Speed Cameras Not Bringing In Enough Cash For Chicago

[NaturalHigh]

Chicagoans are costing the city tens of millions of dollars -– through good behavior.

You heard that right: Good behavior is bad for the budget. Real bad, reports CBS 2 Chief Correspondent Jay Levine.

Remember the old P.T. Barnum line about no one ever going broke by underestimating the intelligence of the American people? Well, Mayor Rahm Emanuel underestimated the intelligence of Chicago drivers, and the city paid for it big time.

http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2014/10/16/speed-cameras-netting-city-50-million-less-than-expected-emanuel-administration/

Fifty million dollars less than expected. Gee sorry, Mr. Mayor.

[redruddyred]

1. good for you, chicago.

with any luck this will keep other mayors from trying the same monkey business.

speed cameras: what a waste of taxpayer money.

[corkhead]

2. They sound very successful to me. They've stopped people from breaking the law.

Are living, breathing police expected to pay for themselves? I thought the purpose of these cameras was to encourage law compliance, not generate profit.

[Mariana]

9. You thought wrong about the purpose of the cameras.

The purpose of the cameras is to generate profit. Some cities have gone so far as to shorten the yellow light times, when they weren't making "enough" money from the cameras. In some cases, they've made the yellow light time so short that it's impossible for drivers to stop safely in time to avoid running the red.

[NaturalHigh]

35. I think Chicago was one of those cities...

that shortened the time of the yellow lights.

[GGJohn]

16. Well then you thought wrong.

It even states in the article that the city put them in hoping to generate up to 100 million a year to help balance their budget.
Red light cameras aren't about safety, their about revenue.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

3. Sounds like they may be working, then.

Hard to be sure without knowing how many people would speed if they weren't there, but this sounds like strong circumstantial evidence that spending money on speed cameras has made Chicago a safer place.

[Doremus]

7. We should probably install law enforcement cameras everywhere, then.

They're such an overwhelming success in traffic safety, we should use them to make every facet of our daily lives safe, no?

One slight problem though; we don't wear license plates. Bummer.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

8. Security cameras do good here in the UK - less crime, and no less liberty. N.T.

[Doremus]

13. There's a flip side to that coin, but suffice to say that security cameras are not

law enforcement cameras. i.e., a human has to actually monitor security cameras and/or view the video footage they produce which records the events as they occurred.

LE traffic cameras take a snapshot of a license plate on a car. Anyone viewing the photo cannot tell whether the car is or isn't exceeding the speed limit but instead have to take the 'word' of a piece of machinery that may or may not be operating properly.

The system then spits out a traffic ticket in the name of the owner of record of the vehicle, whether they were driving or not. The ticket invariably contains verbiage that by paying the fine the recipient is thereby admitting guilt.

So do you still think these corporate profit tools make us safer? If so, you're going to have to frame a better argument than you have thus far because all the facts say otherwise.

[hunter]

29. Don't half the speed cameras in Britain get burned out or spray-painted over?

Maybe Chicago is a safer place, for speed cameras at least.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

31. The short answer is "no".

Speed camera vandalism does happen, sometimes quite creatively, but it's not that common.

[Chathamization]

11. Yep, speeding cameras are great. I'm not sure why some people feel entitled to break the law. N/T

[TheKentuckian]

14. Just put electronic governors on cars to make speeding impossible then.

The objective is revenue not public good.

[Chathamization]

22. Who's objective, the neighborhoods asking for cameras who won't see a cent of the revenue? If

cameras keep people from speeding, then they are improving the public good. Likewise, if they free up officers to deal with situations that can't be automated.

[mitch96]

33. GPS/CRUISECONTROL/SPEED LIMIT...

You are so correct. Ever notice on your GPS it posts the legal speed for that area? It would be a simple trick to match the GPS "legal" speed to your cruise control and ! voila ! Instant speed compliance……… Then again how much of a town's revenue from speed enforcement… It would never fly… too bad..

New guy BTW.. Long time lurker first time poster…

mitch

[Doremus]

15. And you are heavily invested in which traffic camera company again? nt

[GGJohn]

18. Yet a lot of cities and towns are either outlawing them or removing them

because they're a scam, most are run by private companies who share the profits with the locality their in.

[Chathamization]

21. If you're speeding, you get a ticket. What's the scam here? That you get caught for breaking

the law and endangering others?

[GGJohn]

23. A lot of people have successfully challenged those camera tickets

by saying that they can't prove it was them in the car driving, also, these companies have been caught rigging the cameras.
There was a big ex'pose a few years ago done by one of these investigative news shows that exposed the corruption by these companies and govt. on how these cameras are cheating.

Also, those tickets, if you refuse to pay them, are a civil matter, not a criminal matter, so if you refuse to pay it, there's no arrest warrant issued.
If they are so great, then why are more and more localities either outlawing them or removing them?

No, these cameras aren't about safety, their about generating revenue.

[Chathamization]

25. Not speeding is a matter of safety. Some places might be opposed to them; there are people opposed

to harsh penalties for drunk driving. Here we like them because they make things safer (and we're adding more).

Don't want a ticket? Don't speed. Our cameras don't ticket people who aren't breaking the law.

[GGJohn]

26. You sure about that?

These private companies have been caught colluding with the local govts to rig the cameras, speed and redlight, to catch more people to generate revenue, there's an incentive for these companies to cheat, the more people caught, the more money they bring in.

The initial reason MAY have been about safety, but now it's about revenue generation for both the private companies and local govts.

[Chathamization]

32. Here, you get a ticket if you break the law. But consider that many drivers consider it "rigged" if

they were only going 11 mph over the speed limit in a place where "everyone does it."

Does that mean that there's never a malfunction anywhere? Well, of course that could happen. But:

1. There's been no evidence in the news that the cameras here were ticketing people who hadn't gone over the speed limit.
2. Anecdotally, people I know who don't speed haven't been ticketed and are happy with the cameras. If they really were rigged to catch people who weren't speeding, people would notice very, very fast.
3. Which is why people want them in their neighborhoods. Usually people don't drive dangerously around their house. They don't worry about cameras in their neighborhood since they know it's not going to be ticketing someone like them who is obeying the law there.
4. The people I know who complain about the cameras - in person, online, in editorials - just about always are breaking the law. "Sure, I might not have come to a complete stop but..." "I was only going 11 mph over the speed limit, everyone does that there..." "Everyone speeds there..."

Like I said, if a camera really was malfunctioning or rigged so that it was ticketing 25mph in a 25mph zone, you get a sudden spike in hundreds or thousands of tickets coming from a single camera with 95% of the people saying they weren't speeding. That hasn't happened, and the complaints are that the cameras are rigged usually translate to "I think I should be able to break the law on this stretch of road." You can't, it endangers others, and if you do it you will get a ticket. That's how things should work.

[Cirque du So-What]

4. I recall seeing

recently that the duration of yellow lights in Chicago had been reduced by 0.1 seconds in order to trap more people into running through intersections. That's reprehensible - placing revenue above public safety.

[whistler162]

6. I believe it was 1 second not 1/10 of a second(0.1)

and if you need 1 more second to run through a yellow light, not turn while in the intersection, then that says a lot for the drivers lack of judgement, mine included occassionally.

[Cirque du So-What]

10. It's 0.1 second

Chicago Made Its Yellow Lights 0.1 Second Shorter And Raked In $8 Million From New Tickets

Elliot Hannon, Slate

Oct. 17, 2014, 11:17 PM

How long is a yellow light? Most people would—reasonably—have no idea the exact length of time before a traffic light goes from yellow to red. The answer is: A minimum of three seconds, according to federal safety regulations. What happens when a mere tenth of second is shaved off that time and a yellow light lasts 2.9 seconds? If you thought, not much, you’d be wrong.

The city of Chicago and its mayor, Rahm Emanuel, are taking heat—thanks to a Chicago Tribune investigation—for ever-so-quietly sanding that measly tenth of a second off of the length of yellow lights in the city this past spring.

The impact was substantial: 77,000 additional red light camera tickets were issued, at $100 a pop, which added up to nearly $8 million forked over by unsuspecting drivers.

Here’s more from the Tribune:

Read more: http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2014/10/16/chicago_shortens_yellow_lights_makes_8_million_off_new_tickets.html#ixzz3GbGTmRir

Shenanigans with traffic cameras create unsafe conditions, including drivers slamming on their brakes at the first sight of a yellow light or flooring in an effort to avoid a $100 ticket. The entire rationale for traffic cameras centered around 'public safety,' but it's obvious the main reason is revenue generation - public safety be damned.

[JHB]

17. Kind of both. They shaved 0.1s off an already short time

From 2010...

Yellow lights shorter in Chicago
At red-light camera intersections, it’s 3 seconds in city compared with about 4.5 seconds in suburbs
March 22, 2010|By Bob Secter, Erika Slife and John Owens, Tribune reporters

The difference may be little more than a snap of the finger, but yellow lights on city traffic signals are shorter than ones in the suburbs. That gap is fast becoming fodder for a new and murky front in the battle over red-light cameras.

Most Chicago yellow lights last three seconds, the bare minimum recommended under federal safety guidelines. In the suburbs, yellows generally stay on for four to four-and-a-half seconds.
***
A handful of suburbs, however, have installed red-light cameras at intersections where the speed limits are comparable to Chicago or sometimes a little slower — and those yellow lights are longer than in the city as well.

Using a video camera to enhance precision, the Tribune timed signals at nine camera-monitored suburban intersections with speed limits of 30 mph or less, conditions similar to Chicago. At two of those intersections in west suburban Bellwood, the yellows lasted four seconds. The other intersections — in Berwyn, Westchester, Schiller Park, Wauconda and Algonquin — clocked in at about 4.5 seconds for yellows.

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2010-03-22/classified/ct-met-yellow-light-20100322_1_red-light-cameras-camera-opponents-red-light-camera-intersections


...and from last week:

How Chicago's red light ticketing turned yellow lights into cash
By David Kidwell, Chicago Tribune
October 12, 2014

But Ferguson found the latest controversy stemmed from decisions Emanuel's administration made when it was handing the program over to Xerox in February. He said the city had previously ordered Redflex not to issue a ticket if it captured a driver in a red light violation where the yellow light lasted less than 3 seconds.

"However, after Xerox took over the operations of the RLC program, the City directed Xerox to accept RLC violations with yellow light times above 2.9 seconds," Ferguson wrote.

The city said it relied on a national electrical industry standard that allows for deviations in the hundredths or thousandths of a second. Ferguson recommended the city should change the standard back "in order to improve public confidence" in the camera program.

The Tribune reported Thursday that its review of 1,500 overturned tickets since April revealed evidence that the city had changed the rules on yellow light times when Xerox took over. In more than 200 of those cases, city hearing officers blamed yellow light times under the 3-second minimum required by the city.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-red-light-camera-yellow-light-1012-20141012-story.html

[Cirque du So-What]

28. Another thing that pisses me off

Suburban drivers get a pass, while city residents bear the brunt of this money-grubbing practice. Same thing with Cleveland, where traffic cameras (red-light and speed alike) are concentrated on the predominantly black east side.

[Mariana]

12. Lots of cities have shortened yellow light times

at intersections that have cameras. Yes, it's reprehensible. They're making the intersections more dangerous so they can rake in money. That tells you real reason the cameras are there, and it has nothing to do with safety or saving lives.

[reddread]

5. thats not what the scam is about

this idea that speeders will overlook a wall of cameras to fund a city when they damn sure slow down for a bike cop
holding a radar gun?
BULLSHIT on the very face of it.

so why do these "music men" go from town to neighboring town selling city governments a service that doesnt work, and didnt work in the last neighboring locality but they press on regardless?
Actually offering to install these systems for "free" in order to collect a percentage of traffic fines that
WONT exist?

Lets think about that.

would citizens be happy about their government installing infrastructure to erect surveillance cameras for straight up
surveillance?

come on. No they wouldnt. thats not something they would pay for happily.
Now, who wants to track down the money trail that must exist between the federal government funding that undoubtedly
lay like an underwater ocean beneath these faux machinations?

they are installing fiberoptic nerve centers for these phoney traffic cameras,
SO THEY CAN GET ON WITH THE BUSINESS OF TURNING THE US INTO POST ORWELLIAN LONDON.
Welcome to the newly ordered world, citizen subject.
Please dont be stupid enough to believe what they say about these things
do some thinking.

[tritsofme]

19. All of the speed cameras in the city are marked with clear signs. Everyone slows down.

I imagine for most it is a lesson that is rarely learned more than once. I guess that's the "problem". This is actually not all that surprising to me.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

20. What will Chicago do to remediate the revenue shortfall?

A) Keep the cameras but seek additional revenue streams / reduce

B) Get rid of the cameras in favor of more reliable revenue streams / reduced spending

C) Adjust the cameras and / or laws to make more people lawbreakers

[GGJohn]

24. I'm betting it's option C.

[VScott]

27. American ingenuity at it's finest!

http://www.nophoto.com/pages/about-us

[Psephos]

34. wow, this is cool n/t

[Sunlei]

30. The 'for profit' will bringin the jaywalker catch cams next for a percent of the fines.

[Orsino]

36. Tax the fucking rich.

THEY are costing your city so much more.

[Yavin4]

37. Here's a revenue idea: Legalize Marijuana

Great source for taxes and eliminates the criminal element.

[Aristus]

38. H.L. Mencken, not PT Barnum.

n/t