I have heard that NJ discontinuted a similar system after it repeatedly ticketed city officials and off-duty cops.

you can't stop speeding. it's gonna happen. no matter how many camera's u put up, people will speed. there is stuff u can spray over your license plate, that makes it reflective to camera's so they can't get ur plate number. but good luck with that.

Well said, good sir! Your eloquence and skill with the written word is not only astounding, but also "l33t" and "kewl" as well! You are indeed a latter-day Oliver Wendell Jones!

I about [messed] my drawers while waiting for the light the first time the red-light camera went off at Halsted and Division (near Cabrini Green).

josh:

All you have to do is make it more expensive than it's worth.

We've got them everywhere in Britain. Although they're widely viewed as cash cows for the government rather than road-safety devices, they're not supposed to be hidden, so you get a warning sign when one is coming, and they're painted bright yellow.

Here's what happens:

People speed up to them. Then brake, and creep past the camera's watchful gaze exactly on the speed limit for the necessary 20 yards or so. Then accelerate away from them.

In my view, the only way to eradicate speeding is to use the same method we've used to dramatically cut drink-driving in this country. And that's to make it socially unacceptable.

Warning people that they might get caught doen't deter people from drink driving. Showing that they can kill a pedestrian does, apparently.

Drink drivers are pariahs. Speeders aren't.

The sprays and tag covers that one can use to try to obscure one's license plate number from cameras are largely ineffective.

Mud is a better bet, but technically illegal.

One way to cut speeding is to have speed limits set at a reasonable level. Far too many highways have speedlimits which have no relationship to safety. The repeal of the national speed limit helped, but many places still have unreasonable limits.

A too low limit is unsafe, because while many drivers will adjust to the legal limit, many others won't, and the speed differential is dangerous.

In my experience, traffic is no faster on the 70 and 75 mph interstates I've driven on than in the ridiculous 55 mph interstate areas in NY and PA. The only difference is having to dodge the occasional slow car.

Another example of the social engineers in action, seizing upons what might be a successful solution for a specific traffic problem as a generic solution for all traffic problems. Unlike speeding, running traffic lights is a discreet event that can only occur, by definition, at a traffic light, and letting people know they might be watched and caught has the desireable effect of getting them to obey the directions of the lights. Speeding, on the other hand, can occur anywhere, and is often subjective (like so-called school zones). And what kind of speeding? In residential areas is different from arterials is different from limited access highways. As pointed out earlier, the best you can do is to get people to slow down for a short period of time.

John:

You are exactly right. National highway engineering standards have long proven the safest speed is that set at the 85th percentile.

Red light cameras are a perfect example of conflict of interest. The people getting the revenue are the very same ones setting the yellow light duration.

It has also long been proven that red-light cameras at intersections with appropriately set yellow light intervals do not pay for themselves.

So municipalities set them up at intersections with too short intervals.

Then cream the cash without any concern to the number of rear end collisions they are causing.

San Diego county has had experience with this.

Running red lights in Detroit or Newark at night is a safety measure. People will hold you up if you don't. Rear-ending your car, when it is stopped at a light, is a common technique.

Why would any sane person drive in Newark or Detroit at night? Haven't you read "Bonfire of the Vanities"?

I agree with John T. above. Speed limits are set far too low. We've driven all over the country and noticed that those observing speed limits are invariably run over by those speeding by.

The reason why speed limits are set somewhat lower than the safe speed is so that people will actually drive at the safe speed. If the speed limit is 25mph, people often drive up to 35mph, which is probably the real safe speed anyway. I have never heard of anyone getting a ticket for driving within 10mph over the speed limit.

Vince:

The safest speed is the one set at the 85th percentile speed when speed limits are not posted.

When municipalities actually follow the engineering standards, people drive the posted speed limit.

Of course, there is no revenue stream in that.

Hawaii had a system where a private company could monitor the highways for speeding, and send out tickets. I don't remember exactly what the threshold was (pretty sure it was less than 10 mph over the posted limits), but some idiot in the highway department stated that driving even 1 mph over the limit was breaking the law and therefore could get you a ticket. After a huge uproar the program was discontinued. The brilliance of Hawaii governance is illustrated in the fact that the state still had to pay the company a huge fee based on the contract they'd signed.

The system was supposed to include automated red-light cameras as well, but that never happened, and probably never will. That's the shame, because people who run red lights are putting people at risk every time they do so, which is simply not at all true for speeders.

Jeff:

Ah, the scientific mind at work. the 85th percentile is 50mph on Johnson street and there are 10 pedestrian deaths a year. Set the limit at 50.

There is no good reason why interstates couldn't be at 80-85 MPH like France, once you get out of the major metro areas. And in some rural areas like Montana or Wyoming, once you're out of town, there shouldn't be any speed limit.

The cameras are inefficient and will be obsolete.

Instead, and eventually, each car will be fitted with a "black box" which will record your every action and result in tickets -- and increased insurance premiums as "appropriate."

Around here in DC, its been obvious that this is merely a tax. Obstensively to promote traffic safety, the city has "adjusted" yellow light timers to maximize revenue.

We have the cameras in Phoenix and I hate them. I don't like the establishment of a surveillance state.

I can grudgingly accept cameras at a few intersections statistically proven to have an unacceptably high level of accidents and deaths. But I don't approve of them in principle.

Montana used to have a daylight speed limit of "reasonable and prudent." They had to set numeric speed limits after a Libertarian sued and won with the argument that one could not know if one's speed was not "reasonable and prudent" until after the MHP gave you the ticket. Another side effect was that because it wasn't just a "speeding ticket", but one for "careless driving", it cost more itself and for the effects when the insurance company heard about it.

For the couple of years it was in effect, I enjoyed getting to the crest of Lookout Pass with the big sign on the Exit 0 overpass, bigger than the "Welcome to Montana" one, which laid out the speed limits. Didn't drive any faster or different than I had just done in Idaho and Washington, but the idea that I was in charge was appealing. (They still had speed advisories on the downgrades from the passes, and when they recommmended something like 50mph, they weren't kidding.)

Now it's "the limit's 70, so I can and will go 70", and there's less consideration of the road conditions. Accidents actually went up the first couple years after the numeric limits were put back.

(Back in the 55mph days, to keep the feds happy, Montana and Wyoming both had "energy conservation citations" for speeds under 75 or so. They were not traffic fines and so weren't reported to the insurance companies or other states. Pay your $5 or $20, respectively, take your receipt and you go on your way.)

Red-light cameras are a tax farm, pure and simple. The subcontractor/company gets a cut of each ticket, and the Divine Right of Stockholders takes over from there.

I don't remember the source, but one jurisdiction (I don't know whether it was in the US or not) was talking about a "Pace Car" program where Kyle's Moms with special "Pace Car" bumper stickers ("I'm not speeding -- how about you?") were sworn to drive the speed limit no matter what and force their Moral Inferiors to do likewise by blocking them.

I figured it was road-rage shootings just waiting to happen.

Vince,

The scientific literature contradicts you, as does my experience. The vast majority of people drive no faster in a 70 mph speed limit in WV than they do in a 55 mph speed limit in NY. There are a few exceptions (those people who drive no faster than the speed limit or limit + 5 no matter what), but those people are a real danger on NY interstates when they're 15-25 mph slower than everyone else.

"Ah, the scientific mind at work. the 85th percentile is 50mph on Johnson street and there are 10 pedestrian deaths a year. Set the limit at 50."

Ah, the simplistic mind at work. Net safety is the issue. There may be special factors at work on Johnson Street, but in general, the net safest speed is the 85th percentile.

If you don't believe it, do a little research for yourself.

The net safest speed on Johnson Street in Canton OH is 50 and there have been no deaths this year. On Jongquo Street in Canton, China it's 35 and there have been ten deaths this year. Drivers on one need to slow down.