Seattle Sets the Stage for Automatic Traffic Camera Expansion

Ok, if we're gonna have more traffic cameras can we please, please start at the offramp to SEATAC? You know the one, where every 3 inches there's a sign that says "ABSOLUTELY NO STOPPING NO PARKING NO FUCKING BULLSHIT YES YOU IN THE BMW I KNOW YOU CAN READ THIS NO PARKING" and there's about 400 assholes parked next to those signs? That part. Can we please start there?
And jack the fine up every week until it ends.
- Hey hey ... The cell phone lot is confusing. Like it's also missing the feeling of superiority having saved 1 minute and almost causing accidents when merging.
  
  yep. it do be like that.
  I wonder how much the fines would need to be in order to get people to fucking stop.

the move is a first step toward the broader deployment of those cameras, a tool that has the potential to dramatically improve traffic safety across the city if implemented well.
It's Seattle. It will not, sadly, be implemented well.

A little over a decade ago I slid to an icy stop as the yellow light came on in a turn only lane, about an hour north of Seattle. The guy in front of me tried to stop and ended up going through the intersection as the light turned red. I got a ticket with a photo of the intersection, but you could clearly see my car was stopped a good four feet behind of the line. It was dismissed, but I was pretty mad that I even had to fight that.
I don't know if the tech has improved or if they have people double checking tickets before they are issued now, but I can't say my experience made me feel positive about the automated ticket system lol
- I got a speeding ticket a year ago, and they included a link to a video of me going too fast through an intersection. In my case, I was between two other cars, and because I was unfamiliar with the camera, I was the only one that didn't tap on their brakes while going through. Regardless, the video was clear evidence against me, so I paid it.
  In short, I think they've gotten much better since your experience. It at least felt fair.

Mix an increasingly affordable and easy implementation of nanny-state technology to a shift towards tyrannical governance, and things will likely start getting ugly fast.
- I would prefer to be judged by a person. I truly hate cars but here in the general Seattle area if you don't have a car you just can't function. So, say you are late to work every day but you blow thru every intersection to get to work not too late, just late. That's obviously a you problem and one day it will be someone getting hit by you and you end up in jail. But if you're just a random person or a visitor to the city, you'll get a ticket by surprise one day.
  
  There is also a complete lack of segregation of duties with these things. The companies that install, configure, and maintain also get a cut of the income. This is really bad.
  
  As someone likely to be profiled by cops, I like the concept of objectivity with automated patrolling, but this comes at such an overbearing scalability and privacy violation that it's still the greater evil. I just hope automated driving becomes the norm soon enough to obviate the need for this. That comes at a cost too, but the lives saved from that will be on the order of what some vaccines have accomplished and the efficiency with regards to time and energy all add up to make that a worthwhile change in my book.

I remember a Freakonomics episode that described an experimental alternative to traffic cops: a "good driver" lottery.
If you're "caught" driving the speed limit, you get entered into a lottery. Less adversarial relationship with traffic cops and more drivers would be incentivized to drive safe more often.
Edit: It was apparently an article, not a podcast.
- I heard that episode before. Its good stuff. Unfortunately reality includes other people. Today, Sunday, I was driving from the local park to the house with all my kids onboard. The road starts as a 30mph and a minivan was following very closely behind my bumper. The road changes idiotically to a 25mph zone. So I slow down. Its 25 everywhere... Painted on the floor and on a blinking speedometer sign showing your speed and the required 25mph. The van start almost kissing my bumper. I make my left turn into our street and as I'm making the turn the guy honks and steps on it. Those people need to be bus riders. They are dangerous.
  
  Maybe they would have been a better driver with the lottery system. Clearly current criminality didn't help your situation.
  
  Just fucking stop in the road at that point. Or tap your breaks.
- But that would require giving money away rather than making money.

Flat fees for breaking the law are only a tax on the poor. If money can buy you privilege then you live in an oligarchy.

I though to cross post here because it talks about Bluetooth tracking of people.

Red light cameras are fine as long as they work properly, but fuck the speed cams. Glad they are still illegal here.

I'd assume there are better ways to curb speeding (albeit more expensive), like making the streets narrower and more difficult to drive on. Won't stop those that run red lights though
- We should work on separated bike paths to narrow down the street.

I drove over 7K miles last month. I would much rather see traffic enforcement cameras than police cars sitting on the side of the road.
Traffic cameras attempt to document actual behavior with real evidence in an impartial manner.
Most cops are dumb, undertrained, and overpayed parasites on society who have violent and agressive behaviors. Then they sit on the side of the road being bored out of their minds all day. When an accident does occur they mostly stand around directing traffic while the paramedics, firefighters, and wreckers do all the work. Hell the most useful thing I have seen them do is remove debris from the road with a broom and dustpan.
City I lived in had a serious issue with people running red lights at a few intersections. Many fatal accidents and pedestrian injuries happened because of it. They put in a red light light cameras on the worst intersection. The first month it generated over $350K in fines at $125 each. Around 2,800 drivers ran that intersection. Within 3 months the number of tickets dropped to under 20 per month. The number of accidents dropped respectively as well.
- Screw traffic cameras. Most of that money goes to private companies and it's all too tempting for cities to game them to increase revenue. I say we just park a bunch of empty cop cars around if you want people to slow down. Nothing works better and there's no cost involved outside of the initial purchase of the vehicles. It's cheaper and more effective.
  
  Agreed. I have a compromise. They can put in all the cameras they want - but absolutely cannot, upon pain of losing 50% of their total budget for a year per violation - outsource or subcontract the operations or anything akin to the operations of the system at all. Hire IT staff to run it, pay people to process the data. No you can't use AI. Do this or fuck off, Seattle.
  I will never ever forget when a red light camera came to Redmond, at the turn leading to driving through Microsoft's campus. Can you guess what happens when you piss of a bunch of smart motivated people who have money and aren't necessarily the kindest people? That shit got challenged and removed after about six months. I still see the stump/the concrete it was embedded when when I go to my buddy's house, and it warms my heart literally every. single. fucking. time.
- 2,800 drivers ran that intersection.
  jfc. I've only ever run a red in an ambulance, and that's with the lights and sirens and still creeped into the intersection before passing through.
  you know what the issue is? apparently these assholes are getting through life without seeing enough traumatic shit.
  also people who drive recklessly should have to volunteer in burn wards and children's hospitals.
- They just stopped using the traffic cameras in my county this year. I’ve been pulled over twice this year now after never getting a camera ticket and not being pulled over for the last 15 years. I guess they have to make the money somewhere. I’d prefer the cameras.

I’m so glad my city banned that shit.

All that surveillance and they let all the criminals go free anyways...so, what's the point?
- Money
- All that surveillance and they let all the criminals go free anyways…so, what’s the point?
  They're not using these to catch criminals - that'd be like expecting anti-gun laws to give murderers pause. No, they use them to make people like you and me pay hundreds of dollars when the light goes from yellow to red while we're in the intersection or close enough to it that we couldn't safely stop without stopping literally in the middle of it all. That's what this is about - making people like us pay. Not actual criminals who commit a crime that they would be arrested for.

You need to pay up for your speed racing.