daniel's points.....traffic cameras are much more reliable and accurate than LEOs. The only reason they want a human at the other end of the radar gun is inefficiency in catching miscreants that think that their right to speed is more important than public safety.
The 4th Amendment argument against cameras is weak (they're called PUBLIC roads!) and the notion that you're better off getting a summons from a gun-toting, sworn LEO, rather than a camera device is lame as well. It's YOUR car. If you loan it to somebody that goes 12+ mph above the speed limit guess what? You have some skin in the game, pal.

I was ticketed in a small southern town for running a red light. Actually, I made a right on red with a green arrow. LEO says there was no arrow. I got a ticket.
A witness (business owner that I was turning into) actually wrote out an affidavit saying I was right, and LEO was wrong.
Judge Roy Beam disagreed. I got the fine, the points, and 4 feet sawed off of my stern for wasting the court's 'valuable' time.

Lessons Learned:
Stuff happens.
Good people make mistakes.
Even if LEO blows the court date, you can still get convicted in Judge Beam's court!

OK.....so....
If I were one of the sniveling, cop hating liberals you see out there, I'd still be pissed about it, but you know what? Life is short. Crap happens.
The cop was just doing his job, and I believe it was an honest mistake. I don't really think that he was looking for an out-of-towner to fill out some ticket quota, and I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. I make mistakes in my job too. If I met him today, I'd offer to buy him a cup of coffee, and thank him for doing a thankless, low paying job that most of us don't have the desire or testicular fortitude to do.

A camera would not have made that mistake!

 

Clearly you don't give a hoot in h*ll about constitutional protections. It is certainly *not* "quibbling over procedures" to make the state prove its case in court per the law of the land, and that includes the right to be confronted with the evidence against you, to examine that evidence and to question witnesses. When the only witness to a violation is a camera, game over. One more constitutional protection down the drain. When you figure out how to cross-examine a camera, please let us know.

 

Horse hockey. Traffic cameras are tools. They are inaminate objects, capable only of doing what they're programmed to do by human beings. IOW, they are only as good as their weakest link...the human beings who program them.

Mule muffins. There is no proven link between "speeding" and public safety. No study done by disinterested parties has ever found any correlation whatsoever between the speeds driven on a road and the safety of the motoring public. But it sure is a convenient argument to those who think that driving slower magically solves everything.

http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa346.pdf

Understanding Highway Crash Data

Montana: No Speed Limit Safety Paradox

The Effect Of Speed Limits On Actual Travel Speeds

 

I'll let your argument about speed versus safety speak for itself. Personally? I'd love to be able to zip down the road at a time-saving 90-mph however (comma!) I have to share the roads with the other people who helped pay for it.
While deployed in the Middle East, I witnessed some truly spectacular crashes on roads where the speed differentials between camel laden trucks, and sports car enthusiasts surpassed three digits. If you think that speed plays no role in public safety on the roads......you're wrong.

OK.....now we come to cameras. Here's your interpretation of the 4th amendment:
Store robbery is filmed by security camera, clearly identifying the crook, who interestingly enough has his name and address stenciled on the seat of his pants.
Police drive to house, catch the crook, match his face with the one on the film.
Courts have to acquitt the crook because there are no witnesses, and the crook can't "cross-examine" the camera.

Hmmmmmm...... Just doesn't sound right to me.

Here's what the 4th Amendment really says:
"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."

Your Call.
Personally, I think that states have the right to exclude cameras if they wish to do so, but I also do not think that they're unconstitutional at all. Evidently......others agree.

 

So, if the camera shows your car outside of the intersection with the light in your direction red, then it shows your car in the middle of the intersection with the light red, then it shows a closeup of your license plate, you would have the courts throw this out because you cannot question the witness ?

That is horse hockey.

 

Now THAT's bullshit. Just because we disagree about the legality or Constitutionality of speed cameras, you claim I don't care about protections! Good way to divert the argument from the issue to attack the people that make it.

The state still has to prove its case in court if you choose to contest the ticket. Every trial involves physical evidence. If you stab someone and they recover the knife, they will present it in court. You cannot "question" the knife, but you can question the investigators who found and identified it. Similarly, you can question the people who operate the cameras.

Eye-witness testimony is notoriously the LEAST reliable kind of evidence. Physical evidence is far more reliable, and cameras produce physical evidence.

You are still free to dispute the accuracy of the cameras, and to introduce expert witnesses to show why the camera should not be trusted.

Just as a radar gun is a tool used by a traffic cop. Just as DNA analysers are tools. Just as fingerprint powder is a tool. Just as a camera operated by a person is a tool.

You are still free to dispute the procedures under which the camera is operated.

Now there's a load of "horse hockey," as you so colorfully put it. When Jimmy Carter lowered the speed limits on freeways to 55 mph, traffic deaths dropped precipitously, and when that limit was overturned, traffic deaths went back up. Talk to any cop who works highways, and they'll tell you: speed kills. The faster you drive, the greater the chances that an accident will be fatal.

Bottom line: The courts have ruled that traffic cameras are legal. They are tools, just like any other tools used in law enforcement. Just like the security cameras ETC(SS) mentioned, that help catch hold-up men. And the physical evidence they produce is MORE reliable than human testimony, not less. We have to share the roads, and driving is the most dangerous thing that most of us ever do, and we do it every day. Traffic control is one of the very few areas where the state has a clear right and responsibility to monitor behavior in public and enforce generally agreed-upon standards.

If you think the standards are inappropriate, introduce an initiative measure to change them.

BTW, I HATE getting a speeding ticket. I've gotten just a few in my four decades of driving. My first reaction is "What a jerk that damn cop is!" My second reaction is "If I'd only taken a different route, he'd have missed me." My third reaction is "Well, I WAS driving over the limit, and I'm just as subject to the laws as anyone else. I'd better be more careful in the future." And then I pay my fine.

 

The raw count of traffic deaths is comparing apples and oranges, since it doesn't take into account traffic volume. If more people drive more miles, there would likely be more traffic deaths. The *rate* of highway deaths, usually expressed as deaths per 100 million vehicle-miles, takes all that into account, and that figure has been moving steadily downward through the NMSL years and beyond. In 2009, the last year for which the NHTSA has complete figures, both the number of deaths and the highway death rate fell.

1921: 24.1 deaths per 100 million vehicle-miles driven
1930: 15.1
1940: 10.9
1950: 7.2
1960: 5.1
1970: 4.7
1980: 3.3
1985: 2.5
1990: 2.1
1995: 1.7
2000: 1.53
2005: 1.46
2009: 1.13

(Source: National Highway Traffic Safety Administration)

 

When you look at traffic deaths per year, it's important to factor in automobile safety. Modern cars are much safer, making it harder to kill people in accidents. Remove the air bags and crush zones and the deaths go up.

Tom

 

But Americas road deaths are much higher than most of the Western World;

List of countries by traffic-related death rate - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

It's not wide open spaces - Canada and Australia are lower
It's not congested streets - Europe has congested streets and traffic and is generally lower (exclude the old communist Countries as they have horrific accident rates)

 

Americans are not very serious about driving. We think it is a right, not a privilege. Our driver's training is not very intensive.

In America, the most important thing about a new car is how many cup holders it has. The typical American driver has a poor understanding of the rules of the road, and even when understood, we think they apply to everyone else, but not us, because we are good drivers and other people are stupid. It's a sense of entitlement.

I wish driver's instruction were similar to getting a private pilot's license, but sadly it's not even close.

Tom

 

....seems like traffics deaths correlate fairly well to distance driven.
US is not so much higher there. One reason is we may have more truck related deaths.

 

Think we've had the discussion before. Our trucks are speed (built in speed limiters) and hour limited and it is super strickly enforced.