> Traffic camera laws are popular in part because they appeal to a law-and-order impulse. If we are going to stop those nefarious evildoers who jeopardize the health of the republic by sliding through yellow lights when no one else is around and driving through empty streets at thirty miles per hour in twenty-five zones, then we need a way around such pesky impediments as a lack of eyewitnesses.
This is an unfair rhetorical attack that trivializes the motivations for necessary enforcement of traffic laws. Whether or not you are a fan of traffic cameras, traffic violations are in fact serious and should not be brushed off. The problem is, one day you make it easy for people to think it's ok to do 30 in a 25, then the next day they're doing 35, then 45 the next.
I honestly do think people should be ticketed for 30 in a 25. It's not a trivial laughing matter. It always dismays me to see people downplaying speeding. 30 vs 25 will increase your stopping distance more than enough to kill a child. Yet, we nonchalantly think it's cool as a society to blow through red lights and everyone speeds. The author clearly separates "the slightly more respectable offense of owning a speeding vehicle" from "armed robbery, drug dealing, and other misdeeds". Would the author feel that speeding is any more respectable than armed robbery if a speeding driver killed their kids?
I agree that traffic cameras are a poor way to enforce these laws, but I want to point out that they really do need enforcing and shouldn't be trivialized.