How do you feel about Photo Radar? (page 2)

Paralipomenon

I don't like it, but prefer it to getting pulled over.

Photo Radar tickets don't affect your insurance premiums so it's more like a speeding tax.

Easier to fight in Canada too, if there is another vehicle in the frame at all, they are required by law to discard it.

Speed in pairs, love the system.

Junction-Guy

Paralipomenon, Im not sure about this, but here in the US, I imagine that those tickets are viewed just the same, and will count against your insurance.

Paralipomenon

That would be really messed up if it was. In Canada the ticket gets applied against the registration for the vehicle so you can't renew your plates without paying the ticket.

It doesn't reflect on your insurance because there is no way to prove it was you driving.

You guys have some weird laws.

TD

My feelings are ambivalent. This looks like a major pain in the baskside and I feel for you.

At the same time, I see people going 100+ on the 101 fairly often. The photo-radar was an inevitability.

BrentR

I am completely against them also. I want to be able to face my accuser if I choose to go to court. That is a constitutional right.

Dorktacular

My opinion? Every night when I get home from work I watch the news. And every night there's a new robbery or murder or some other crime in this town that the police just don't seem to have the funds or manpower to take care of. And yet, every morning and every evening those doughnut-munching morons are out on the side of the road with their radar guns writing tickets to all of the good working people of this world. Why do they do this, I ask? They say that it is for "public safety". As far as I can tell, nobody was ever raped, robbed, or murded while exceeding the "speed limit" while going to work in the morning. It's all about money and picking on an easy target. My safety has never been in jeopardy because I was driving 65 miles an hour in a 55 mile an hour zone. My safety has been in jeopardy, however, when driving through the bad part of town at night that the police won't patrol because they don't have the time or people because they're all out saving us all from that most terrible of criminal elements: the speeder.

In fact, speeders are so dangerous and they are such ravenous, preadatory criminals that the police have stepped up their efforts to stop these law breaking bastards once and for all! Now, we have speeding cameras! So, even when there aren't any cops around, the cameras can catch them in the act. After all, we wouldn't want one single person to get to work 5 minutes faster in the morning! Hell, if people started getting to work quicker, the world might stop turning and fling us all off into outer space and that would be bad.

We all know why the police target speeders. Let's be honest. Because most of the people who are out on the road are easy targets. We're working people usually going to or comming home from work. Being the productive memebers of society that we are, we obey the officer, pull over, take our ticket with a smile on our face, and then send in the payment. Most of us don't even go to court. Why? We have jobs, that's why! They know that we will not flee the police or resist the officer or take the time off from work to even dispute a ticket because that would mean screwing up our jobs and our lives. It's easy money, all day long. An actual criminal will flee the police and kill a police officer if necessary to avoid capture and jail time. It's simply too risky for police to persue those people, and, besides, there's no money in that! The local news here in Atlanta runs stories all the time exposing memos sent to local officers instructing them to write more tickets to generate revenue.

Oh, and let's talk about red light cameras! I am against these cameras for two reasons. The first is that the traffic lights that have these cameras are set up differently to write more tickets. It's a fact. The local news here actually timed the lights and proved it. The yellow light is at least 1 second shorter at the camera-equipped traffic light than it is at the traffic lights without cameras. As a result, not only does it screw up the flow of traffic and screw people with crooked tickets, but it leads to my second reason for not liking red light cameras. Every traffic light where they've installed these cameras have seen the number of rear-end collisions at those lights double. Why? Because so many people have been screwed by the crooked red light camera tickets, everybody now slams their brake pedal with both feet the minute the light turns yellow, and the person behind them hits them. Let me say that I think that people who run red lights should be ticketed. They are infinitely more dangerous than any speeder. The police should write tickets for this, but most of the time they don't. The police should be patrolling the streets and finding dangerous drivers, especially those who run red lights and risk killing people every time they do this. But, the police have treated this as just another opportunity for generating revenue and it has backfired and has become the cause of more accidents.

Sorry to be so long-winded, but this is has been a sore spot with me for many years. Well, gotta go to lunch now. Just hope I don't get a ticket!

Junction-Guy

You're right Dorktacular, its just a money making racket.

I know of one cop in a neighboring town that let a guy out of a ticket, just because he had a nice truck, that pissed me off to no end, especially since I was broke at the time and was riding a bike to work.

worldtraveller

It's a money making racket that is easy to avoid. I got flashed once running a light, but 3 years later no ticket. Most of our cameras here are either shut down ,or out of film as they are so busy.

5go

I am for radar and against red light cameras.

The problems with both are private yes private for profit companies running them. Though they work in stopping said offences. Red light cameras have been shown to cause more accidents and traffic problems. Speed cameras on the other hand lower them, so they work as advertised, and I have no problem with them as long as they are operated by a government entity do to the fact several private companies have been caught lying on tickets, and tampering with equipment to increase profits.

Funchback

Wow! This is some good insight from all of you.

How do you feel about Photo Radar?

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