> NYPD officers behind a computer screen who could review the footage and issue the ticket
Nobody wants this. The people won't want it. The courts won't want to deal with the all the people fighting the tickets out of spite, the police won't want to be essentially call center jockeys. Also, disconnecting the offense with the punishment is a sure way to make your enforcement system ineffective -- people will just treat it as an occasional NYCFU tax.
> But I also think that the current methods of enforcement...
You do understand that laws which are selectively enforced against the marginalized shouldn't be laws, right? It's terrible how our institutions treat them, and your solution is to treat everyone like them?
> Firstly, the camera systems should blur all faces onboard the camera before transmitting to the internet.
Anything less than 100% accuracy will never work. It's easy to brush off small error rates when you're designing the system. Not so much when every mistake is used against you by groups trying to take the cameras down. Plus people are identifiable by far more than just their face. A project at my alma mater could clock people by just their walking cadence.
> Yes, but these people could already go down and view the street
Not even the courts agree with you on that. Just because a passerby could look through my front windows doesn't mean it's not stalking if you do it 24/7. Just because someone could see me in public doesn't mean the police don't need a warrant if they want to tail me 24/7.
> People who speed and go through red lights hate those cameras.
Everyone hates those cameras. They lasted less than a year in my city.
* They reverse the presumption of innocence since the ticketed person winds up with the burden of proving that state is in error. The obvious situation being that they weren't the one driving the car.
* They were sold to the people as a safety implement and as a cash grab to municipalities.
* They didn't make the roads any safer since almost all instances of running red lights was accidental and people actually went faster on the roads to make up for the slowdown due to the cameras.
* Nobody likes being constantly watched. Especially if it's public you can glean a ton of personal information about people with 24/7 footage like this.
You're trying really hard to make fetch happen. If more than half the time the bike lane is blocked by cars then it would probably be better off as a vehicle stopping lane. It would probably free up the bus stop too. I guarantee that more people are hailing rides than riding bikes.
Who are you quoting? I search for that text and came up empty.
Car crashes are a leading cause of death in the US. Speeding a mere 5mph over in NYC can mean the difference between a lethal collision and survivable one. Underfunding of police departments where they can't enforce the law is a bug, not a feature. If the law is unjust or the punishment too severe, then that's what needs addressing no?
I find those opposed to traffic cameras are often also ones that break the law as a matter of routine and daily habit. Getting a ticket is not an "oops", it's "a cop happened to be nearby this time". Is it difficult to admit the necessity of laws like stopping at red lights or stop signs?
If there are problems in the program's implementation (e.g. cutting yellow times) or corruption (kickbacks), that is not the fault of traffic cameras. It's a problem with the local government.
Lastly, how do you feel about driverless cars? Automation would surely save lives but would presumably burden car users by following the law all the time as well. Granted, attempting to evade compliance would simply be impossible, not imposed by a fine.
You have to realized that New York City, as a polity, is very far from American norms.
To start off with, the majority of households in New York City do not own cars. New York has been consistently electing anti-car culture politicians for almost two decades now. And New York has a sizable contingent of people actively demanding red light cameras and speed cameras. Not to mention that New York already effectively has a surveillance network anyways, and yet that doesn't seem to fall afoul of the existing laws and rights.
If the laws are so terrible than they can be repealed. But the solution is to not stop enforcement of laws on the books in total.
Legally speaking , robot-tickets for driver offenses can generally be avoided by simply making an affadavit of non-responsibility, since the robot doesn't have evidence of who is driving the vehicle.
The whole system relies on the honor system, so honest people pay and dishonest scofflaws don't. Yay!
Sure, but the cost of the ticket is then paid in risk. If the police come back with evidence that you were in fact driving the car and you have a signed affidavit that says you weren't you're in much bigger trouble.
Not in many other states. MO for example specifically puts the onus of who is operating your motor vehicle on you, the owner. Or you need to declare it stolen.
But can they assign the ticket to you personally? In my experience, places that put the responsibility strictly on the owner of the car do so by removing the attachment to an individual's driving record and instead attaching the ticket to the car itself, like a parking ticket.
All automated tickets in mo
are non-moving violations. So yes you are correct on "points". But mo also allows you to convert almost any driving ticket to a noisy muffler by paying 3x or more the price by paying a lawyer. Unfortunately even DUI (up to a point). It basically encodes the realization that the state just wants the revenue. Randomly assessed taxes on correct road use.
You can always directly fight the ticket too. I can't tell how far it is from legal graft... But I did avail myself of it, it would be dumb not to as the 3x cost for a ticket was still 1/2 what you'd get dinged by the insurance for the original ticket.
Many jurisdictions that use them now have the camera record at least three things:
1. A video of the car committing the infraction
2. A photograph of the car's license plate
3. A photograph aimed at the driver's seat, capturing the face of the driver of the car
While you can try to argue the photo of the driver is too blurry or unclear to serve as evidence, it's not as simple as saying "wasn't me". Also, even if you manage it, it's not enough to just say "wasn't me" -- you also will need to provide the name of the person you allege was driving.
> You do understand that laws which are selectively enforced against the marginalized shouldn't be laws, right?
What are you suggesting here, that we just shouldn't have traffic safety laws at all? Anyone can go at any speed, in any lane or direction, and ignore traffic signals at whim?
The solution is to stop selectively enforcing laws, not to get rid of them entirely. Traffic safety laws have very good purpose that is in the public's interest.
Nobody wants this. The people won't want it. The courts won't want to deal with the all the people fighting the tickets out of spite, the police won't want to be essentially call center jockeys. Also, disconnecting the offense with the punishment is a sure way to make your enforcement system ineffective -- people will just treat it as an occasional NYCFU tax.
> But I also think that the current methods of enforcement...
You do understand that laws which are selectively enforced against the marginalized shouldn't be laws, right? It's terrible how our institutions treat them, and your solution is to treat everyone like them?
> Firstly, the camera systems should blur all faces onboard the camera before transmitting to the internet.
Anything less than 100% accuracy will never work. It's easy to brush off small error rates when you're designing the system. Not so much when every mistake is used against you by groups trying to take the cameras down. Plus people are identifiable by far more than just their face. A project at my alma mater could clock people by just their walking cadence.
> Yes, but these people could already go down and view the street
Not even the courts agree with you on that. Just because a passerby could look through my front windows doesn't mean it's not stalking if you do it 24/7. Just because someone could see me in public doesn't mean the police don't need a warrant if they want to tail me 24/7.
> People who speed and go through red lights hate those cameras.
Everyone hates those cameras. They lasted less than a year in my city.
* They reverse the presumption of innocence since the ticketed person winds up with the burden of proving that state is in error. The obvious situation being that they weren't the one driving the car.
* They were sold to the people as a safety implement and as a cash grab to municipalities.
* They didn't make the roads any safer since almost all instances of running red lights was accidental and people actually went faster on the roads to make up for the slowdown due to the cameras.
* Nobody likes being constantly watched. Especially if it's public you can glean a ton of personal information about people with 24/7 footage like this.
You're trying really hard to make fetch happen. If more than half the time the bike lane is blocked by cars then it would probably be better off as a vehicle stopping lane. It would probably free up the bus stop too. I guarantee that more people are hailing rides than riding bikes.