I was FOR red light cameras until I learned this. It's short-sighted and LAZY to classify everyone who voted against it as "law breakers rejoicing" but what else do you expect from some posters...
There's no way to prove the light is red when you go through it, and the fact that you can't contest it is BS. I went through a yellow yesterday on the 290 feeder at Senate. Clearly yellow as I passed under the light, but saw the flash. Now I have ticket probably on the way and I can't contest it because the tickets only show your plate, not the color of the light when you go through it. I'm glad it's dead.
Are you kidding? If anything, it causes more people to floor it to avoid getting tickets. At least that's what I do.
I'm surrounded by these damn things in midtown. I've gotten 3 tickets in the past 45 days since moving here. And my friends/family have gotten dinged too. We are pretty cautious drivers with spotless records. Glad this crap is dead.
Ostensibly, the fees for traffic violations are all about safety. In reality, the fees are intended to generate as much revenue as possible for the city and the state - while they do have some influence on making driving safer, the thrust and design of fees is to generate as much income as possible. Anyone caught in the maze of license-revoked-fee-failure-to-pay-reissuance-fee-revoked-again-another-fee work here in the state should easily be able to attest to this. There is no interest in transparency, or simplicity, or ANYTHING that will reduce the revenue stream created by traffic/license fees and fines. Effectively, this means Texas has the least-progressive state tax in the nation.
My coworker received two tickets from red light cameras for not fully stopping at a red light before turning right. He was upset until he went to the website that they list on the ticket where he was able to watch the video of himself clearly not stopping before he turned. I'm not sure if all these cameras have this function, but there are two in Baytown that do.
Is your red light camera broken? dude, i can tell you're very passionate about this, but what's done is done... what you should have done is bust out your "stats" before the election and made a difference instead of just b#tching and whining about how Houston voters did something stupid after the fact...
I suppose that's a fair reason to oppose it, but why does your hate of someone else profiting outweigh the added safety? It's a bit Machiavellian, but I'd rather have a small evil that doesn't affect me for a greater good. I agree that the red light cameras can be better tweaked. But if it was full-proof to where it flashed for red lights and for those who run yellow with enough time to stop, would you be for it? Yellow lights mean to slow down. You only speed up if you are past the point to make a safe stop before the intersection. ima, that applies to you, too. If they had better precision, would you be for it? You still have due process, but it's hard to argue against objective evidence from the camera. Drive safer. I can understand frustration at 1 ticket, but 3 is pretty hard to contest that you are completely innocent.
Now get rid of traffic lights. http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,2143663,00.html European Towns Remove Traffic Signs to Make Streets Safer Towns in Germany and the Netherlands are beginning to remove road signs in the hope of decongesting roads and making travel a less confusing experience. Imagine what it would be like traveling around towns without street signs. Would people move around carefully, looking out for each other or would chaos break out? In the Netherlands, transport planner Hans Monderman has pioneered a new method which involves removing traffic signs, lights and in some cases, road markings. This concept has successfully been tested in the small Dutch town of Drachten, which has had traffic lights removed. Other changes included the installation of a children's playground in the middle of one of the roads to force drivers to slow down. Monderman said that the initial purpose of traffic lights was good and traffic was made safer, ''but created a new problem because traffic no longer flows.'' A number of European cities have begun to successfully implement the system developed by Monderman, which reportedly has decreased congestion and reduced accidents, according to police statistics. The German town of Bohmte is among those who have signed up for the new traffic concept from the Netherlands. The removal of road signs across Germany has been supported by the German transport ministry, where officials argue that the amount of signs is confusing drivers. "Many road signs are only put up so that we are covered for insurance purposes and not necessarily because they provide the driver with useful information, '' said Jörg Hennerkes from the ministry. The mayor of Bohmte, Klaus Goedejohann, said that the road restructuring aims ''to give the town back to the people. "We don't want the cars alone to have precedence, we want to try and make the area pleasant for everybody," he said. The plan for Bohmte is to have all the traffic lights and road signs removed, and it's attracted some skepticism from residents. More than 12,000 vehicles, including large numbers of trucks, pass through the narrow streets in the town center daily and pedestrians have virtually disappeared from the streets. "Many people still don't believe that it can work in practice,'' Goedejohann said. ''You just can't imagine with busy roads that suddenly everything will change and the cars will actually slow down and show more consideration." But local officials in Bohmte insist they plan to remove every traffic light and road sign from the town center over the next two years. Transport planner Monderman, said the city centers become more eroded by traffic: public spaces used in the past for meeting and socializing are today dominated by traffic. In Drachten, Monderman has designed an intersection without road markings, traffic lights or signs, which -- according to the transport planner -- makes the road more dangerous in order to make them safer. "When you don't exactly know who has right of way, you tend to seek eye contact with other road users,'' he said. ''You automatically reduce your speed, you have contact with other people and you take greater care."
At night, the extremely high intensity flashes are dangerous. There have been a couple of times where I was on the interstate or a side street and a flash from the feeder has rendered me incapable of seeing where I was going for a second or so.
I think your ticket will come from Jersey Village and not Houston. I went through a yellow as well and if I remember right it was from Jersey Village. These will not go away I bet.
Red lights cameras don't deter accidents. The sidewalk sign countdown deters accidents. Since I can see there are only 2 seconds before the light turns yellow, I won't rush through the intersection. However, since i'm so scared to receive a ticket at a red light camera intersection, i'll either speed up because i dont' want to take any chances or brake really hard because the yellow just came on.
:grin: So... law breakers are hating that red-light cameras are voted DOWN? When did I ever say "the ones who voted for against them are all law breakers who are rejoicing?" STFU.
I may have technically broken a traffic law, but my contention is that they are a little overkill. Whereas they have super hair triggers and can blast you for even the tiniest, most minute infraction, even if you're fully aware you're breaking the law and doing so in a careful manner (the spirit of the law, it seems, would be to get people to behave more safely, not follow the law "just because"). I just don't think they're going to help make things safer, and my experience with them so far is more of an annoying tax on driving than a safety measure. There's a reason cops exist, and we don't have robocop running around issuing citations to every jaywalker in town. Some subjectivity/judgment is required in enforcing the law, imo. Anyway, moot point. Red light cameras are dead, and may they forever stay that way. Especially at intersections that aren't dangerous.
I'm passionate about it because I was in a serious accident when another driver ran a red light (http://bbs.clutchfans.net/showthread.php?t=193516). Had I been there one second earlier, he would have hit me straight on my driver door, and at his speed, I would be seriously injured if not dead. As far as campaigning, I don't have the money or ability to spread the stats. I figure these stats will change the mind of 50 people at most, 2500 if those 50 convince another 50. That won't change the thousands that voted against it even when commercials and ads were run. So there wasn't much difference I could have made with my little resources.
If the city was really concerned with driver safety they would have banned cell phones while driving years ago. Enforce existing traffics laws!(Turn signals, illegal turns, etc) I watch people break these every day and cause countless accidents. Hell I saw an HPD cruiser almost get ran off the road by someone not using their signal. Cop just let them drive on.
Red-light cameras almost certainly do not make things safer for anybody. Plus their existence is just making the already worthless, incompetent police force that much more inclined to spend an extra couple of hours at Shipley's in the morning. I have never received a ticket from a red-light camera because I am not a woman so I am a reasonably good driver. I've had 1 speeding ticket in 8 years of driving and never been involved in an accident of any kind. Red-light cameras are one more step to a Fascist state run by Tea Bagger whack-jobs hell-bent on forcing us all to bend to the iron will of ignorance. I pondered America last night as I kept my scarf wrapped tightly around my neck, a beer in one hand, and a joint in the other... I read Ginsberg's America and slowly wept.
Honestly, I thought this way up to as recently as a few months ago. It sounds good in theory, but it's not always the case. Without starting WWIII again, I don't think it's "unsafe" to stop for 5 seconds instead of 15 seconds while turning right at a deserted intersection in the middle of the night. I think that's overkill. Most cops would probably agree. The camera doesn't.
