AZ speed cameras

http://www.latimes.com/news/nation-and-world/la-na-traffic-cameras20-2010feb20,0,2401900,full.story

Reporting from Phoenix - Arizonans drive long distances on their highways, and they like to do it fast. But since the Grand Canyon State began enforcing speed limits with roadside cameras, motorists are raging against the machines: They have blocked out the lenses with Post-it notes or Silly String. During the Christmas holidays, they covered the cameras with boxes, complete with wrapping paper. One dissenting citizen went after a camera with a pick ax.

On one episode of Top Gear Jezza mentioned burning tires on them.

Not that I condone such acts, but I think most of us have some old tires sitting around...

Didn't Gordan Ramsey say some kind of cooking clear wrap was unnoticeable but caused the flash to blind the camera? Sounds like a winner to me!

I watched a city council meeting where a police chief was selling his proposal to the city council to install red light cameras. One of the things that I found interesting was that the city or police departments don't monitor these these cameras. The company installs, maintains, and submits all tickets to the motorists. Police involvement is nil. For the "right" to do this the camera company takes a pretty good percentage of all traffic ticket revenue generated. In order to generate more tickets they can manipulate certain things like yellow light times and how far past the stop line actually constitutes a ticket. Even better was that the company also gets their cut for every ticket issued, whether paid or not.

Iphone to the rescue.. http://www.trapster.com/

see a cop.. Report it to Trapster.

Awesomes...

In Britain I've seen them with garbage bags thrown overtop and then zip-tied at the bottom around the pole. Simple and effective.

Every time I see this it ticks me off: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvtvfSJi2fg Jeremy Clarkson and Speed cameras

Cameras ruined driving in OZ, now they issue a ticket if you are 1kph over the limit. If you cannot show who the driver is the owner has to pay the ticket.

1 kph is 5/8 of 1 mph

It is a slippery slope.

Jay wrote: In Britain I've seen them with garbage bags thrown overtop and then zip-tied at the bottom around the pole. Simple and effective.

Or burnt, or the camera cut off with an industrial angle grinder, or the lens painted etc etc etc.

IIRC it got so bad in some places that they installed CCTV to watch the speed camera in case someone would try and tamper with it.

Regular speed cameras are annoying but they've introduced even more annoying average speed cameras (usually used in roadworks) that are 'clever' enough to read your car's numberplate[1] and calculate the average speed over distance. From time to time the government or associated rent-a-scientist type thinktanks make noises about introducing them to cover the whole motorway network.

[1] They read the front plate so they don't work very well with motorbikes

aussiesmg wrote: Cameras ruined driving in OZ, now they issue a ticket if you are 1kph over the limit. If you cannot show who the driver is the owner has to pay the ticket. 1 kph is 5/8 of 1 mph It is a slippery slope.

It's not quite as bad here yet - you get some grace before they come down on you. Some of the more rabid anti-personal transport people would certainly appreciate the 71 = 6 months ban ideas.

Of course the other idea they have here is fitting cars with GPS controlled speed limiters.

speed cameras, red light cameras, and spying thru your web cam.... The gov't has outlawed fun....

One thing about speed cameras and red light cameras... It's bad to get cops to not be there in person to hand out tickets, especially for drunks who now can get a fine and no points for running red lights rather than a DUI.

It's so not about safety, but about turning citizens and the people you represent into criminals for the express purpose of taking money from them.

Chris_V wrote: One thing about speed cameras and red light cameras... It's bad to get cops to not be there in person to hand out tickets, especially for drunks who now can get a fine and no points for running red lights rather than a DUI.

The trouble is that cops could use their judgement on a potentially borderline infraction, or actually stop someone who wasn't running a red light but doing something else unsafe. But as we know that only speed kills, doing daft things at 20mph is perfectly safe, right?

Anyway, 'judgement' doesn't fill the coffers quite as much, even though I'd be tempted to argue that it's likely to make the streets a little safer.

Chris_V wrote: It's so not about safety, but about turning citizens and the people you represent into criminals for the express purpose of taking money from them.

A-men.

with the way the economy is... it is probably only going to get worse

See my experiences with them this last week here: http://grassrootsmotorsports.com/forum/grm/fort-worth-to-la-back/19205/page1

I never saw the stationary ones, only the mobile speed cameras.

I like the idea of spraying insulating foam into them.

Marty! wrote: I watched a city council meeting where a police chief was selling his proposal to the city council to install red light cameras. One of the things that I found interesting was that the city or police departments don't monitor these these cameras. The company installs, maintains, and submits all tickets to the motorists. Police involvement is nil. For the "right" to do this the camera company takes a pretty good percentage of all traffic ticket revenue generated. In order to generate more tickets they can manipulate certain things like yellow light times and how far past the stop line actually constitutes a ticket. Even better was that the company also gets their cut for every ticket issued, whether paid or not.

The cameras are leased by the municipalities. Most places pay a flat fee per month to the camera companies for the lease. The amount is on the order of 50k per month.

There is a way to get rid of the cameras: Total and complete compliance with the law. If no one gets caught, the municipalities are still on the hook for the lease. If a municipality has eight of these cameras set up, their "nut" would be 400 grand. That's a lot of dough for a bunch of cameras sitting around doing nothing. After a couple of months, they either remove or disable the camera. Then it's back to business as usual.

Jerry From LA wrote:

Marty! wrote: I watched a city council meeting where a police chief was selling his proposal to the city council to install red light cameras. One of the things that I found interesting was that the city or police departments don't monitor these these cameras. The company installs, maintains, and submits all tickets to the motorists. Police involvement is nil. For the "right" to do this the camera company takes a pretty good percentage of all traffic ticket revenue generated. In order to generate more tickets they can manipulate certain things like yellow light times and how far past the stop line actually constitutes a ticket. Even better was that the company also gets their cut for every ticket issued, whether paid or not.

The cameras are leased by the municipalities. Most places pay a flat fee per month to the camera companies for the lease. The amount is on the order of 50k per month. There is a way to get rid of the cameras: Total and complete compliance with the law. If no one gets caught, the municipalities are still on the hook for the lease. If a municipality has eight of these cameras set up, their "nut" would be 400 grand. That's a lot of dough for a bunch of cameras sitting around doing nothing. After a couple of months, they either remove or disable the camera. Then it's back to business as usual.

If I understand correctly, down here any way, The camera company sets up the camera and Big Brother gets a small cut of the revenue generated by the cameras. Waiting for them to be removed due to compliance with the law wouldnt work as the municipality has no liability. Notice the use of the word REVENUE as with out a penalty beyond monetary there is no real incentive to obey the law.

We have seen an increase of rear end accidents at certain intersections as cars stop suddenly at the amber light to avoid a ticket. This has been atributed to a decrease in the timing of the amber lamps. Also if you are in the intersection as the light turns red the camera captures that and you are ticketed. The last I heard if you denied that you were driving the ticket was invalid as tickets are issued to drivers, not vehicles.

I often wonder what would happen if there was a redlight camera that also captured your back yard or say the inside of your house thru a window. Is that a violation of our percieved right to privacy?