Posted by 1970-01-01 5 hours ago
Besides, it's not a "the machine says so and not even the Supreme Court can overturn it" scenario. If there's genuinely a reason to cross into the intersection while the lights are red (such as there having been an accident, and a cop is temporarily managing traffic) the ticket will be waived. Heck, there will probably even be photographic evidence of it!
Most countries even have cops judge the tickets, just to already filter out those weird cases. The registration is done by a robot, but the policing is still done by a human.
Or, a deer jumped out on the side and you briefly looked away at it.
Or you could tell the driver behind you wasn't slowing down, so the safer option is to go.
Or. Or. Or. Real life is messy, and there's a million reasons to go though a yellow instead of slowing down.
This is common in the US as well. The machine takes the picture, filters out the illegible ones, and sends the rest to an actual officer who will issue the ticket.
This is bad when applied to laws that were written with an exception of leniency and selectivity in enforcement, which is quite a lot of them. For running red lights though? I don't mind if the robots take you off the road automatically.
There are many places that don't even allow rights (or lefts) on red.
I got a right on red ticket once, and then I made it a point to obey the law -- especially at the intersections with the robots.
For things like traffic laws especially (where there are very simple cut and dry rules), why is it okay to break the law, and why is it not okay for robots to enforce the law?
As you should.
The reality is that the people doing the policing are counting on humans not being infallible
Fines have become an important revenue stream, that's why they are being automated.
Now that this is becoming more widespread, there's a perverse incentive for governments to maximize the difficulty in avoiding fines. Lower the speed limit on roads designed for higher speeds for "safety", etc
Maybe we should legislate traffic fines out of existence, and just use points. Or at the very least the fines should never go back in any recognizable way to the budget of the police doing the enforcement.
There are many citizens, like me, begging for red light cameras so something can be done about the rash of crashes and killings from willfully reckless drivers.
I wouldn’t expect them to make driving safer for anyone, as enforcement doesn’t do anything to moderate the behavior of people that just don’t give a shit.
In my experience preventative measures only work on people who are conscientious, they do not work on people who do not give a shit
I live in a city where red light running is an epidemic. Drivers flagrantly just don't stop, and it kills people all the time. Red light cameras - plus actually revoking drivers licenses, and then actually throwing people in jail for driving on suspended licenses - are the only way to fix this.
It's far past time that drivers are no longer immune to consequences for violent, sociopathic behavior.
When was the last person killed by someone running a red light? When was the time before that?
1. No parking minimums 2. Less free parking (e.g. street parking) 3. Policy supportive of self driving cars 4. More aggressive removal of driver licenses for human drivers with repeat violations 5. More aggressive penalties for driving without a license.