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Comment by booleandilemma | Hacker News Reader

Do people want it to be easier to break the law? I don’t understand.

This reminds me of the commenters defending the would-be car thief on the Amazon Ring video yesterday.

The problem is that it creates perverse incentives for governments to make intersections more dangerous in order to raise ticket revenue. We really need to change things to ticket fees don’t go to the issuing government. Then this stuff would be much more reasonable.

Can't you solve that by, maybe at the state level, creating some mandate around yellow light time relative to intersection length and perhaps taking into account speed limit?

I mean, I'm no urban planner but an analysis around that type of protection should be a plan A, and distrust of government as described here should be a plan B. But, as per the culture, distrusting government seems to be a plan A ("but what if this perverse incentive is created..")

What I describe is plan B. Your plan A was tried and the result was as I described. Mandating timings doesn’t quite work.

Not so much that.

More like I really don't trust the system that the law is there to protect.

If me and the corporation that puts in the red lights were on a more even footing socially, I'd be more OK with it.

But the way it works, is they have virtual immunity.

So things like shortening yellows, putting in speed traps, etc happen frequently and are insidious and hard to remove.

Also, cops have discretion for a reason. I think skipping a red light is very different if it is a guy taking his pregnant wife to the hospital to give birth than for someone hot head who routinely drives in a dangerous way. The red light camera also discourages putting police out to monitor this, which might result in getting a drunk driver off the street.

A lot of American civilians tend to be anti-authoritarianism, either in the "Cops are racist, BLM" sense, or in the "Don't tread on me, Cliven Bundy" sense. Just part of the culture.

In the US you have a right to face your accuser. This is often impossible with red light cameras.

The Sixth Amendment only provides for a confrontation right in “criminal prosecutions.” Speeding and red light camera violations are always administrative citations that carry no criminal penalty.

That’s wrong in many jurisdictions for speeding issues by an actual officer. Red light cameras are indeed civil penalties, which is my point. It’s extra legal and you have zero recourse.

Doesn't the fellow who sees the camera footage and issues a ticket qualify?

My understanding is that it's fully automated.

And often not a legal charge. They do it totally civil in most places.

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