cross-posted from: https://sh.itjust.works/post/44712264
These up-eds usually complain that photo radar would be fine if the radar worked properly. This one doesn’t even do that. It just complains that speed limits aren’t fair and now drivers have to change their behavior. jfc
It is true that drivers can avoid such tickets by sticking to the posted speed limits, but it is also true that drivers are hardly ever expected to strictly observe those limits.
…
It’s like the generally accepted contract between drivers and police – just drive at a reasonable speed and you’ll be fine – has been broken.
I don’t entirely disagree, theres tons of speed limits that don’t make sense for the area. IMO if drivers feel safe speeding in an area, thats a traffic engineering failure. Make the lanes more narrow and bendy. If the road has to be big and straight, add in speed bumps with staggered gaps.
Does that really work all that well? My street is very bendy but people still speed through it despite poor visibility of pedestrians between the parked cars.
Generally yes. How wide are the lanes?
Barely enough for one car going each direction, with some parts only wide enough for one car in a lane because someone is parking in one lane.
Huh, idk then, how often are there head-on collisions next to parked cars?
Not at all. Speeders speed regardless of road quality, safety, or visibility everywhere. I’m guessing these commenters are probably children themselves, either literally or mentally.
Suggesting roads be completely reengineered or replaced to slow drivers based on the position of schools, zoning, etc is completely batshit insane. Like, legitimately mentally ill. That’s some pants on head MAGA grade economics.
People drive faster on some roads than others, why do you think this is?
They drive a big ass truck other big ass vehicles and the higher up you are the slower you feel so the more they speed.
The term is velocitization
The same person tends to drive different speeds on different roads and conditions. I dont think that pickup is going to take that a right hand turn in a road 6 inches wider than their truck doing 70.
And why should I, someone who can read and respects speed limits the majority of the time, have to suffer narrow garbage roads? Why can’t we treat people like adults? It’s bonkers the arguments I see whenever there is an article about speed cameras.
Obey the speed limit. The end. Nothing else has to change in society. I know it’s a big ask for all the grown ass humans who apparently never matured, but I’m sick of this stupidity.
Sincerely: someone who got a mailed speeding ticket for $50 2 days ago for going 50km in a 40km zone. Did I tear up and stomp my feet like a 3 year old? No! My adult brain stepped in and I went “ah shit, I’ll have to pay more attention next time I’m in that area.”
If youre suffering because you cant let your car drift 3 feet in either direction, thats a skill issue. Narrower roads also have the benefit of leaving more room for bike lanes and sidewalks/bike parking.
Weak personal attack.
Use your brain. You are advocating to make roads into obstacle courses in order to slow everyone down. By definition you are making that road a skill issue for half the population, assuming you build the road to the “average” drivers ability at the speed needed. Which also means half the population is gonna be capable of going faster than that, which it seems you would then believe they are just gonna speed anyways?
Why do that? What if instead there was a simple, effective, low cost way to communicate a “limit”? That way we could just put a sign up. And if things change, or we start seeing somewhere were that “limit” we have set is to slow or fast, we can just change the sign instead of redesigning the neighbourhood. We of course would have to create a system of enforcement…
Counterpoint: the road I live on is 30mph, it is 30 because houses are less than 50 feet from the road and cars going faster than 30 are really loud from wind resistance and tire noise. Cars tend to go 45+ frequently and we have requested speed mitigation. We were told because we have an EMS and fire station on our road it is considered a main road so we can’t have speed bumps or other measures. So other than enforcement by camera or officer how do you suggest they get the speeders to respect the speed limits?
And to add to that, cars we’re going so fast and we have so many accidents that during the next road resurfacing they were going to remove our on street parking and replace it with a center lane so those that are speeding or passing in the bike/parking lane can now pass on the center turn lane even though that is illegal to pass in a turn lane. They were just gonna turn a blind eye to that law.
Speed bumps can be designed to accommodate emergency vehicles. We can also narrow the lanes to give drivers less room, a skilled driver for EMS would still be comfortable exceeding the limit as needed as they should be trained to do so.
Ive noticed that many roads that get that centerline end up with faster speed, they add that lane to try to reduce conflict points but overall i doubt it will significantly increase the safety of your road. If there are any public hearings for the resurfacing you should voice some opinions on how these changes may not be very effective for the cost of the rehabilitation.
narrow the street so drivers are more cautious and thus drive more slowly
I am not a traffic engineer, so I can’t tell you. I’ve seen signs banning cars from particular streets where residents and commercial vehicles are exempt, to prevent a little residential street connecting larger roads from being used as a thoroughfare, thats probably illegal in the US.
Is there a way you can block resurfacing? People drive slower on crummier roads, though it has to get p bad fir pickup trucks and SUVs to slow.
That was their plan but we as a neighborhood complained and they are leaving our parking and just going to install the floppy barriers at the corners to try to prevent people passing on the right when someone makes a left.
But yeah people did drive slow at the shit spots but then they just speed up on the smoother spots so they actually just speed more.
This is exactly it. Enforcement isn’t the answer; that only creates excuses to pad police budgets. Fix the road design, fix the traffic flow in the city. If people think it’s safe to go past a school at 50kph, that road is built improperly, or the school is built on the wrong road.
Your using people very broadly there. Some people see a narrow street next to a school and think a reasonable speed is 30 kph. Some people see that same road, don’t notice the school and judge they can go 50kph. That second person needs some enforcement to discipline them otherwise they’ll keep using their metric for safety, which is far from what a normal person would measure, much less a traffic safety expert.
Narrowing streets and adding speed bumps is expensive, and adding curves just isn’t possible in most places. Why do that when you can put up a camera that’s cheaper and are effective at reducing speeds, and thus accidents and fatalities. By picking the more expensive solution you’re basically asking safe drivers and non-drivers to pay more in taxes so that reckless drivers don’t have to pay tickets.
The only argument against them is the one the guy laid out in the op-ed, i want to speed and don’t want to have a cost for my reckless driving.
I agree with your counterargument about cost, but also at the same time hey we somehow had the money to build the road wrong in the first place…
I am pro speed reduction measures, camera’s included.
but this is absolutely not true, they can and will continue to be abused for profit, sometimes to the detriment of safety.
No idea what the numbers looks like but it’s greater than zero, i suspect by quite a bit
edit : i fully understand that this link is incredibly bias, i’m posting it to show that instances do exist in general.
https://ww2.motorists.org/blog/6-cities-that-were-caught-shortening-yellow-light-times-for-profit/
These are for red lights rather than speed but the premise i’m getting at is that people will do unsafe things with traffic cameras for profit.