Speed cameras in Ohio
Reply #22 –
Karen: If it was about safety I'd have no problem whatsoever with speed cameras. Unfortunately safety has nothing to do with it. Speed cameras are rarely, if ever, set up in an area where excessive speed will kill you or somebody else (like on old back roads, at construction sites, etc). They're almost exclusively set up on some of the safest stretches of road around (interstates, 4-lanes) because that's where people are more likely to speed. Another popular speed camera trick is to set up in an area where there is a sudden reduction in speed limits, or where the speed limit is kept artificially low for the sole purpose of nailing speeders. In other words they are set up where they can make the most money, not where they can make the most difference with safety.
And it's not just speed cameras set up at these convenient locations. Police officers frequent them as well. Every time I go to the city I see a speed trap on the same stretch of road. Perfectly straight, perfectly level, four lanes of smooth pavement, and at the times they set their traps, relatively light traffic. Perfect place to catch speeders.
Meanwhile the newspapers are full every day of people being killed on the twisted, hilly, and very poor condition back roadsmuch like the road I live on. In fact, I live right at the point where the speed limit goes from 50 to 40 MPH (the sign is actually on my property) because there's a very sharp turn coming up with a gas station on that turn. Two months after I moved in a person was killed on that turn - she was out checking her mailbox and a speeding (and drunk) teenager lost it on the turn and nailed her. Every single day I see people pulling around other cars to pass right in front of my house, even though it's a reduced speed zone, not a passing lane, and in one direction it's a blind turn and in the other it's a blind hill. Every time I leave my driveway, even if I'm turning right, I have to look both ways before leaving it to make sure nobody's coming the other way on the wrong side of the road.
Yet you NEVER see police cars on the back roads. EVER. Because there isn't enough volume to write the officer's pay cheque, much less for his car and radar gun. Speed cameras at least eliminate the officer and car, but they still set 'em up in the safest but most profitable areas, not the areas that could really use some enforcement.
Check that: You do see cop cars on the back roads sometimes: For one month a year, it's deer season, and the back roads suddenly become busy. Lots of drunk drivers and gun violations. There are police everywhere at that time of year. I'm not growling about them being there, though - I just wish they'd devote that same kind of attention to the real dangerous roads the other 11 months of the year.
A good comparison is red-light cameras in PA. I think there are a grand total of three or four, statewide. One is at a specific intersection on Roosevelt Blvd. in north Philly. I couldn't count the number of fatal accidents they have there each year. So, they finally put in a red-light camera in. By state law, red-light cameras are forbidden except for the specific (three or four) intersections mentioned in the statute -- because they really are dangerous intersections. The fact that speed cameras are being installed statewide just doesn't pass the smell test.
There's a reason why radar and laser are banned statewide from use by local munilities in PA. We don't want every little two-bit town preying on people passing through. New Jersey is like that, and we don't want to live that way. Speed can be enforced where it's a problem, but the increased level of effort required to use VASCAR means that towns will use it only where speeding is actually a safety problem.
Topic: Speed cameras in Ohio (Read 4298 times)
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