"A Tribune-sponsored study of the red-light program in 2014 found that nearly 40 percent of the intersections equipped with the cameras are likely making the streets more dangerous. The study found that the cameras caused a 22 percent increase in rear-end crashes, yet provided no safety benefit at intersections that never had a problem with right-angle crashes in the first place."
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/politics/ct-rahm-em...
https://www.justice.gov/usao-ndil/pr/former-redflex-ceo-sent...
I want self-driving cars and other mass transport to eliminate the need for enforcement completely.
I have to be honest though, the stuff you're throwing at me is tingling my spidey sense just a little. These quotes are stated in a way that sounds convincing and bad, but fails under math scrutiny.
The quote you picked left out the 15% improvement in angle crashes they measured (* cited in the bigthink article below).
You can have 40% of intersections with a 1% increase in crashes, and also have 60% of intersections with a 1% decrease in crashes, and you have an overall slight reduction.
These resources seem level headed:
https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/publications/research/safety/05049/
https://www.cdc.gov/motorvehiclesafety/calculator/factsheet/...
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0012902/
And these feel like fluff, and even propaganda:
http://bigthink.com/ideafeed/study-red-light-cameras-ineffec...
I don’t think we’ll agree on this issue, but I understand your arguments and they are reasonable.
Hey thanks for saying that. I can return the favor, you’ve been very reasonable too. I don’t disagree that red light camers specifically might have some tradeoffs, and maybe it’s true they’re a net negative right now, I don’t know.
As far as the safety goes, have we actually given it enough time? Would it change anything for you if we fast forward into the future, and imagine that all intersections have cameras and everyone expects them? Today’s trade off between T-bones and rear-ends when there are cameras is presumably caused by people not expecting a camera and then realizing fairly late that they might get a ticket. Is it reasonable to assume that if cameras were everywhere, the rear-enders would eventually settle at a lower rate?
I’m a careful driver, wealthy enough to pay the fines without a care, so it wouldn’t really affect me. Neither would congestion tolls, or the numerous other solutions involving regressive taxes or fines. Less traffic would be worth the cost...I find myself often wishing they’d just triple tolls and gas taxes so my commute would be shorter. Not proud of those thoughts.
TBH, I would have agreed with you a few years ago, but lately my perspective has shifted. I don’t wish to muddle the safety argument with inequality, but it is part of my aversion.
Adding in the problems of private vendors commercializing law enforcement wasn't on my mind, but is a very good point. I would hope that, despite any pressure to shorten the yellow light, laws and safety advocates would prevent that from getting out of hand.
What is currently most out of hand between unsafe driving and unreasonable enforcement revenue, is clearly unsafe driving. So even if enforcement isn't perfect, I still think a correction towards enforcement is a good thing on the whole. I hate driving because of how crazy unsafe large numbers of people will be for really marginal benefits. The wish more more enforcement crosses my mind almost every day.
And, again, we can easily defeat any evil government revenue enforcement schemes by simply following the laws we should have been following all along.