WaPo: new writer & "war on motorists" (guest starring AAA)

[mstone]

@baiskeli 94600 wrote:

The real problem here isn’t enforcement, it’s the limitations of the technology. A camera has no wiggle room to decide that a violation isn’t worth ticketing like a real cop would. I’d like to know how many camera tickets are “real” violations and how many are technical, but inconsequential, ones.

That’s actually a feature, because the “wiggle room” is usually based on things like “that girl is cute” or “that guy is driving while black”.

[americancyclo]

I’d like to see a shift in the discussion away from ‘safety’ and towards ‘risk’ and ‘danger’. Red light running is not a safety issue, it’s dangerous. I like to think of the red light cameras as a tax on risk taking behavior. If you’re willing to take a larger risk and expose others to greater danger, there should be a fine on that behavior.

similarly, the cyclist rolling through a stop sign takes a smaller risk and creates less danger for all involved, so the fine, if any, should be orders of magnitude less.

[jrenaut]

@mstone 94604 wrote:

So why did you fight the ticket?

Because DC parking enforcement is malicious – they actively encourage situations where people are likely to get ticketed due to confusion rather than ignoring the law. And they enforce selectively based on convenience and revenue rather than any sort of safety concerns. So if they’re going to be jerks about it, I’m going to make a person review any ticket they give out.

[dasgeh]

@baiskeli 94600 wrote:

So I would turn your statement around – if we bitch and moan about cars breaking the law and endangering us, we have to put the same expectations on ourselves.

I strongly disagree. Cars should be held to a higher standard than other road users because they have a much, much, much higher propensity to kill and seriously injure. They are heavy hunks of metal propelled by a powerful motor. (They also are heavily subsidized by the rest of us, but that’s a peripheral argument).

This wasn’t in your comment, but it has been in others: I strongly believe that enforcement actions should be tailored to the dangers posed by the road users. Find where one group is endangering another, and fix that. I doubt you’ll end up enforcing much around stop signs on the W&OD.

@baiskeli 94600 wrote:

The real problem here isn’t enforcement, it’s the limitations of the technology. A camera has no wiggle room to decide that a violation isn’t worth ticketing like a real cop would. I’d like to know how many camera tickets are “real” violations and how many are technical, but inconsequential, ones.

Having been hit by a car that was “rolling” a right on red (years ago, as a pedestrian), I can personally attest to how even these seemingly “minor” or “technical” violations, when committeed by multi-ton hunks of metal propelled by powerful engines can seriously injure a person. They should be enforced, and I, personally, like that cameras do that without giving discretion to officers to (all too often) ignore violations that put people in danger.

@baiskeli 94600 wrote:

It’s unfortunate if the cameras catch everyone no matter how minor the violation as Milbank claims, but if red light running is a big safety problem, then I think catching a few close calls is worth it. And to me, that would apply to cyclists too. So yeah, if there was a busy intersection where cyclists were frequently running a stop, causing a safety hazard, and they put a camera there and cyclists got caught somehow even for not putting their feet down, that would be worth it to me (I’d want a sign up that would warn cyclists that the foot has to go down though).

More of a quibble, but there’s not legal requirement to put a foot down, just to stop.

[DismalScientist]

@mstone 94603 wrote:

As far as increased enforcement of the stop signs on the W&OD, yeah, that would piss people off. The root reason being that they are placed badly, with no accounting for the characteristics of any particular crossing, under a policy that has a blanket prohibition on an unobstructed pedestrian/cyclist right of way due to particular biases at NVRPA, and which serve no safety purpose. (That is, the signs themselves are a problem even more than the level of enforcement but increased enforcement would fan the flames.)

Hmmm… How do you think the location of speed cameras is determined?

I don’t have a problem with automated enforcement in principle, but in practice it seems to focus more on revenue than safety. Similarly, speed limits often don’t accurately correspond to driving conditions, being both too high and too low in different places. When cyclists get bent out of shape due to bad placement of signage, why is that drivers complaining about similar issues are automatically assumed to be homicidal maniacs?

[lordofthemark]

@jabberwocky 94590 wrote:

It always sort of amuses me how blase cyclists can be about laws that affect them (running stop signs, lights, etc) but turn into THE LAW IS THE LAW types when it comes to other people.

I don’t do Idaho’s at red lights. I seldom do them at stop signs. So I guess I don’t consider myself blase about them (though I also don’t hector cyclists who do Idaho’s more aggressively)

And of course since I drive, traffic and speed cameras DO affect me.

The difference of course is that most cyclists – and most citizens – drive. Ergo the laws that are being enforced on motorists are, for the most part, reasonable. There are grey areas and minor infractions but no completely unreasonable laws. I tend to think we are not there on cycling law, because fewer people cycle.

[lordofthemark]

@DismalScientist 94613 wrote:

Hmmm… How do you think the location of speed cameras is determined?

I don’t have a problem with automated enforcement in principle, but in practice it seems to focus more on revenue than safety. Similarly, speed limits often don’t accurately correspond to driving conditions, being both too high and too low in different places. When cyclists get bent out of shape due to bad placement of signage, why is that drivers complaining about similar issues are automatically assumed to be homicidal maniacs?

There is evidence that in some parts of the country they are placed for revenue. I know of no such evidence in the case of DC though. The usual complaints about speed cameras placed where there is no pedestrian safety issue, and where the speed limit is “too low” are on I395 in DC. I can only presume the people who complain have a different level of comfort with driving at relatively high speed in a place with multiple merges than I do.

[mstone]

@americancyclo 94607 wrote:

I’d like to see a shift in the discussion away from ‘safety’ and towards ‘risk’ and ‘danger’. Red light running is not a safety issue, it’s dangerous. I like to think of the red light cameras as a tax on risk taking behavior. If you’re willing to take a larger risk and expose others to greater danger, there should be a fine on that behavior.

The red light running that people complain about getting tickets for is generally not driving down the road, seeing a red light, and blowing through it anyway. Instead, people complain that they’re getting the red light camera even though they were “close” and “it wasn’t safe to stop”. The reality is that they almost certainly made a decision to gun it rather than applying the brakes, because they just didn’t want to wait for the light. This isn’t really all that risky for the motorist because 1) the cross traffic won’t start until the entitled motorist clears the intersection 2) the motorist is in a big steel box filled with airbags. Every once in a while someone who was “too close to stop” will get nailed by someone else who is flying down the cross street without slowing because they have the green, or vice versa, but that’s not the major safety concern. The real problems are that 1) the cars that are gunning it and staring at the light (to the exclusion of looking at anything else) dramatically increase the risk to pedestrians and cyclists because they simply aren’t looking for them 2) quite often the cars can’t actually clear the intersection, meaning that the cross traffic starts driving even more aggressively to try to make it through a blocked intersection before the signal change (again, not looking for cyclists or pedestrians because they’re focused on getting their car through the other cars) 3) if they do slam on their brakes at the last moment, they’re probably right in the middle of the crosswalk, forcing the pedestrians to cross less safely. The solution to all of this is to simply slow down, and not try to bull through an intersection. I’ve tried this, and it works! Surprisingly, the red light cameras don’t “generate revenue” if your car isn’t in the intersection after the light changes.

[baiskeli]

@mstone 94606 wrote:

That’s actually a feature, because the “wiggle room” is usually based on things like “that girl is cute” or “that guy is driving while black”.

That brings up a new idea – perhaps cameras are more fair because they are objective.

[Terpfan]

@jrenaut 94596 wrote:

To be fair, it should be really hard to fight a ticket when you admit in a globally published newspaper that you were breaking the law and deserved the tickets.

And contesting a parking ticket in DC is super easy, you can do the whole thing online. I believe my record now is 12-2 (And at least one of those two I was definitely parked illegally, forgot to move the car before the spot was restricted at 9am).

On a parked past meter time, there is no option to contest it that you did in fact pay and they wrongly ticketed you. My wife encountered this when she used her Park Mobil app to pay for the spot and had the receipt, but there was no “this ticket was wrongfully issued” selection among the choices.

Then you have to hope that DC is kind enough to actually consider what you sent. Rewind the tape about 7 or 8 years ago and I was issued a ticket for “failing to obtain DC license plates.” My vehicle was parked in front of my father’s house in DC on a weekend so the time limits did not apply. I did not live there and my appeal included a utility and rental payment elsewhere. The response from the appeal was “denied.” Evidently I had visited him one too many times and therefore I must obtain a visitor permit from the local police department. My theory is that it’s because that was $100 ticket and they want the money.

Around the same time, I received a ticket for parking longer than two hours in a parking place on Capitol Hill. The problem? I received the ticket less than two hours before I had left a parking garage just outside of Annapolis. Thankfully, I had the receipt from said parking garage. Challenging the $35 ticket at the time involved driving into DC (didn’t work in the city then), paying to park, and hoping my ticket was called before some guy acting as an Administrative Judge before my then-two hours of parking on my dime paid for. The whole thing cost me 1.5 hours, a few bucks in parking, a verbal admonishment (as if I did anything wrong), and my fine waved.

I have absolutely 0 love for the DC parking enforcement. The only time I like them is when they ticket folks in the cycletracks or double-parked in the bike lanes. And that’s driven out of purely selfish interest.

[Terpfan]

As much as we have to criticize at home, this one in Pitt will get folks a little ginned up I suspect:

http://www.post-gazette.com/opinion/Op-Ed/2014/09/14/Bikes-bikes-bikes-Pittsburgh-transportation-Joe-Wos/stories/201409140106

[baiskeli]

@lordofthemark 94616 wrote:

There is evidence that in some parts of the country they are placed for revenue.

I don’t think it matters.

Unless the critics are saying that the cameras are placed or timed in a way that catches lots of people who would never get ticketed by a human cop (like a speed trap in the case of human cops in small towns chasing revenue from those passing through) it’s not really relevant. If real safety violators are caught, I’m happy that the city makes a little money off of it (which will be spent for public benefit anyway).

[mstone]

@DismalScientist 94613 wrote:

Hmmm… How do you think the location of speed cameras is determined?[/quote]

In the best case, they’re placed where the community asks for them. Unfortunately, the auto lobby makes it impossible for many communities to get them. So in general, they end up where they can get the biggest bang for the buck. I’d love to see them everywhere, so there wouldn’t be any conspiracy theories about their placement, but the car lobby simply won’t allow that. Please advocate for expanding the program and loosening the restrictions on where they can be placed.

Quote:

I don’t have a problem with automated enforcement in principle, but in practice it seems to focus more on revenue than safety. Similarly, speed limits often don’t accurately correspond to driving conditions, being both too high and too low in different places. When cyclists get bent out of shape due to bad placement of signage, why is that drivers complaining about similar issues are automatically assumed to be homicidal maniacs?

I can’t speak for all cyclists, but I can say that I have very little patience for motorists complaining about speed limits being too low because (in my experience) it’s generally a BS complaint that doesn’t acknowledge how much speeding there is, how many pedestrian fatalities result from the speeding, or that what’s safe for the motorist can be deadly for the other road users the motorist shows no concern for. For every overblown anecdote about a spot where the speed limit is “too low” (whether that’s true or not) I can walk over to a street in my neighborhood that runs past a park, a pool, and a school, where the speed limit is 25MPH, where FCDOT has measured the average speed to be over 35MPH (with peaks over 45…the equipment wasn’t configured to record higher than that), and watch a dozen cars engage in “harmless” speeding. Homicidal maniac, heartless self-centered jerk, whatever.

Side note: FCDOT is drawing up plans for speed bumps. It takes a majority vote (plus a quorum) of all neighboring homeowners to put in the speed bumps and the whole process, including the neighborhood itself organizing to get the studies done and the signatures in, takes at least a year. If there are more than a certain number of cars per day, you won’t even get the speed bumps because cars. But sure, there are no barriers to getting motorists to slow down and drive safely. Oh, and we were told that it is not possible to get a cop to do enforcement more than once every couple of months because the demand is too high and they don’t have enough cops. If only there were some sort of technology that could help…

[dasgeh]

@Terpfan 94622 wrote:

On a parked past meter time, there is no option to contest it that you did in fact pay and they wrongly ticketed you. My wife encountered this when she used her Park Mobil app to pay for the spot and had the receipt, but there was no “this ticket was wrongfully issued” selection among the choices.

I’ve challenged this successfully about 5 times in the past year. Online, it took all of 5 minutes each time. (I suspect that it takes a few minutes for ParkMobil to communicate to the computer the parking enforcement personnel carry, and 4 out of 5 times I saw the enforcement on the street when I parked). Just FYI.

[Terpfan]

@americancyclo 94607 wrote:

I’d like to see a shift in the discussion away from ‘safety’ and towards ‘risk’ and ‘danger’. Red light running is not a safety issue, it’s dangerous. I like to think of the red light cameras as a tax on risk taking behavior. If you’re willing to take a larger risk and expose others to greater danger, there should be a fine on that behavior.

similarly, the cyclist rolling through a stop sign takes a smaller risk and creates less danger for all involved, so the fine, if any, should be orders of magnitude less.

I’ve received exactly one camera ticket in my life. It was years ago on Connecticut Ave in Kensington. It’s rush hour, pouring rain, and I was slowing down realizing the light would turn yellow then red shortly. I checked my rear view mirror to see a dump truck barreling down behind me and realize there is no chance we’re both stopping. I ran it at like a whopping 10mph and paid the $75 or whatever it was.

Sometimes running the light is the safer alternative.

Challenging the ticket at the time would have cost me leave time, a parking garage in Bethesda, and I would be technically losing.

And that’s where I see a difference between cameras and cops. The cop can judge that situation and determine I made the safe decision. The cameras can’t and they’re designed to make the fine just small enough that contesting it costs as much as the actual ticket.

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