It’s worth noting that in most other rich countries, pedestrian deaths have been falling. And before anyone says something stupid about how America is uniquely big or new, even Canada has 60% fewer traffic fatalities.
Since this isn’t Reddit I find the likelihood of some dumbass coming in trying to claim that America is somehow uniquely exceptional is pretty low. Though I would grant that America’s exceptionally awful…
Alas, I’ve read tons of comments, even on this community, about how the US is “too big” for trains or walkable cities to work. I think the car-centric mindset cuts across the political spectrum — or put another way, the topic hasn’t been fully politicized yet.
So why is this? The answers so far seem unsatisfactory, since things like phones, SUVs and car-centric infrastructure are on the rise in other countries as well, without that staggering rise in deaths.
I spent about 3 minutes browsing the report linked in the article, and am rather less confident than before. For example, on pages 25 and 26 they look at the share of SUVs in deaths and sales. And while both figures are rising, the bodycount from non-SUVs has gone up as well.
The answer is probably not a single factor anyways. Can anyone make a more or less informed guess what might explain the US being so bad?
This is the keyword for such a city. It should've gotten such a system already by now when reaching the first million. All these arab/middle eastern cities seem so extremely focused on car infrastructure to a rather disturbing degree. And all the carbrains I know think these cities are the pinacle of modern city development: all just gigantic glass skyscrapers and highways circling around them - nothing else.
Also, back on Facebook/Instagram, there's not a single person who had the money to visit Dubai once and post pictures from there (at least that I'm aware of), that is not car brained. I'm sure they all use their car everywhere and nothing less, they could even be doing their basic shopping from the corner store with it, I think.
All these arab/middle eastern cities seem so extremely focused on car infrastructure to a rather disturbing degree.
Not all cities, but I do understand your sentiment and it is echoed by many locally. Luckily the people in the top are aware they need to fix this. Though even if they ever did, who wants to walk when its 37C at night? Some cities have installed outdoor cooling.
One interesting concept is “the line” city, basically one ultra long building. No need for cars and you can travel from one end to the other via high speed metro. It’s basically a city optimized for public transport and so that everyone’s apartment has a beautifu view on unspoiled nature (well desert in this case haha)
I’m a car driver and enthusiast and I’ll be the first one to ask… Why the fuck can my car reach 250kph if the highest speed limit in my country is 110kph???
Edit: If you think I’m complaining that I can’t go faster then you understood the message wrong
Driving fast in the right circumstances is a blast, no one is denying that. E.g., doing a track day, or even road racing on a closed course. But it’s not the same as driving in public day-to-day. Here in the US southwest, in order to drive a road race in the 150 mph/250 kph class, you need a 5 point harness, fire suppression system, helmet and HANS device.
You simply don’t need to go that fast on a daily basis. It’s not safe for you, without all the above precautions, and it’s not safe for others around you.
Auto manufacturers use the top speeds/acceleration/torque stats for marketing. Drivers imagine they will have fun going that fast (see above, they can!), they perceive value in having “better stats”, so the market rewards manufacturers to keep selling daily-driver cars that have unrealistic top speeds. Combine that with the fact that most people can’t afford to have a separate “fun” car, or access to safe locations for motor sports, and we end up seeing people trying to have the fun they imagined on our shared public roadways, which is downright dangerous for everyone.
Get your kicks on the track. Your car’s top speed does not belong on public roads.
Exactly! I think discussions have started to have speed limiters on new cars sold in Canada and it’s perfectly logical. Why let manufacturers sell cars that can reach speeds that will make people face criminal charges if they get caught? It’s ridiculous enough that we’re switching to electric cars with 0-100kph under 7 seconds and no one bats an eye… The next few decades will be interesting, imagine all the new drivers accidently launching from stop signs in a fairly basic car that does 0-100 in 6 seconds…
I think the best thing I ever did was learn on a 250cc. It’s way harder to wreck your day or get yourself killed when you inevitably grab a bit too much throttle as a complete newbie. I would even encourage people to learn on a 125cc or even 50cc. The basics are the basics and you can pick those up on a bike with less than 10hp just as easily if not more easily than a bike with 100+hp.
It would be amazing to see government mandated limiters in cars, in general, and not just for learners.
I know that a lot of people don’t agree with that but the public has proved they are incapable of driving within reasonable limits. No one needs a car that can go the speeds that cars are capable of going. It’s totally possible to setup a system that enforces the limit only on public roads so that people could still take their cars to the track. We very much have the technology.
It blows my mind that the general public is completely accepting of things like smartphone OSes that can spy on their every move and log their every detail yet if you mention limiters on cars all of the sudden they become staunch advocates for personal freedoms. The hypocrisy blows my mind.
Maybe… because it is dangerous to drive that fast when other people are around? Why don’t you just buy a car that can only go as fast as the highest speed limit?
Huh? What part of my message made you think I drive over the speed limit? I’m clearly saying that it’s ridiculous that cars are sold without speed limiters!
The second sentence can be read like you’re complaining you can only go 110 while your car could go 250, and I guess a lot of people understood it this way.
The problem here is not a lack of reading comprehension but rather a lack of you explaining yourself. You see, I could not really see the motivation behind your post because it was so ambiguous. So I think it is not really fair to blame anyone reading your text for not correctly interpreting it they way you wanted it.
It’s one of the few cases where I say “Why do you care if you don’t do it?” because the only purpose in this case is to catch people doing illegal things and in theory the license plate of drivers who don’t go over the speed limit shouldn’t be photographed.
They’ve also shown that they work in school zones where the limit is lower than anywhere else, so in my opinion they should at least be installed in all school zones.
Lol no the only purpose is increasing revenue via fines.
If it was a real safety deterrent there would be some immediate feedback like a text message, assuming you have your phone number in your driver's licence registration. Instead oblivious drivers will be going too fast in that stretch of road for weeks before getting tickets in the mail, and then they'll get a bunch of tickets.
The point is to hit them with the fine 5+ times not once.
It's not they don't work to decrease speeding... They do. It's that if the point was immediate deterrence there would be some feedback to the driver they just got a ticket, like the kind of immediate feedback you get when you are pulled over by a real cop.
Nothing says „against mass surveillance“ and „kick big brother‘s ass“ and „fuck the machine“ like… putting people’s phone number on their driver’s licence…
oblivious drivers will be going too fast in that stretch of road for weeks
I’m not sure, it’s been a free months since I was in the UK, but I think I remember them having these signs with numbers painted on them next to the road? Maybe just look out for those?
does ticketing the owner of the car, via automation, really accurately cite the offender? How does the camera know it was you, without a shadow of a doubt? You’re ticketing or citing the owner of the vehicle without them being present and stopped by an officer. Red Light cameras are just as bad. There’s no guarantee that the person who is listed as the owner was the one to drive the vehicle and commit the offense.
In the UK, where this is, the registered keeper of the vehicle is sent a letter requiring they identify the driver at the time of the incident. Lying about it is a serious offence if caught. So, yes, it’s as accurate as can be.
Do you want to have to defend yourself halfway across town or the state/territory/region you live in when someone steals or borrows your car without permission and speeds or runs a red light?
You’d have reported your car stolen to the police. Again, lying about this is a serious offence.
Ok, what better infrastructure do you recommend? Consider a 60mph straight road that passes through a village with shops and schools on both sides of the road, currently a 30mph speed limit through that section.
Speed cameras aren’t hidden in the UK. They are always preceded by warning signs and the cameras themselves are in big yellow boxes that are completely obvious. You’d have to be blind to miss one.
This isn’t privacy issue. It’s just an issue for bad drivers.
Okay, so you know how it sucks to have people ignore rules and ignore you and your safety, you know how it feels to be treated like dirt by other people… and they probably do it because they do not fear any consequences for themselves and think they are in the right.
So I need to ask you: how will they ever be taught that you have rights that need to be upheld?
The same question has been asked regarding speed limits and speed cameras are one of the answers. And a pretty good one too. The article says:
The cameras in Perranarworthal were installed in March 2023 after campaigning from residents. Where the speed camera is, or was, it’s used by parents taking their children to two primary schools … it’s one of the busiest crossings in Truro and there’s been a number of quite bad accidents. For hundreds of people in that area, the speed cameras actually had a really positive effect on their quality of life. Parents feel safe letting their kids walk to school now.
What has happened here is just completely antisocial behaviour that is ruled by selfish thinking. This is not kicking big brother’s ass. This is kicking asses of people who can not defend themselves against idiots in better ways.
From 1992 to 2016, speed cameras reduced accidents by between 17 to 39 per cent and fatalities by between 58 to 68 per cent within 500 metres of the cameras.
That’s a report on a single study in the UK. We cannot necessarily assume that the outcome will be the same or even similar in all jurisdictions and social driving norms. The US, for instance, doesn’t have speed cameras, but the use of red light cameras has no effect in the rate of accidents at best and an increase in the rate of accidents at worse and it’s not clear what impact the introduction of such cameras to the US would have. Meanwhile the UAE does have speed cameras, but they do nothing to limit the speed of the Emirate citizens and only the threat of harsh fines, punishment, or deportation keeps the immigrant and working population in line.
While this camera was in a location which already has cameras, the claim quoted was not that “UK cameras protect UK drivers,” but one of “Cameras [in general] protect everyone” which is simply not true. Cameras have only the mechanisms necessary to record and report, they have no mechanism by which they can divert, slow, or stop a car or pedestrian and no mechanism they can use to stop an accident.
Cameras have only the mechanisms necessary to record and report, they have no mechanism by which they can divert, slow, or stop a car or pedestrian and no mechanism they can use to stop an accident.
There is no need to stop a crash in-progress when the dangerous behavior that would have resulted in that crash never happened in the first place because of the discouraging effect of traffic cameras.
TL;DR: If you do incriminating stuff, you should be incriminated.
There are rules that every driver has to adhere to. The rules are there for protection of the drivers and the people that rely on the drivers driving safely. But the thing is: without consequences, some people show bad behaviour, one being ignoring the rules which are made to keep people safe. In order to suppress such behaviour, fines and punishment are used.
I have been driving cars for around 10 years and have gotten a fine three times. The amount I paid for it in total was roughly 10 Euros per year, which is less than 1 Euro per month. And I could have avoided having to pay this by just being mindful and acting according to the rules, which I did not.
If people feel like they should drive 120 kmh in a 50 kmh zone or even worse, without any proper justification, they do not belong behind the wheel of a car.
People would be less upset about the cameras if a) we weren’t already the most surveilled western country already. B) the fine for minor speeding was minor. as you mentioned you paid 100 euros for 3 fines. In the uk you can be fined for doing 33 in a 30, and the fine will be 100 euros per time, plus points that makes your insurance go up as well. And c) there weren’t so god slam many of them. I live in Europe now, but went back to the uk to visit friends and family and honestly there have to be about 40-50 times many cameras in the uk than in Germany!
Plus they often feel like they’re placed to catch people who drift upto 35 on the downhill section of a road that looks like it should be national speed limit anyway.
If they didn’t feel like a way for them to make money people would accept them easier.
Personally I’m a rare sunday driver so they don’t really affect me but I absolutely see how people can be annoyed by them
Agreed. If they were actually there to stop speeding and not just cash in, then they would just put average cameras on every slip road and then nobody could speed on the motorway at all. Obviously this would be hell for someone like me but I couldn’t argue with it for safety really.
Speaking from germany, 33 in a 30 wouldn’t even trip the speed cams here. Earliest infraction is basically doing 6mph over on a 30mph road, which would come at 50€ fine. We apparently also have 50 times less speed cameras and it absolutely does not stop people from fucking malding over them. They have to be designed bulletproof here now and even those still get regularly blown up. None of the points you raise change anything about it, because the core issue is people are terminally car brained
Just drive the speed limit and there's no problem. Driving massive multiple ton killing machines is already a massive privilege, if you can't adhere to simple rules of the road, you shouldnt be driving at all.
Self righteous much? You talk like it’s not possible to stray a bit over the speed limit and still be safe. Honestly imo, anyone timid enough to feel like 35mph in a 30 is genuine,seriously dangerous should not be allowed to drive. You should be confident and commanding of said multiple ton machine.
I couldn’t care less. These cameras exist entirely to make councils money. When they actually want traffic slowed they redesign the road properly with traffic islands.
Destroying these cameras is a good thing. It either fucks over council revenue sources that mainly fuck the poor while affecting the rich not one bit, or it results in getting actual redesigns of the roads properly because they do actually want that road to be safer.
This method is a little extreme though tbh we usually just chuck paint on them. This one is tall in order to make that less viable it seems.
Oh, yeah… so if you do incriminating stuff, say… acting in a way that directly leads to people being hurt, maimed and / or traumatized, you should just get a pat on the back. I will just have to presume that this is what you are saying.
You’ll never get a real answer because the types of people that post these idiotic disingenuous complaints about speed cameras have nothing to say to the simple question:
Or maybe I was just out during the day and didn’t have a chance to respond until now?
I didn’t post a complaint about speed cameras and certainly not a disingenuous one at that. I was just pointing out an incorrect assumption made by an official quoted in the article.
I do think it’s kinda silly that your response to the fact that cameras don’t have a means to control traffic or stop accidents is to ask why I don’t drive the speed limit.
I do.
And cameras still can’t stop me from getting into an accident.
And cameras still can’t stop me from getting into an accident.
Are you stupid? The whole premise is that the risk of actual consequences will slow people down, which in turn reduced the risk of getting into an accident.
If traffic cameras worked to prevent traffic violations they wouldn’t be revenue streams. People would just rationally follow the traffic laws to avoid consequences. Yet, in the real world, we know it will only slow down the people who think about consequences.
Not really. Awareness of punishment does little to abate crime in general and while increasing the chances of getting caught (say by automatic cameras) does discourage crime in a meaningful way it does not prevent it.
Even so, the camera itself is not offering protection. It has no mechanism to control traffic or stop an accident.
I see this language far too often around cameras, but the fact remains they serve only to incriminate after the fact, not to prevent before the fact.
If you want protection, reduce lane sizes, make drives less straight, install speed tables, incentive alternate arterial routes, make sure alternate forms of transportation are effective and available. Hell, install the cameras even, but don’t be dissolutioned that they are what is actually doing anything.
These are all better options, but that'll require closing the road for a while and more money to spend, which have been gambled on leaving the EU from my American understanding of modern British history. Speed cameras are much cheaper, will not require road closure, and there have been studies indicating a 22% effectiveness after installation.
Speed cameras do work though. Here they are often used in specific places where people are driving too fast, especially if near schools and other places where it’s extra dangerous.
For example close to where I live there is a steep hill with a road that goes straight down and after there is a completely straight road and then a really small bridge with a bump.
Some people like to speed down the hill and basically “jump” the bridge bump. Fortunately a speed camera was installed at the bridge and they warn about it well in advance.
While you could technically redesign the road, it would be very costly compared to a camera and that road is a very small road with low traffic and private farmland (or grazing land, I don’t remember) on both sides.
Here the cameras aren’t even activated all the time just enough to achieve their goal of reducing traffic.
Good. Speed cameras are an abominable hypocrisy. The claim that they’re there because safety is important is undermined by the total lack of action Devon and Cornwall police take against actual unsafe drivers.
I drove past a police officer standing with a speed camera recently at 20mph with another car driving less than two feet from my bumper.
Had I been speeding I’d have gotten a ticket, meanwhile the police watch this actually dangerous driver sail past them without taking any action.
Half a mile later I have to drive onto the wrong side of the road around a lorry parked on a corner, with almost no visibility of oncoming traffic.
Their moral authority is destroyed and their pretence shattered by their own inaction and ineffectiveness.
So tear down the speed cameras if it highlights their fiction. Devon and Cornwall police are great at many things. Traffic is not one of them.
A place where I lived they installed eur 600k worth of cameras. I mean every little corner was covered.
Well one day I got beaten up and the police didn’t care when I tried to report it. And another day I found a backpack so I brought it to the police and this woman was incredibly rude to me.
I mean for 600k they could have a full time patrol there!
Speed cameras are designed to do one thing – issue citations for speeding.
The job of the police officer is to identify a wide array of crimes and issue citations for them, when they observe them.
The incident where a car was tailgating you and the incident where a lorry was creating an unsafe driving situation have absolutely nothing to do with the speeding camera. Both of those situations are the responsibility of a policy officer, if they are alerted to the crime or observe it themselves. You have a valid complaint about the complacency of your local law enforcement, but what does your argument have to do with the speed camera?
The basis for the rationale for putting up speed cameras depends on the police to act with an unquestionable moral authority.
By acting with inconsistent moral principles they demonstrate their stated and genuine motives differ which undermines the moral authority they need to police by consent.
It explicitly takes control away from the police and moves it to simple sensors and circuits, as well as simple bureaucratic mailing lists. If it screws up, you can either request a manual review of the footage or spend an afternoon to bring your own evidence it in front of a judge. The police have nothing to do with it.
Meh, fuck the cameras. They don’t stop the actual dangerous drivers and just end up tagging folks going 8mph (13kph) over. Fix the street and infrastructure.
From 1992 to 2016, speed cameras reduced accidents by between 17 to 39 per cent and fatalities by between 58 to 68 per cent within 500 metres of the cameras.
Road tax doesn’t exist in the UK, and if it did it wouldn’t be something the local council has any control over. We need to get rids of the tories in the central government and start funding local councils better.
Because god forbid we have a small variance for error and using common sense. God forbid I go faster when traffic is minimal or use any judgement while driving. Fuck me for thinking a ticket for going 5 over isn’t worth a beating.
“Speed trap” cameras are an entirely apt name. The solution to speeding isn’t cameras, or patrols, or administrative controls, it’s traffic calming, and that reduces capacity, so it’s not considered. The trap is driving on the road at speeds they seem to be designed for, with speed limits significantly lower.
Fuck cars, but fuck cops more. We don’t need to live in a panopticon. These cameras are a step in the wrong direction, and while I don’t think the person who cut them down is doing the right thing for the right reasons, they are doing the right thing.
However it throws hundreds of people through the equally discriminatory criminal justice system, and allows car insurance companies to jack up rates. Functioning even more effectively as a tax on being different than regular cops do. It also creates a financial incentive for the government not to fix the underlying cause of the problem of speeding.
Wishing and hoping for people to be better than they are isn’t a solution. Just because traffic calming is more expensive, that’s not a reason to not do it. It is something that needs to be done if you want to break car dependency.
Wishing and hoping for people to be better than they are isn’t a solution. Just because traffic calming is more expensive, that’s not a reason to not do it. It is something that needs to be done if you want to break car dependency.
We should be doing that, but local councils don’t have the money after more than a decade of tory austerity. I also believe that driver’s should be able to drive below the speed limit even if the road isn’t correct for it, because there will always be places like that (around construction, for example), and like you say we can’t just wish and hope for them to follow that rule so some enforcement is needed.
Traffic calming is a “substitution” of the hazard. It, like unexpected construction, forces drivers to slow down due to the road not being psychologically safe to drive fast on.
Speed limits are an “administrative control” on the other hand.
People will drive as fast as they (possibly incorrectly) feel is safe, and a lot goes into that, of which speeding fines are only one very small part. If you really want safe streets for pedestrians and motorists, it is just not as effective an option.
Additionally, I’m level certain that Tory austerity is not really a viable excuse here, because I’m sure that there are ongoing efforts to “alleviate the traffic problem” by adding capacity. It’s not that the money doesn’t exist, it’s that the money doesn’t exist for this. Because elected officials aren’t interested in this, because they’re more interested in fine revenue and keeping car people happy.
Now, can you explain to us, how is removing the „administrative control“ – the one that the people living there literally campaigned for – without implementing any of the other steps „doing the right thing“?
You’re the kind of person who takes away the workers‘ masks saying „What they really really need is better air conditioning! I’m very intelligent!“
There’s really nothing you morons won’t come up with to justify going as fast as you want to.
Yeah yeah, I get it, you only want to „break car dependency“, sure. So what exactly does cutting down speed cameras do to „break car dependency“? Oh right, nothing.
I agree the fines should be proportionate, but a police officer doing the enforcement can stop whoever they don’t like the look of whether or not they are actually speeding whereas a camera will only target those who are actually, you know, speeding.
My point is if someone has the wealth to not feel the fine, the camera does nothing to influence their behaviour and such target those who can’t afford it.
I’ve had a speeding ticket where I was offered a “no points” option to pay a higher fine. That was only offered after I showed up in court. This would discriminate against poorer drivers.
You will unconsciously drive as fast as the road allows you unless you keep checking your speedometer. Some cars too can insulate you from the noise and sense of speed that you will drive faster than you’d typically do in another car.
Governments are clamping down on protests against climate change: * silence *
Some idiots cut down speed cameras the people living there specifically asked for: YEAH! Fuck the police!!!1! Rage against the machine!!!1! Fuck mass surveillance!!!1!
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