I’m not generally in favor of obeying rules but enforcing them on 2+ tons of metal that people drive around is kinda where I start being in favor. With large dangerous objects should come some semblance of responsibility and social demand.
Or if we’re shitposting, every one of those cars contains at least 10k in scrap metal.
If they’re just enforcing speeding rules, then I’m all for it. But something tells me the speed limit enforcement is an ancillary side effect of them keeping a record of every car that passes the thing and when.
It in incentivizes lowering speed limits below what the actual reasonable speed is for an area to increase profits. There are literally speed trap towns where their largest revenue stream comes from their speed traps.
Or if we’re shitposting, every one of those cars contains at least 10k in scrap metal.
most of those cars can just be resold as uh. Cars.
All the cool thieves know stealing catalytic converters for the platinum in them is the way to go. Way easier than hauling away multiple tons of scrap metal.
I thought it was the palladium, but yeah they are valuable.
Red light cameras actually cause more accidents. Speeding cameras are cool though I think.
they sometimes do but the kinds of accidents they create are less dangerous - approx half of deaths from running reds are pedestrians/cyclists and run red collisions are often T-bone collisisions etc whereas rear ending people from not running lights is usually a front to back collision, which is significantly safer for all parties.
So if there is any pedestrian traffic at all or high traffic in both directions then photo enforced intersections are still a good tradeoff.
Noooo you don’t understand, having my property slightly damaged is waaaaaaay worse than taking a pedestrian’s life
You know who has never paid a speeding ticket his entire life? The guy who rides the bus.
If there were a bus closer than two miles and across a four-lane highway from me, I would be that guy.
Yeah, the system is fucked. But I can’t help notice we install speed traps rather than bus lanes, almost as though we see drivers as revenue streams rather than traffic risks.
My city is installing red light cameras because of course milking drivers for missing the yellow by 1/2 second is better than actually fixing the problem of having hundreds of right angle crossings between roads with speed limits over 40mph (so people routinely go 50+ simply because they can)…
If we replaced some of those with roundabouts, others with over/underpasses, that might actually reduce fatal collisions, but that would cost money rather than rake it in, so…
If we replaced some of those with roundabouts, others with over/underpasses
That’s definitely another approach, although these kinds of infrastructure changes are expensive and come with their own risks. Roundabouts take up more space than four-way stops, while underpasses flood and overpasses freeze. Your essential problem - moving too many overlarge vehicles through too small a space - is mitigated, but not resolved.
But yes, a camera that functions as a revenue stream is far more attractive than anything that might actually save lives.
Fuck people who drive recklessley. There’s more copper in their car than the camera. Heaps more as we move to EV’s and not micromobility solutions.
I’m calling bullshit on this. There is no way there is that much copper in one of those cameras. However, if you find a red light camera that looks like a big birdhouse or a mailbox… I’ve heard that those cameras might be more worth your time
Why does that need so many cameras? That seems like overkill.
Because they’re not just taking a picture when triggered - they stream full motion video back to HQ full time. That should tell you how much money is up for grabs.
5.5lbs of just copper alone?! WTF… that’s a heavy ass camera.
Well, this just happened recently in my local area. Easy pickings…
why are there cameras enforcing photos? Seems like a weird thing to enforce.
If you want to end the enforcement cameras just take a picture of the plates of your least favorite high ranking political figure. Print a ton out and go a sports bar or chad gym and paste over all the plates in the parking lot. Prioritize cars with big fins or stance. That driver’s infraction are re routed to the copied tag. Rinse repeat once they catch on to that tag.
If you want to end the enforcement cameras, drive responsibly and don’t break the rules that are written in blood.
There are many instances of dystopian government overreach in many places. This ain’t it.
The speed cameras aren’t there to keep anyone safe, they’re there to collect revenue.
Our state has speed cameras in school zones. I would like to see before-and-after statistics showing that fewer kids have been hit since the installation of the cameras.
Of course, said data doesn’t exist, because no one bothered to collect it. It “feels” safer and generates revenue, so they do it.
Which you can easily counter by following the rules for once.
The solution is as simple as that, and if you feel compelled to break the rules - let it at least be a source of revenue.
Eh…
There’s quite a bit of low tax rates mixed in with that ink. Politicians want to boast about low taxes, but that revenue needs to come from somewhere and now it’s fines and fees.
Is this really true? Pipes, heat exchangers and motors all have lots of copper. Why would a camera have a lot of copper in it?
Google is not being helpful and just returning results of this meme. There is a story out of Houston implying they do not have a lot of copper. And a story out of Honolulu that’s pretty ambiguous.
You’d think they basically just be a digital camera, a big lens, power supply, hardwired internet. So I mean I guess you could just cut and harvest the power line, but that will eventually lead down the pole and into concrete. The internet line is apparently fiber optic in many cases.
Definitely, I would be shocked if there’s more than a pound of copper in that camera assembly. It’s all low voltage electronics.
Traffic enforcement cameras are good for all road-users, including car drivers! We need more of them, tbh. And I say that as a petrol-head.
Enforcing traffic laws is one thing, but sooner or later they’re going to get hooked up to a central archive and database and be used to create a license-plate-tracking panopticon.
There was a study done about this in the late 90s. With existing analog cameras in New York City police were able to track cars license plates with 90% accuracy. Keep in mind this was pre-GPS, pre-digital processing, and pre-image recognition.
Just think how much further camera technology, computer software, and image recognition has come since then. Not to mention that your phone and car or GPS enabled and constantly tracking your location.
This has been here for over 30 years.
“Is that a barcode scanner? That can be used by the government to track my purchases!”
–Burt Gummer (Tremors 2, 1996)
The government already tracks your car with its GPS transmitter.
