Friday the 13th encounter with Big Brother

 

   In the mail today I got a notice from the police department of a
neighboring city.  It was informing me that I owed them $85 for driving
too fast - ~66 in a 50 mph zone, calculated by traffic light cameras.
This is on a limited access "connector", which still has about 10
intersections as it curves around the west portion of the major metro
area.  The camera was just barely able to make out the license plate
numbers, evidently.

   Funny thing is, I don't drive that vehicle.  My wife does.  The
letter said that I'm responsible unless I can get another person to sign
a letter saying they are responsible.  Obviously, my wife was the one
driving, on her way to work.  She was probably a little bit late, and
driving a bit fast to make up time.

   However, it brings up an interesting question.  There is no cop on
location to verify the driver, or even to verify that a human was
driving.  In fact, it could have been my license plates transferred to a
similar looking vehicle, if someone wanted to automatically generate a
ticket for me.  And even if a relative or 'friend' borrowed my car, if
they don't own up to it or accept responsibility, I'm then automatically
responsible even if I can prove I was elsewhere, and couldn't have been
driving the car?

   That seems pretty bogus to me.  I didn't like it when they started
doing this with red light cameras, because I've always believed if you
stop in the middle of the night, there is no traffic or whatever, you
should just look both ways and then go, because it is pointless to just
sit there, wasting gas for an extended period, just like it is at a stop
sign.  Not any more.  And now they are estimating your speed, which
means they are keeping track of you in the system from place to place.

   I am curious about what would happen if I took 2 cars of the same
make , model & year, and put the same plates (I have spares) on the back
of both of them.  Then, if I coordinated over a telephone with my wife
or somebody, I could drive through one light, and then through a
different light & traffic cam a couple of seconds later.  It would look
like I was going something like 800 miles per hour, and I wonder if they
would issue a ticket for that?  Probably.

   My point is that I feel that a human should be present to issue any
tickets.  Once before, I went through a red light in an ice storm when
taking a girl home after a party in college.  I looked both ways, saw no
oncoming traffic, and decided it would be more dangerous to brake and
change speed than to run the light, which had changed faster than I
expected.  Of course, there was a cop there, and he pulled me over.
Once I explained my reasoning, however, he agreed and simply let me off
with a warning.  Try that with a traffic camera, when its sole purpose
is to generate extra tax revenue.

 



Try that with a traffic camera, when its sole purpose

I agree pretty much with everything you say except  this last statement
about the automatic extra tax revenue generation.

sometimes traffic cameras are put into place at busy intersections because
children and the elderly are killed by reckless driving.  Some streets have
higher numbers of school aged pedestrians or homes for the aged and traffic
needs to be slowed to posted limits for good reason.  There are benefits to
having cameras introduced to some areas.

Make sure the street your wife was speeding on does not have schools, or
public transit or busy pedestrian crossings before arguing in front of a
judge.   I know it's really easy to blame tax authorities but that isn't
always the case.

 


  I used to favor red light cameras in an area that I still think badly
needs them (Philadelphia).

  However, I saw what hapened within months after Philly's intersection of
58th and Walnut (school there) got red light camera enforcement:  The
yellow light duration was shortened at least half a second from that
area's usual 3 seconds to no more than 2.5 seconds.

  Whoever was responsible (or more like irresponsible) for that is giving
camera enforcement a bad name, and detracting from support for such things
where they are badly needed.  (Such as where cops stopping unlawful drivers
cause traffic tie-ups in the process.)
  The irresponsible persons shortening yellow light durations at
intersections with red light cameras need severe punishment, such as maybe
public gonad removal surgery in a painful manner.  OK, I would settle for
public shaving of all hair on every square inch of their bodies, or else
showing how every square inch of their bodies was already hairless.  And
publish their vehicles' make/model/year/tag#, so that they are forced to
drive 35 rather than 45 in roads posted 35 but suitable for 50 and driven
at 40-45 by many cops when they are off-duty and out of uniform and in
their personal cars.
--
 - Don Klipstein (don@misty.com)

 


Suck it up and pay it, you tax evading weasel. You and your spawn are
a blight on the world Please just die. NOW!

 

On Fri, 27 Aug 2010 18:43:15 -0700 (PDT), tmclone


There she/he/it is again. Too exciting for words. Now I know why I
have been away for years.

[back to bed]