Speed camera update (Sept.11)

[Brian P]

I can't remember exactly which but a country in Scandinavia cut traffic deaths huge just by reducing the in town speeds to 40kph and then enforced it.
Should we be more worried about saving time than lives??

It isn't quite that simple. Here's a completely random google streetview from the residential area of a town in Sweden. Street View · Google Maps

If you go to the map view, you'll note that this is a dead-end neighborhood unless you're walking or on a bicycle, and that's an offshoot from another street that doesn't really go anywhere, either, and if you try hard enough heading northbound, you eventually get to the junction of a main road, which looks like this:

Street View · Google Maps

Explore a place in a more immersive way in Google Maps.

www.google.com

Note the dual carriageway layout with completely separate bicycle / pedestrian paths ... and the bicycle paths that go off yonder directly into a park area alongside a river that you can't easily get to with a car.

The roads layout - for the most part - doesn't facilitate people driving through residential neighborhoods unless home or destination is actually in that neighborhood, and it isn't a straight path to get there, and the layout doesn't facilitate driving fast. And the main roads, for the most part, have bicyclists and pedestrians physically separated from motor vehicles.

It isn't all like this, but a lot of it is. Many of these towns (not the area shown above) pre-date motor vehicles, and those also tend to be tight, narrow, and without many straight paths from one place to another.

Random German village (beautiful) - Tight, narrow. Street View · Google Maps

 

[GreyGhost]

Instead of speed cameras (or in addition) how about bridge mounted CCTV. A few officers could fast forward thru lots of tape to find these clowns or better yet an actual use for AI.

On that note, average speed cameras are a far more effective system. Most of the parkside traffic is travelling end to end. Two cameras, existing ALPR software and a little math and the whole road slows down (or generates even more money). Average speed cameras would miss the small percentage of vehicles that turn off or stop along the way but those won't be the high speed outliers.

 

[PrivatePilot]

Parkside camera is reportedly back up today. Police have reminded people that damaging them is a criminal charge, not just a slap on the wrist.

Can't believe people are willing to risk a criminal record to mess with these cameras. It's quite possible that the parkside one is under some sort of additional monitoring now as well. We shall see.

 

[Baggsy]

The North American mentality is that putting your own life and that of others at risk to save 10 seconds or get one car ahead of someone else (even if you’re still going to be stuck in the same lineup of cars) is the correct decision.

Take a look at people who make stupid dangerous passes on our roads to get 2 or 3 car lengths ahead of everyone else, will weave through traffic on the 401 like a maniac just so they’re in front of someone and really no further ahead, etc etc.

That's generally NOT where speed cameras are placed. They have to be beside a school, which isn't going to be on the 401, and they're generally on single lane roads, which means no weaving like a maniac.

Here for sure. We'd be better off with red light cameras that are capable of catching people making rights without stopping, and some kind of monitoring for stop signs. Especially, on the small roads without sidewalks that weave their way past the primary schools here. You're not going to see speed cameras there, as they're not economically viable for the provider. So much for safety first.

If you want to discuss the 401 situation, we can get going really well with the trucks using the truck passing lane and never moving back over to the right. That causes a bucketload of congestion, just for them to save 10 seconds or get one car ahead of someone else.

Edit: Let me check if Parkside has a school. Maybe they can put them anywhere. Here at least they have the one's I've seen near schools.

 

[Evoex]

That's generally NOT where speed cameras are placed. They have to be beside a school, which isn't going to be on the 401, and they're generally on single lane roads, which means no weaving like a maniac.

Here for sure. We'd be better off with red light cameras that are capable of catching people making rights without stopping, and some kind of monitoring for stop signs. Especially, on the small roads without sidewalks that weave their way past the primary schools here. You're not going to see speed cameras there, as they're not economically viable for the provider. So much for safety first.

If you want to discuss the 401 situation, we can get going really well with the trucks using the truck passing lane and never moving back over to the right. That causes a bucketload of congestion, just for them to save 10 seconds or get one car ahead of someone else.

Edit: Let me check if Parkside has a school. Maybe they can put them anywhere. Here at least they have the one's I've seen near schools.

O god, trucks playing limiter wars on the 401 is probably my second biggest pet peeve.

 

[PrivatePilot]

If you want to discuss the 401 situation, we can get going really well with the trucks using the truck passing lane and never moving back over to the right. That causes a bucketload of congestion, just for them to save 10 seconds or get one car ahead of someone else.

As someone in the industry, I won't disagree. Everyone is impatient, someone going 1kph faster than the truck in front of them (something as simple as new tires vs old tires will do this even if both trucks are set to the exact same governed speed) and instead of just dropping 1kph on the cruise and dropping in behind, +1kph truck needs to do a 10km special olympics pass, and -1KPH truck will refuse to back out of it and let him go by.

Add some weight differences, a few grades where either or can speed up or slow down, and it's a mess.

Back in the days of professionalism in the industry +1 guy wouldn't try to pass to begin with, and if someone *was* getting passed they'd back out of it to let the other guy get past faster.

Now, professionalism is gone and I don't know if it'll ever come back.

The speed governor law made this a much bigger issue as now you can't just do 110 for a minute to pass someone happily rolling along at 100.

Don't even get me started on the law applying to trucks, but passenger busses with 40+ people onboard still have free reign to do whatever the heck they want and go 120+ all day long. I got passed by one a few weeks ago that had to be doing north of 130. But anyways.

 

[Malks]

That's generally NOT where speed cameras are placed. They have to be beside a school, which isn't going to be on the 401, and they're generally on single lane roads, which means no weaving like a maniac.

Edit: Let me check if Parkside has a school. Maybe they can put them anywhere. Here at least they have the one's I've seen near schools.

No schools on Parkside as far as I remember. These cameras can be placed wherever there is a "Community Safety Zone", which can be created by the municipality pretty much anywhere they like with minimal criteria. The municipality can also set the speed limits to any artificially low number they choose and call it a safety matter. When you combine low speed limits with a safety zone and speed cameras you are guaranteed to generate high numbers of "speeding" tickets from people going what used to be 5km over the limit.

 

[backmarkerducati]

In general they also like to place cameras where the speed limit drops near by, not always the case but.

-I guess they want to do the enforcement to get people to drop speed in these areas.
-Not guessing at all, revenue is higher as people driving along minding their own business near the speed limit get dinged when it goes from 50 (what they were travelling near) to 40 (or 30)...

 

[GreyGhost]

In general they also like to place cameras where the speed limit drops near by, not always the case but.

-I guess they want to do the enforcement to get people to drop speed in these areas.
-Not guessing at all, revenue is higher as people driving along minding their own business near the speed limit get dinged when it goes from 50 (what they were travelling near) to 40 (or 30)...

And on downhill stretches of road. It's almost like the positions chosen are to maximize revenue and have almost nothing to do with safety. If it was about safety, I would expect cameras to be more correlated with locations with a lot of pedestrians jay walking.

 

[Wingboy]

Waterloo was set to install about 50 cameras, but the plan has been shelved for now. Not enough funds i think. They only raised taxes 6.4%.

 

[GreyGhost]

Waterloo was set to install about 50 cameras, but the plan has been shelved for now. Not enough funds i think. They only raised taxes 6.4%.

Most municipalities don't pay anything for the cameras. They give 30% to the camera company and the program needs no public funding.

EDIT:
That isn't the only model. There are at least two others. One uses a centralized ticket processing centre (in Brampton IIRC) and municipality owned cameras. IIRC, that costs about 10%. Third option is fully in-house. No percentage fee but you have expenses for staff and equipment. I don't think many municipalities are using option three.

 

[Fuzzbuster]

Is this the next big thing? They seem to be testing them in Europe.

 

[Fuzzbuster]

They recently installed a speed camera near my home on a road that I take regularly. They gave everyone adequate warning and I still see people going too fast! I travel at normal speed 10-15km over then slow right down to like 25-30km through the 40 zone. Then right back up to speed, it is so pointless. I guess one of these days I will forget and get dinged! I really like it when I slow down and see a car approaching fast from behind me and they seem agitated by my ridiculously slow speed, then I speed up shortly after the camera and realize I just saved them a ticket!