266
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 17 Jul 2026
266 points (100.0% liked)
News
38447 readers
1961 users here now
Welcome to the News community!
Rules:
1. Be civil
Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.
2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.
Obvious biased sources will be removed at the mods’ discretion. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted separately but not to the post body. Sources may be checked for reliability using Wikipedia, MBFC, AdFontes, GroundNews, etc.
3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.
Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.
4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source. Clickbait titles may be removed.
Posts which titles don’t match the source may be removed. If the site changed their headline, we may ask you to update the post title. Clickbait titles use hyperbolic language and do not accurately describe the article content. When necessary, post titles may be edited, clearly marked with [brackets], but may never be used to editorialize or comment on the content.
5. Only recent news is allowed.
Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.
6. All posts must be news articles.
No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials, videos, blogs, press releases, or celebrity gossip will be allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis. Mods may use discretion to pre-approve videos or press releases from highly credible sources that provide unique, newsworthy content not available or possible in another format.
7. No duplicate posts.
If an article has already been posted, it will be removed. Different articles reporting on the same subject are permitted. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.
8. Misinformation is prohibited.
Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.
9. No link shorteners or news aggregators.
All posts must link to original article sources. You may include archival links in the post description. News aggregators such as Yahoo, Google, Hacker News, etc. should be avoided in favor of the original source link. Newswire services such as AP, Reuters, or AFP, are frequently republished and may be shared from other credible sources.
10. Don't copy entire article in your post body
For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.
founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
Speed cameras do reduce crashes, injuries and fatalities, ~20% reduction in a lot of cases. If they also generate income from dangerous drivers is that a bad thing?
Speed cameras help reduce speed. It's undeniable.
Some places will put speed cams in places with recently reduced speed limits (sometimes lower than the road should be) and would be used to generate income. Some highway speed traps are notorious for this.
Both things can be true.
The last time speed cameras went up in my area, there was an increase in accidents overall despite an unrelated reduction in traffic volume (this was during the gas price spike under Bush). They were taken down as soon as they found out all the money was going to the vendor and the local government was losing money on each ticket.
The same logic applies to cops enforcing the speed limit, some cities will put them in a speed trap to collect revenue, that doesn't mean all cops enforcing speed limits are a scam for revenue or that we shouldn't use them.
And that is the alternative to speed cameras, more expensive, more discriminating, more dangerous cops enforcing speed instead, because speed has to be enforced or people will die or get seriously injured if we don't.
Yes. I didn't say all X that enforce speed limits are scams. In fact, I said both things can be true.
I agree that speed cams are better than more cops.
That doesn't change the fact that some jurisdictions will use them not to improve safety, but for income generation.
I wish they mentioned whether the sites included posted warnings of the presence of cameras, or real-time driver speed on digital signs. My gut says those cause a bigger and more consistent reduction than cameras themselves.
And if the signage is inconsistent it would be a big confounding factor
I'm sure it depends entirely upon implementation and placement. The cities I've been in that used them had only a few, and everyone knew where they were. The driving behavior just outside of the camera's reach was made worse than it would be without them.
I wonder how the 20% compares to having LEOs that do actual traffic enforcement, where a human witnesses the violation and physically writes the ticket.
I'm actually glad they're illegal where I'm at currently. It seems to have a chilling effect on the local surveillance state in general, plus we get to interact with our accuser and, if necessary, appeal much more easily than in places which contract out for autonomous enforcement.