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Comment by chrisshroba | Hacker News Reader

This always astounds me about cities who have a reputation for people breaking certain traffic laws. In St. Louis, people run red lights for 5+ seconds after it turns red, and no one seems to care to solve it, but if they'd just station police at some worst-offender lights for a couple months to write tickets, people would catch on pretty quickly that it's not worth the risk. I have similar thoughts on people using their phones at red lights and people running stop signs.

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It’s amazing how effective even a slight amount of random law enforcement can be.

Several of the hiking trails I frequent allow dogs but only on leash. Over time the number of dogs running around off leash grows until it’s nearly every dog you see.

When the city starts putting someone at the trailhead at random times to write tickets for people coming down the trail with off-leash dogs suddenly most dogs are back on leash again. Then they stop enforcing it and the number of off-leash dogs starts growing.

Random sampling over time is substantially as effective as having someone enforce the law 100% of the time. It's something like how randomized algorithms can be faster than their purely-deterministic counterparts, or how sampling a population is quite effective at finding population statistics.

It feels less fair though. When everyone is driving x mph over the limit but only you get pulled over, it sucks. So I agree for efficiency of enforcement, but I'd rather see 100% enforcement (automated if possible), with more warnings and lower penalties.

It's only unfair if the innocent are punished. Lot of murders go unsolved. Does that mean the murderers that do get caught are treated unfairly?

That's a pretty extreme example, maybe the idea doesn't hold as much there. But yeah, if 99% of murders weren't prosecuted, the 1% who get charged might feel like they were singled out (and maybe they were, because of some bias or discrimination). Again, 100% enforcement is better.

It doesn't just "feel" less fair, it often is -- bc it's not truly random, it's selective enforcement which leads to things like "driving while black".

Unpopular opinion, but I actually like traffic enforcement cameras. They don't know what race you are, and they never end up escalating to using lethal force.

The problem with 100% enforcement is it doesn't allow law enforcement any discretion, and then you end up having to actually officially change the speed limit which would probably never happen

Definitely true in practice, but I don't think we want discretion. What I mean though is as a deterrent, you can either have a "fair" fine that's enforced 100% of the time, or 2x the "fair" amount with 50% enforcement, etc. When it's 100x the "fair" amount with 1% enforcement, and you see everyone else not being enforced, it feels unfair.

Traffic rules do require some discretion though - if eg you don’t allow crossing a double yellow line but a car is broken down blocking the lane, does that mean that the road is now effectively unusable until that car is towed? Lots of examples.

But I’m with you on more enforcement. I’m totally fine with automated traffic cameras and it was working great when I was in China - suddenly seemingly overnight everyone stopped speeding on the highways when I was in Shanghai, as your chances of getting a ticket were super high.

I completely agree. Here in DC, we have sporadic enforcement of things like fare evasion, reckless moped driving, unlicensed food trucks, and speeding on the shoulder of the highway. It definitely helps somewhat.

In europe we use traffic cameras for this. Going through red light? A bill is in your mailbox automatically. No need for a whole police station.

In Massachusetts, USA, red light cameras were illegal until very recently, due to a 70s era law specifying that a live policeman had to issue a citation for something like that. From well before traffic cameras were common.

Put a single live policeman in front of 100 camera screens

Before they were common, yes, but they existed in active use back in the 1960s in the Netherlands: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traffic_enforcement_camera

We had a pilot program in NJ for them, they were universally hated. People would slam brakes on and be hanging over the edge into intersection and throw their car into reverse panicking to avoid the ticket, ended up causing a ton of new accidents so the program was never continued. In newark people shot at the cameras: https://www.nj.com/news/2012/08/shoot_out_the_red_lights_2_t...

That's an insufficient yellow phase rather than a camera problem. Not sure why NJ would think their population are special snowflakes that can't deal with red light cameras otherwise.

Italians?

Hitting the brakes and getting rear ended is barely even a crash compared to T-boning someone or plowing over pedestrians

I didn't say that. I said they'd panic and throw their vehicle into reverse. Cars/trucks can take the hit, motorcycles/bicycles not so much.

Huge skepticism that bicycles and motorcycles were getting backed into in any appreciable quantities.

If not that then rear-ended, here's the state's report on how red light cameras increased accidents: https://dot.nj.gov/transportation/about/publicat/lmreports/p...

How many people you willing to put in the hospital to prevent people from technically running reds on the yellow-red transition?

> in 2023, 1,086 people were killed in crashes that involved red light running

https://www.iihs.org/research-areas/red-light-running

So let's use that as an upper bound.

How many people were killed by these backups you're talking about?

Sounds like NJ has some terrible drivers

Thankfully sawzalls are cheap and plentiful so people can use much safer practices to disable/remove them:

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/parkside-drive-speed-...

The comments is written as if you specifically advocate for this. Why?

I bet if you come back after they've removed the old one but before they install the new one you can wreck the threads on the threaded anchors by impacting the wrong size higher grade nut on.

Sweden: Their locations are public. There is even an official API.

They are mostly located in sane places.

Apps like Waze consume this API and warn drivers if they’re at risk of getting caught. It’s the deterrence/slowdown at known risky spots they’re after, not the fine, I guess.

I heard that apps warning drivers this way are illegal in Germany?

Aside: what's up with the traffic speed cameras in Sweden? It feels like they're not designed to catch anybody. In my recent drive there it seemed like most of the cameras were in an 80 zone just before it switch to 50 for a tiny town. They wouldn't catch a typical driver who does something like 10 over everywhere -- they would likely have already started slowing down for the 50.

In my city in Canada, that camera would be in the 50 zone.

The typical driver who does something like 10 over everywhere is probably not the biggest safety hazard.

When I lived in a small town in Sweden, the problem was that at night some drivers would blow down the country roads and straight through the small towns at crazy speeds assuming that there was nobody around. On some nights/weekends there were also zero police on duty in the whole municipality, they would have to be called in from a neighboring, larger, municipality.

Because the point is to slow the traffic down, not to extract revenue from the peasantry.

Same as the difference between an obvious speed trap and a "gotcha" speed trap.

But does it slow people down? I doubt it has significant effect. Very few people are going to be going over 80 a few meters in front of a 50 sign. You essentially are only catching people who are doing close to double the upcoming speed limit. Those who are willing to do that should be getting much more severe punishment than a speeding ticket.

They do.

I think the general idea is strategic speed shaping before spots where lethal accidents are likely.

So nudging, sort of. There’s a lot of public support for that.

We have them in the US too, but it varies widely by jurisdiction because they're regulated at the state level and policed at the local level.

Oh and it's not a bill, it goes through the legal system so people have the right to argue it in court if they want.

NYC is ramping up on this as well.

https://www.nyc.gov/site/finance/vehicles/red-light-camera-v...

Here in my country they removed the cameras in the second largest city after a trial period. It took too much effort to filter out police colleagues running a red (in police or civilian vehicles).

Ah that is easy here. 1) civilian vehicles never get leeway 2) we know the license plates of all police cars so we just filter it. Or actually only do so when they use proper permission to run a light

Simpler

Plate lookup returns state/municipal as the owner -> ticket gets discarded.

In most the USA, or at least Arizona, you have to serve someone. Just dropping something in a mail box doesn't mean dick. The very people that invented the traffic cameras up in Scottsdale were caught dodging the process servers from triggers from their own camera.

Another words, you have to spend hundreds of dollars chasing someone down, by the time you add that on to how easy it is to jam up the ticket in court by demanding an actual human being accuse you, it's not the easy win some may think. You're basically looking at $500+ to try and prosecute someone for a $300 ticket.

NY is not Arizona. They have the plate and send the fine to whomever the vehicle is registered to. If the fine isn't paid they flag the plate and impound the car if it's driven in their state.

In FL, a speed camera can give a car's owner can a ticket without needing to know he was the driver. Your perspective is not true nation wide.

"The registered owner of the motor vehicle involved in the violation is responsible and liable for paying the uniform traffic citation issued for a violation"

http://www.leg.state.fl.us/Statutes/index.cfm?App_mode=Displ...

That seems completely fucked to me. Charging people who aren't guilty of any crime with a crime because somebody else was driving their car?

What would be the alternative? Just get who was driving your car to pay you back for the fine. If they are not accountable/honorable enough to back you back, then why were you letting them drive your car in the first place?

The same "alternative" that there is to every other crime in existence, proving the person you charged with a crime actually committed the crime. The default is suppose to be innocence, not guilty. It is the state's responsibility or problem to prove someone is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, not a citizen's responsibility to prove their continued innocence at all times.

I mean, the state obviously has photo evidence. So you need to show that either the photo was taken in error, that it misidentified your vehicle or that you weren't the legal owner at the time.

They have a photo of a car, but the car cannot commit a crime all on its own, someone has to be driving it. And if you have no idea who is driving when you charge them you are inevitably going to be charging innocent people.

When the police come across a car that's parked illegally, do you think they should need to wait around and figure out exactly who left it before issuing a ticket? Of course not; the vehicle owner is responsible for ensuring it's parked legally.

In the same way, it's the vehicle owner's responsibility to make sure their car is not driven through a red light. If they abdicate that responsibility, they aren't innocent!

I got a couple of them like 20 years ago. Picture was terrible. I just through the ticket in the trash and never thought about it again.

That's absolutely hilarious. They take a photo of something approximating your vehicle that shows your plate number, toss it in a mail system that loses more than 0.5% of the class of mail used, then according to another poster in NY they impound your car after all this.

Anyplace with the slightest adherence to the rule of law requires the state to positively identify an actual person, not a vehicle owned by a person, that is responsible for a moving violation. And then personally serve that person rather than just coming up with this absolute bullshit excuse that an unreliable mail system with a letter dropped god knows where somehow is legal service.

A couple things wrong here:

1. Camera-issued tickets are not moving violations

2. Your car will not be impounded for failure to pay (maybe unless you have many, many unpaid tickets)

If the photo is bad, you can dispute it! That isn't presumption of guilt, it's the legal system working exactly as intended: one side presents their evidence, and the other side has a chance to respond.

Even if USPS loses 0.5% of mail (I am skeptical; that seems crazy high) the state sends at least three notices, so the chances of you missing every notice of your infraction is something like one in a million.

Only by the most ridiculous fiction is running a red light or speeding not a moving violation. They've intentionally pretended like it's not to get around the due process involved.

What do you mean by people who aren't guilty? The infraction here is allowing your vehicle to run a red light.

How do you allow a vehicle to run a red light that you aren't driving?

Easy:

1. Allow someone else to drive your vehicle

2. That person runs a red light

Your responsibility as the vehicle owner is to either not do step 1, or only do it for people whom you trust will not do step 2.

You don't even have to 'allow' them. Either you could live in a community property state, where your spouse, even a spouse who has initiated divorce against you, legally also owns the vehicle that is in your name. Or someone could steal it. Or someone could steal or duplicate your plates and put it on a nearly identical car, which happened to a friend who had to spend years fighting all the tickets that were mailed to him when an entirely different car (same make/model) used his same plate numbers.

If you can show that your vehicle or plates were stolen, you won't have to pay the ticket; in NYC that is explicitly listed as a possible defense [1].

The spouse thing honestly seems fine — it just means that you're both responsible for paying the ticket, rather than you alone — but if you have an issue it's with the property laws, not the red light cameras.

[1] https://www.nyc.gov/site/finance/vehicles/red-light-camera-v...

My friend "showed" the plates were not his (he couldn't prove the car wasn't stolen because it wasn't -- they only copied his plate) but they kept sending him tickets because apparently it only counts for one ticket. They wanted him to go through a laborious process every time. I think he finally just stopped challenging them because it took too much time, and probably can't go to that state again unless he wants his car seized.

Sounds like the issue here is that the police aren't doing their job!

Arizona also did stakeouts to try and catch this guy:

https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna32806142

In CO we have automatic traffic cameras, and to my knowledge they just mail you the ticket, which is usually only a fine (and no license points). Its one of those “automatic plea” tickets where if you fight it, you fight (and risk conviction on) the actual offense, while if you just pay the ticket it will automatically get downgraded to a less serious offense (IE parking outside the lines).

Not in New Jersey. I visited my parents and didn’t stop for a full three seconds before making a right on red on a deserted road at night and they fined my dad.

I live in AZ, try driving on Lincoln in Paradise Valley. Everyone is going at 40mph because of the speed cameras. Most people don't want to be fugitives.

I sometimes use Tatum with PV's speed vans parked on the side of the road to head towards downtown Phx and, yes, the common speed is definitely around 40. But pretty much as soon as past McDonald and on 44th St, I resume the the normalized 7-8 mph over the posted limit because I know there are no more speed cameras.

Which proves the speed cameras in PV work...

It's just a process server, not cops. It's just the equivalent of a glorified delivery man looking for you. The general counsel, an executive, and the employees in general of ATS (the company that does the traffic cameras in most of AZ and I think much the USA) dodge the process servers when they get caught by their own cameras. The people that understand how the process works don't seem too bothered being a "fugitive" as it's all a nothing-burger and if you get caught all it means is you need to hire a lawyer to make it go away or pay the ticket.

This isn't true we've had plenty of programs where red light camera tickets were rolled out.

Voters just really don't like them.

They were rolled out but the mailed tickets are legally meaningless, someone has to actually hunt you down within a short timespan (I think 90 days) to create any binding requirement to address it.

   A mailed citation from a photo radar camera is not an official ticket and does not need to be responded to unless it has been formally served to you.

https://rideoutlaw.com/photo-radar-tickets-in-arizona-a-comp...

The problem with traffic cameras in the US was that they became outsourced revenue enhancement rather than public safety.

The cameras would get installed at busy intersections with lots of minor infractions to collect fines on rather than unsafe intersections that had lots of bad accidents. And then, when the revenue was insufficient, they would dial down the yellow light time.

Consequently, and rightly, Americans now immediately revolt against traffic cameras whenever they appear.

(San Diego was one particularly egregious example. They installed the cameras on the busy freeway interchange lights when the super dangerous intersection that produced all the T-bone accidents was literally one traffic light up the hill. This infuriated everybody.)

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Nobody thinks it's racist to enforce traffic laws. People think it's racist to selectively enforce traffic laws by race, which usually takes the form of police pulling over Black drivers at higher rates. (But it can also mean installing more traffic cameras in minority neighborhoods!)

Try driving anywhere in the world that's not Western Europe or The USA and you'll quickly see how advanced even our worst cities are when it comes to traffic.

Last time I was in China drivers simply go through four way intersections at top speed from all directions simultaneously. If you are a pedestrian I hope you're good at frogger because there is a 0% chance anyone will stop for you. I really wonder how self driving cars work because they must program some kind of insane software that ignores all laws or it wouldn't even be remotely workable.

When I was living in China I got used to crossing large streets one lane at a time. Pedestrians stand on the lane markers with cars whizzing by on either side while they wait for a gap big enough to cross the next lane. It's not great for safety, to put it mildly, but the drivers expect it and it's the only way to get across the road in some places. I was freaked out by it but eventually it became habit.

Then I came back to the US and forgot to switch back to US-style street crossing behavior at first. No physical harm done, but I was very embarrassed when people slammed on their brakes at the sight of me in the middle of the road.

It is kinda funny watching people complain here after visiting almost anywhere in Asia. Can't speak for Japan or Korea though.

I've never been to SK, but in Japan things are -- unsurprisingly, as one might guess -- very orderly. For the most part (in cities at least) you don't jaywalk, even when there are no cars on the road.

Same in Korea, just on the other side of the road, very polite and professional, no one breaks rules for the most part, even in Major Cities.

I know a lot of foreigners like Japan for motorcycling specifically because you can "white line" in most places, and the drivers are attentive.

The one quirk I thought was most interesting was Crab Angle Stops or when at a T shape stop lights that have an additional stop light 20 feet further from the intersection. Sometimes the cars will align diagonally to allow more traffic per light and let whoever is in front have a better angle to see traffic on small roads with poor visibility. Then when the light turns green the diagonally aligned cars move back to normal.

Like ////// to - - - - - -

Officially, the 道路交通法 (Road Traffic Act) doesn’t say “you must angle.” It just requires drivers to stop at the line and confirm safety before entering.

The diagonal stop is more of a local driving custom (practical adaptation) rather than a codified rule.

Wait, so all the sibling comments are actually proposing bringing NYC traffic to a gridlock?

What the actual rules are matter far less than that traffic is predictable. Like in Boston it's typical for a few cars to get into the intersection to take a left, traffic goes around them in both directions and only on the change to red to they go. Not technically legal but normal. 4-way stops where nobody stops and everyone times their roll unless there's a reason to. Also not technically legal but normal. Nobody with an opinion worth caring about complains about these things. Blowing lights many seconds after they've changed is still wild IMO.

People are risking their lives and the lives of others, and a fine is supposed to be the thing that finally gets them to comply?

This is what the points system is for.

Any individual infraction might only be a small fine, but it adds points to your license. Collect enough points and you risk license suspension.

I’ve known a couple people who got close to having enough points for license suspension. They drove perfectly for years.

That sounds reasonable to me. Everybody makes mistakes, but nobody should be consistently making grievous mistakes capable of causing serious injury or death to other motorists on a regular basis.

I'm less concerned with a little speeding than I am with blowing through lights and stop signs.

I think in most areas with cameras where fines are automatically assesed to the vehicle owner (who is not necessarily the driver), there are no points. That way it's just a civil penalty and the burden of proof is low. "We have a photo" is enough.

Yes.

If they run a red light today there is some small chance they will injure/kill someone.

If they run a red light with a camera, there is a 100% chance they will receive a ticket.

The key factor is not the magnitude of the penalty (i.e. whether someone dies or they receive a fine) but the chance that they will encounter the penalty.

You've got me: I believe that people respond to financial incentives. I don't think this is a radical position.

Phone while stopped at a red light is explicitly legal here. I don't think it's been a problem?

New startup idea just dropped.

I think (or at least I hope) St Louis is primarily focused on reducing their sky-high murder rates. But who knows.

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