Got Caught By a Red Light Camera?

scootsk wrote:
I realize this thread is about red light cameras but it seems to have taken another direction. On Long Island, Nassau County implemented a school spped zone camera program. When it was introduced the politicians taunted it as a way to close a 30 million dollar budget gap. After a few complained that they shouldn't put cameras in school zones as "money makers". The powers then changed their tune and said the camera were for safety. Lol. Fast forward five months, surrounded by way too much controversy, the program was ended. But here are some raw facts: the cameras were set to issue a ticket to those that exceeded the posted school speed limit by 9 mph. So math say you get a ticket when traveling 29 in a 20 mph zone, sounds reasonable. The program issued over 400,000 tickets from September to late November to the tune of $31 million. I don't know but those numbers do indicate a tremendous problem with speeders in school zones, imo.

The numbers DO NOT indicate a problem with speeders.

The numbers indicate an incorrectly set speed limit. It may suprise you but traffic engineers have found that drivers are actually very good at determining the safe speed for a roadway. School speed limits are notoriously bad at getting it right. I've yet to see a speed limit under 25mph that is appropriate. The problem is someone gets up and says "what about the safety of the kids" and then logic goes out the window. Some of the issue is legislative in nature, some locals have mandatory speeds and in others the school is allowed to demand a paticular speed. Of course no one wants to be the one who said to heck with the kids safety because that one time you do, thats when a fast car wil hit a kid (even though it is not a systematic issue)