Someone actually stole a bunch of cameras but couldn’t offload it and ended up getting caught when he tried to sell it on craigslist. Lol. Apparently the camera units are proprietary in the office shelf.
They take your picture and then you get a mostly automated letter with the picture saying you have to pay a fine, but mostly you can ignore them. I lived near an intersection with one, every time the left turn light turned red (which happened way faster than normal) the picture flash went off for the last three or so people going through the intersection, presumably all of them getting tickets. I assume they are also recording the license plate numbers of everyone going through the intersection regardless of perceived violations.
Why do you think those letters in the mail can be ignored? They are tied to your license plate and that is serious business. If you don’t pay traffic fines, the fines go up and up and Then they involve the criminal justice system and you have to show up in court and it’s all just very ugly. Oh yeah they can suspend your driver’s license over it too, There’s no way to get out of paying traffic citations.
I know in Arizona, but possibly other states too, you have to be served for the violation. So people just ignore them without consequences until they get caught for something else more serious.
Why do you think those letters in the mail can be ignored?
I forget the exact reason, I researched it at the time and don’t remember well now, but the other comments are probably right. Anyway I know they can be ignored because I ignored them and nothing ever happened. Was more than a decade ago so I think I’m good. They were clearly sending them out to a large portion of everyone going through the intersection for no good reason, it was basically just a grift, so it would have been ridiculous to actually enforce all of them with police and courts.
And these things don’t shoot you if you look at them wrong – or are black.
Edit: “No, you can’t just stick a camera worth a couple of thousand [local currency] next to the road, that takes photographic evidence of infractions. You gotta rip out the entire surface, redesign the sides and introduce a few sharp curves by demolishing a few blocks of buildings here and there. In the mean time speed is only enforced by violent cops who feel like you were speeding.
I can’t believe that people don’t want to see them installed in every school zones at least, if there’s one place where you don’t want people speeding it’s there!
“It’s a road design issue!” Yeah? What’s cheaper and can be done quicker, changing the road design or installing speed cameras?
Yeah people not respecting speed zones around schools is a real problem. I can’t believe how people drive, and I’ve always got some Dodge Ram or Ford F150 riding my ass because I’m driving the proper speed.
Even if there was no posted speed limit, there are children everywhere and children are unpredictable.
They also can’t testify in court, depriving accused speeders of their constitutional right to due process.
But back to your first claim: “gotta enforce speed limits:” No, we do not. Speeding is a symptom of a street that was designed wrong to begin with. The correct solution is to fix the design, not install a speed camera as some sort of big brother band-aid.
Edit: why do y’all apparently hate the idea of improving street design? As a former traffic engineer, I’m telling you that that’s the only way to truly fix the problem of speeding. I don’t get why that’s controversial.
I’m a big fan of NJB (shout out to !notjustbikes), but I’m not going to argue against speed cameras. That’s ridiculous. Yes, if I have to choose one or the other I’ll take the better road design. But even with good road design, some people will choose to be dicks because they can, or they see it as a challenge or some shit. And speed cameras can be implemented right now, whereas better road design waits (even in the Netherlands!) until that street is next due for repaving.
I don’t find improving road safety through intelligent engineering controversial, I think blaming the street design instead of the idiot deciding to speed through it is controversial. In the end it is the driver who accelerated, not the road engineer.
In fact I actually like how much attention has been brought over the past years to road design. I’ve always been scared of cars.
Sorry but it’s a black and white thing in this case, r either you’re under the speed limit and not breaking the law or you’re over the speed limit and breaking the law.
Also, tons of people object to speed camera tickets and win, the only difference is that there’s no officer there when the event happened to tell them “Say that to the judge if you’re not happy.”, the end result is the same.
Never said it was fine, I said the issue lies elsewhere and the solutions we’re currently taking about aren’t the ones that will solve it.
If the speed limit is too high it’s an administrative decision, they won’t change the road design because they decided to have a high speed limit, a speed camera or a police officer won’t charge people who are driving fast unless they’re going over the speed limit that’s already too high.
So you consider the law to be the definition of safety?
My question was intended to get you think about the fact that laws (and speed limits) are made by people, with all their flaws and biases, and they don’t always do a good job.
Sorry but it’s a black and white thing in this case, r either you’re under the speed limit and not breaking the law or you’re over the speed limit and breaking the law.
Your words make it sound like you think the speed limit is some objective truth that cannot be questioned.
It can be questioned, not enforcing them isn’t questioning them and won’t make them change, if people disagree with the speed limit somewhere they can complain to the authorities responsible, in the meantime is still the limit and you’re breaking the law by not respecting it. It’s the same thing with every laws and is the reason why when they change, criminals don’t suddenly get released from prison because the law they broke doesn’t exist anymore.
Ever heard of the social contract theory?
Heck, what if I believe that school zones are bullshit and want to do 50mph in them and it’s the kids responsibility to act safely? Would you defend my right to drive 50mph because you believe I have the right to question the speed limit in school zones this way or would you tell me to address the right people and live with the current limits until they’re changed?
We also need to keep in mind the mechanism it is using to detect speed. If it uses radar it will need regular calibration. Handheld units for example are supposed to be spot checked before and after each shift with tuning forks and sent back to the manufacturer to be recalibrated every 6 months or so.
Lidar and optical flow most likely have different requirements, but I am not as familiar with them.
Sorry but it’s a black and white thing in this case, r either you’re under the speed limit and not breaking the law or you’re over the speed limit and breaking the law.
This isn’t actually true. It’s entirely possible to be breaking the law while driving under the speed limit: “driving too fast for conditions” is very much a thing.
But that’s beside my point, which really was just that changing the design of the street to make people not want to speed in the first place is way more effective (and frankly, way less totalitarian) than punishing them after-the-fact for doing so.
“Driving too fast for conditions” won’t be enforced by cameras, will still exist if the road is modified and is 100% subjective which is a problem speed cameras don’t have so you should be happy about that.
It might be more effective, it’s still not possible to change all roads as quickly as speed cameras can be deployed.
It’s also a very stupid argument, that’s like saying “If that person didn’t want me to steal from them they shouldn’t have left their car unlocked.” The rule is there, it’s your responsibility to respect it no matter what the road looks like. Both things need to be used in conjunction, roads need to be adapted to their limit but you need something to enforce the limits too.
What would you prefer? That some people drive slightly over the speed limit? Or a spot where people suddenly slam on the brakes to avoid getting a ticket, endangering those who might be behind them with their sudden change of speed?
Because the latter is what these devices tend to do.
Show me evidences that they increase accidents please, I’ve provided two sources showing they work in another comment, surely you can provide one that they cause accidents.
Bullshit. You are allowed to cross examine your accuser which you can’t do for a camera. It is not the same. Random tech should not be judging humans for crimes.
No. Although they often go hand-in-hand, it is possible to either piss people off without them doing anything in response or to incite people to feel the need to pass you without them getting mad about it.
why do y’all apparently hate the idea of improving street design? As a former traffic engineer,
I think people are intuitively understanding that it’s not really a possibility in a country as large as America. There are only 139,000 km of public roads in the Netherlands, compared to 6,743,151 km of roads in America. We also have different types of traffic compared to the Netherlands, more large vehicles and people without access to public transportation for daily commutes. Compounding all this with the fact that the federal government has no control of how most of these roads are built… It’s understandable why people don’t see this as realistic option.
I think people are intuitively understanding that it’s not really a possibility in a country as large as America.
Their cynical intuition is wrong, though, and the “large country” argument in particular falls apart at the slightest scrutiny. So what if we have more roads? We have commensurately more traffic engineers, too! There is no excuse not to design properly.
We also have different types of traffic compared to the Netherlands, more large vehicles and people without access to public transportation for daily commutes.
Vehicle size is irrelevant. Lack of access to public transportation is indeed a problem; however, in general “we shouldn’t fix problem A because we also have problem B” is not a valid argument. It just means you should fix problems A and B.
Compounding all this with the fact that the federal government has no control of how most of these roads are built…
Sigh… look, you’re not wrong to argue that that’s a popular perception; however, that’s much more a consequence of the shitty state of civics education than it is an accurate description of reality. There’s a bunch of different ways the Federal government exerts control, including things like taxation and funding (including for state- and local-maintained roads in a lot of cases, not just U.S. Highways) and collaboration between the FHWA (government) and AASHTO (industry) on design standards. It’s more complicated than just a unitary central government dictating things, but rest assured, roads are designed in a relatively standardized way nationwide.
Their cynical intuition is wrong, though, and the “large country” argument in particular falls apart at the slightest scrutiny. So what if we have more roads? We have commensurately more traffic engineers, too! There is no excuse not to design properly.
I think we’re having a problem determining the difference of what is possible and what should be possible. Your argument is ignoring the most important aspect of any public project. There isn’t enough political will in this country to pass universal healthcare, something that would end up saving the country billions of dollars. In what world do you think American politicians are going to replace 4 million miles of working roads?
I don’t have the time ATM to watch this, I’ll give it a try after work. However, I doubt they’re going to be able to explain how they would get through the gridlock of our current government.
Vehicle size is irrelevant. Lack of access to public transportation is indeed a problem; however, in general “we shouldn’t fix problem A because we also have problem B” is not a valid argument. It just means you should fix problems A and B.
Traffic congestion won’t improve unless we improve public transportation. It doesn’t matter how well you build the roads, unless there is an alternative to driving there will be too many people on the roads. My argument is if we have to solve problem B before we work on problem A, there is no real reason to address problem A.
look, you’re not wrong to argue that that’s a popular perception; however, that’s much more a consequence of the shitty state of civics education than it is an accurate description of reality.
I think we’re just just getting into sematics now. Yes there is somewhat of a standardization of roads, but that does not mean they have the power to unilaterally create a new standard in which they could enforce with the power of the purse.
Your argument is ignoring the magnitude of funding and state and federal cooperation that would be required to revamp the entire transportation network of a huge country. Even if you could get a bill passed through our current Congress, how much money would it take, how much time?
Do I think we should be designing walkable cities with ample public transportation, of course. Do I think any politician in America would actually care about that…? No.
There isn’t enough political will in this country to pass universal healthcare, something that would end up saving the country billions of dollars. In what world do you think American politicians are going to replace 4 million miles of working roads?
We do have the political will in this country for universal healthcare, or, at least, most people, a majority, think it would be a good idea. it’s just I guess up to how you define “political will”, because we can have a majority that think we should have it, and then still not be able to get it even with popular support because the american government just straight up sucks and has bad voting systems and gerrymandering and even at the local level most of them are awful and are victims of circumstance of the presiding state and federal government. So that’s just kinda. I dunno. It sucks.
I always find it very strange how this shit comes up, though, right, basically as nihilism. I don’t think that guy’s point was to try and convince you to like, go out an canvas for better road conditions, his point was just to convince you that your arguments and causes were wrong and that you should be thinking about road design differently, mostly in that it’s a deliberate decision, and a bad decision. If you look at NJB, the guy who made that video, he’s an omega doomer that doesn’t really think progress will be made towards good urbanism within like, two generations, so he moved to amsterdam to escape it, basically. He’s also a doomer.
The point wasn’t to convince anyone to be an activist for anything, because that’s a pretty rare person that’s gonna be able to do that, the point is just that, the next time it comes around that the city has to do road maintenance, and they have a couple different options for proposals on how they might improve things, or if they will improve things, or if they’ll just leave things to rot, you can vote to make them better and it will take like 5 minutes cause someone talked about this shit previously.
Which, was the other point I was gonna make. We’ve just had a big new infrastructure bill passed and new passenger rail funding, and new amtrak proposals, and even though it’s not enough we’re seeing progress on that front. And more than that, at the local level, things don’t happen all at once with federal funding projects. They happen by degrees. You change the local standards, zoning regulations, so on, you know, shit you can precisely do because most politicians don’t give a shit about it, or shouldn’t right, if they turn it into a political issue where they’re like “we’re fighting the war on cars” with that mayor of toronto, gerard ford? it kind of becomes a mess. But if you can get it done, then over the next 20 years, things slowly shift in the right direction, as things have to be maintained by the city, and they decide hey maybe we’ll redo some of this in a different way that makes more sense and will legitimately feel better to drive even if suburbanites have been so propagandized to hate everything but a 6 lane totally car centric road.
I also would maybe contest the point about people driving in lieu of anything else, you know, I mean, this is sort of always the problem with urbanist solutions, right, is this chicken or the egg problem. Sometimes it’s easier to get big funding, even venture capital funding, for new development along a newly federally or state funded rail project, right, and that’s obviously a good thing, and then sometimes it’s easier to just change your regulations and then slowly make it so people can actually take their bike some place, right. I mean, you just kind of have to do both at once, whenever they become available as options, whenever prevailing conditions allow, and it takes a while. Hopefully you don’t get shafted with a useless kind of commuter park and ride rail line, but I suppose that’s better than nothing, and you know, hopefully some sort of development could come in and help fill some of the surrounding development with walkable shit so people have actual destinations at the suburban end of that, but then, you know, that requires you change the zoning regulations around that end of the track. I dunno. If you make the neighborhoods more walkable and have more destinations you might actually want to go to, more intracity places to go to, then public transit usually gets better, and if people have good public transit then that’s good for making walkable places because then you can kind of have the ability to expand people’s horizons and let them go places without having to own a car. I dunno, chicken or the egg, but also you just kind of do them both because there’s not really a dichotomy between them, is what I would assume that guy to be getting at.
We do have the political will in this country for universal healthcare, or, at least, most people, a majority, think it would be a good idea. it’s just I guess up to how you define “political will”, because we can have a majority that think we should have it, and then still not be able to get it even with popular support because the american government just straight up sucks and has bad voting systems and gerrymandering and even at the local level most of them are awful and are victims of circumstance of the presiding state and federal government. So that’s just kinda. I dunno. It sucks.
When I referenced political will I mean the politicians.
always find it very strange how this shit comes up, though, right, basically as nihilism. I don’t think that guy’s point was to try and convince you to like, go out an canvas for better road conditions, his point was just to convince you that your arguments and causes were wrong and that you should be thinking about road design differently, mostly in that it’s a deliberate decision, and a bad decision. If you look at NJB, the guy who made that video, he’s an omega doomer that doesn’t really think progress will be made towards good urbanism within like, two generations
My entire point is explaining the diff between what should be and what can be. Yes, we have the tech and the ability, but that doesn’t really matter if it never gets put to law.
His original statement questioned why people weren’t agreeing with his idea, I simply explained why it was an unrealistic goal.
Which, was the other point I was gonna make. We’ve just had a big new infrastructure bill passed and new passenger rail funding, and new amtrak proposals, and even though it’s not enough we’re seeing progress on that front.
I think you have a problem realizing the difference between 550 billion and 7.7 trillion. We have a lot of infrastructure that needs to be addressed, pretty much all of it makesore sense to do than spending trillions of dollars on roads.
Again, I understand roads should be better, but I also understand it’s not really a politically viable option.
I simply explained why it was an unrealistic goal.
See, so this is kind of my problem, right. You’ve said that it’s an unrealistic goal because it’s not politically viable at the federal level, which, you know, other comment, right, I don’t necessarily think that the majority of roads that people interface with on a daily basis have to be dealt with at the federal level, or have to deal with federal budget. I think the feds really only have to deal with like, amtrak and highways, and, again, not as much progress as there should be, right, but, progress on that front. More than we’ve had in the past 50 or 60 years, at least, which is a start.
But all that aside, right, like, this is a problem, a pretty major one at that, looking at death statistics, and even looking at projected problems like climate change, and the negative effect that this has on that. Not even necessarily just on the emissions of cars, which people plan to deal with via electric (booooo), but in terms of the cost of human development in such a fucked up way. Like ecological destabilization, and flooding from runoff, heat islands, shit like that, which, you know, climate change exacerbates. So we can agree, it’s a problem, in general, that we need to deal with. Why is this, what the fuck are we talking about, you know? Like, what is the tradeoff here? What else would you rather spend fake money on? Why can’t we just have healthcare and roads instead of having neither? Why is there this dichotomy, here? Like you’re agreeing with the premise of the argument here but the disagreement is that it’s like, not something you think we should spend political capital on, or just. Not something you think will get done? Like, why not? I dunno it is just kind of boggling my mind that you are agreeing with the core issue here, but you’re disagreeing on the premise that nothing will happen about it.
See, so this is kind of my problem, right. You’ve said that it’s an unrealistic goal because it’s not politically viable at the federal level, which, you know, other comment, right, I don’t necessarily think that the majority of roads that people interface with on a daily basis have to be dealt with at the federal level, or have to deal with federal budget
I don’t think you understand the separation of power between the state and the federal government. The federal government cannot dictate to the states how they build their roads. If you wanted to make overarching changes that require the states to spend money in a way they are not inclined to do, it must be done through Congress.
Why is this, what the fuck are we talking about, you know? Like, what is the tradeoff here? What else would you rather spend fake money on? Why can’t we just have healthcare and roads instead of having neither? Why is there this dichotomy, here?
I think you may want to take a civics course or something? There is a limited supply of funding, while people like you or I would like to spend that money on things like infrastructure and healthcare. There are people out there who would rather siphen that funding into private corporations to make themselves very very wealthy. The people who want to be very very wealthy are already very wealthy and in positions of power to exert their influence over the government.
Our government was created by the wealthy, and has built in protections to ensure that the wealthy stay in charge. It’s literally the entire point of having a bicameral Congress, where the Senate has true control over what bills are signed into action.
Yes you can fix this. The Dutch bicycle culture was started by municipal votes, where resolutions passed municipal governments with margins of single votes. If American politicians can pull their heads out of their asses and even only pass a resolution that:
Disseminates empirical research on road safety to all traffic engineers,
Prioritises safety for all users on roads and streets, with priority given to those without armour (i.e. a car), and maybe
Penalised engineers and politicians who choose to fail to design for safety
Then in the next thirty odd years, I think that the worst offenders can be rebuilt.
Do note that few things are as good at destroying themselves in regular, correct use as car infrastructure.
If American politicians can pull their heads out of their asses and even only pass a resolution that:
This is my entire point… It is unrealistic to believe that American politicians would do something for the good of the people. Especially when a large portion of Americans themselves rarely vote for their own self interest.
What would be the cost of redesigning and paving 4.19 million miles of road? Well let’s do some real conservative napkin math. Let’s choose the cheapest type of road, a rural minor arterial on flat ground. The reconstruction for this single lane would be 915,000 per mile, per lane. Assuming every road is just rural and two lanes the cost would be around 7.7 trillion dollars. Roughly a third of America’s GDP.
Shit like this is why I think the only thing that will save America is a complete purge of state and federal government, and a very clear and specific explanation why the US governments have been forcibly emptied and rebooted.
It should be governments’ jobs to act for the betterment of their subjects. The fact the US doesn’t, and happily marches the troops into places where they do “too well” if you’d ask them and read between the lines of their answers, is a crime against humanity.
I think we’re about 40-50 years too late for that option unfortunately. I think the whole world is going to be a little too busy addressing our rapidly deteriorating climate to do anything meaningfully good anytime soon.
yeah see that’s what I was talking about. you don’t have to ask for 7.7 trillion dollars all at once, because we already spend a pretty ludicrous amount on road maintenance already. you just redesign the road the next time the maintenance schedule comes around, which works out to be like. what you were already gonna spend, + the cost of paint you were already gonna use, + maybe some bollards, - the projected amount you would save by making it so people can take more trips by bikes and walking. which decreases car usage, which decreases the frequency with which you have to do road maintenance and upkeep, because cars weigh a lot and wear down the roads way more than any other use of roads.
yeah see that’s what I was talking about. you don’t have to ask for 7.7 trillion dollars all at once, because we already spend a pretty ludicrous amount on road maintenance already.
That’s how every congressional budget is configured… When they run scare tactics about universal healthcare going to cost trillions of dollars they don’t mean all at once. When they pass something like an infrastructure bill they also have to explain how to pay for it and for how long.
you just redesign the road the next time the maintenance schedule comes around, which works out to be like. what you were already gonna spend, + the cost of paint you were already gonna use, + maybe some bollards, -
That’s not how roads work… The maintenance schedule is just fixing the top layer of paving. The bulk of the cost is in reshaping land and pouring the concrete foundations. If all you’re doing is repaving the top layer it’s not going to make any significant changes.
If all you’re doing is repaving the top layer it’s not going to make any significant changes.
more than you might think, again, even just with paint. a road diet can take a four lane road down to two lanes, and can add bike lanes and a turn lane, which cuts down on traffic accidents from lane changes, and potentially road speed. you can do a lot with on street parking, and then you can increase the width of bike lanes and increase their traffic separation even more, if you really want to encroach on the space cars are taking up. you can focus larger projects on given intersections, you can increase the size of curbs, once foot traffic increases, and it becomes easier to justify. I don’t have solutions for like a six lane fully stroaded out shithole, outside of maybe trying to make it into a boulevard with planters and trees and pedestrian islands in the middle, because the crossings are too long. you can also do that shit they did with covid and just cut off a street for a weekend and then see whatever the increase in foot traffic ends up being, and then present the results of that trial, which is a good way to get the idea across and raise support in the community.
if none of those, combined with changing zoning laws to allow more mixed-use development, and more built up development, if none of that strikes you as “significant changes”, then I don’t really know what to tell you. it takes a while to accomplish, and at this point in most places in america is a multi-generation effort, but I dunno, that’s just kind of the way it is. if you’re really cynical, I guess there’s caltrops? like I dunno, what’s your alternative here?
I’m not a fan of them because they have been known to cause accidents in the past from people trying to slow down and not get ticketed. TIL this is bupkiss. I’ve read it so many times I took it for granted. That and it only slows people down in that specific area. You slow down, drive past it, then just speed back up.
I think Europe uses a better system, where you post two cameras on either end of the road you want to regulate the speed of. You take pictures of the license plates and time how long they were in the road for, then divide the distance by time to determine average speed. If that speed is above the legal limit, you look up the plate and they get a ticket in the mail. It’s lower tech because it doesn’t need LiDar, it’s harder to ‘cheat’, and it can be pretty cheap for regulating long stretches of road without exits.
No source of that (obviously because it’s bullshit), but there’s sources that show they reduce the number of people speeding this making the roads safer for non driver users by reducing the number of accidents.
While the system you describe does exist a lot in Europe the single cameras are much lower tech. They don’t have to read the license plate (twice!) correctly – they just take a picture. And while the mobile ones (non-descript grey van with blacked out rear windows parked at the side of the road) do use LIDAR, the static ones use just induction coils that are put into the road surface about 2m apart, rivht where the camera is looking. In Germany they’ll often put these coils in both directions of the road and just randomly turn the camera around, though newer ones just work in both directions all the time.
I mean, I agree people hating speed cameras is nonsense, just drive the speed limit! However, traffic calming is legit and makes the road a much safer place for pedestrians, and usually it’s by narrowing the road, not widening it.
I don’t think dubious scrappers taking obviously stolen copper are paying fair market value. You’d have to throw in a vcr or two amd haggle a bit to get enough for a dub.
I know. I never traded scrap, but I guess many or most won’t trade in so low numbers, I’d assume professional scrap traders have a minimum amount to not waste their time.
A pile of speed camera guts, 10 meters of 900-pair phone line, a grounding grid from a substation, and some coils from an orphanage’s air conditioner, probably.
It does amaze me how many people I’ve met who have a vicious hatred towards speed cameras. Especially interesting e: in a country where people have so much respect for the police.
We don’t like the idea a private company is enforcing laws not for safety but for profit. Especially when things like shortening of yellow light time and cameras that don’t properly report speed. It’s horseshit.
It’s not the local government putting them up, it’s a private company who is in charge and keeps at least half the revenue. Plus when their location is known and they get less effective the same company will try other things like altering yellow light time length to keep profits up.
Do you have a link explaining this? I searched for “poliisi valvontakamera” and “poliisi nopeuskamera asennus” and didn’t find stuff about who puts them up and whatnot or about the income sharing. I have read articles about how they’re a nice source of income for the state but no mention of the companies involved.
In the USA, many or most speed cameras are owned and operated not by the local police or city, but by a private company that keeps some percent of the fines they give out.
They are contracted by the city, country, or other authority. They are not randomly placed or operated without permission.
Yeah. Even in the US many municipalities outsource almost the entire ticketing process to the company selling the cameras, and the company collects a (usually outsized) percentage of the fees. So the company has the incentive to use whatever shady tactics to increase ticketing infraction events. This could be by changing the camera angle slightly to falsely get plates from yellow throughers or sometimes they change light timing itself to increase ticketing events…
I would just assumed because they are using the same Swedish company (Sensys Gatso) that does profit sharing agreements with municipalities in the US, that the agreement is the same.
I can’t seem to find the finnish contract award details, so I can’t confirm that they are. I am thinking now, that their might be a chance that they aren’t, given how extreme finnish traffic violation costs can be (% of salary).
So what’s the point? How does this not make it more equitable to adjust it by income from there? That’s still extremely more equitable than our wildly unjust system that’s only designed to punish the poor.
Edit: Also, that’s totally wrong. If I convert euros to USD, then that’s ~$135, which is way less than an average speeding ticket in the US. Last one I had was more than $200, and that was in 2010. You’re wrong.
I’m in the lower income bracket, and I haven’t had one that low since the 90s. That figure must be skewed by places like Nowhereville where the police are so corrupt that they issue $10 tickets to family members or something, because $150 is not a realistic figure for most people. I bet if we looked into that, we’d find some really creative methodology.
It’s only % of salary (day fines) for more severe offenses, in this case for really speeding. Normal speeding tickets are just a set sum.
Here’s a pic showing the amounts. It has the speed limit, how much over the limit you were and how much you end up paying as a fine. Bottom one is “regardless of the limit” and “over 20 km/h”, so whenever you go over by over 20 km/h, you pay “day fines”.
The real problem is that people want to argue technicalities that deflect from the main point. For people who aren’t paying attention, they might come across this and think, “Oh, well I guess the US system isn’t so unjust after all.”
The Finnish system is probably inequitable, too! But it’s objectively not as inequitable as the US system, at least not where traffic fines are concerned. There’s nuance.
It seems like a fairly risky assumption to make just from you having it work like that in the US.
As a side note, that % thing (day fines) don’t cover all speeding tickets, since they’re considered so minor. It’s the bigger offenses (of speed limits and in general) that are covered. So it actually covers other stuff too, not just speeding.
Here’s a pic showing the amounts. It has the speed limit, how much over the limit you were and how much you end up paying as a fine. Bottom one is “regardless of the limit” and “over 20 km/h”, so whenever you go over by over 20 km/h, you pay “day fines”.
Us Nords are socialist enough to keep a tight leash on capitalism. Less and less of course, but capitalism doesn’t define us, the way it defines basically the rest of the world.
Capitalism wreaks a different amount of havoc on societies depending on any number of variables, mostly those which have to do with controlling capitalism.
Hahaha! California actually has lot of pretty tall mountains that get regular annual snowfall so I’m assuming that’s responsible for quite a few of them. Also, contrary to popular belief it DOES rain there occasionally (most during January and February), but when it does, it’s often heavy enough to cause flash flooding, especially in the desert. I’m wiling to bet most of the waterfalls there are probably seasonal.
Yeah, Northern CA’s climate is closer to Oregon’s and SoCal is more like Mexico. Or at least it’s supposed to be. Last year it dumped pretty hard from Dec to March in the Bay Area.
the water crisis is largely in chunk, due to the agriculture taking up like 95% of it, as california by far is the largest state in the U.S in terms of crop export and it happens to also be the one producing the most water intensive ones (alfalfa(used as food for cows internationally), several nuts and avocados)
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