Putting traffic cameras everywhere, giving everyone a ticket for everything, and making traffic a nightmare has not done anything at all to reduce traffic deaths. Look at the data. |
Is this like how we need National Guard troops on every single street corner because otherwise there will be places in this city where people are free to commit murder? Your logic is Trump-esque. |
So what is your solution? Traffic stops? Road design? If they die they die? |
Yes, actual traffic stops by police with actual traffic tickets (remember those?) would be very helpful. |
Logic is not your strong suit. There is plenty of evidence that traffic cameras reduce the incidence of crashes. Here are two studies for you to read: https://www.iihs.org/news/detail/speed-cameras-reduce-injury-crashes-in-maryland-county-iihs-study-shows https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC1963295/ If you are interested, I am sure you can find others. Your argument that speed cameras in DC are not working because DC is still suffering traffic deaths in spite of the cameras is - and I'm sorry to have to put it this way - rather stupid. If the traffic deaths were happening right in front of the cameras, you may have a point, but they're not and you don't. The vast majority of streets in DC have no cameras and cameras cannot serve as a deterrent to speeding in places where there are no cameras. The other problem is that many drivers are allowed to keep accumulating fines with no discernable consequences. The driver who killed three people in 2023 on Rock Creek Parkway, Nakita Walker, had accrued 40 camera tickets in D.C. worth $12,000 over a 10-month period (https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2023/03/16/rock-creek-parkway-crash-suv-tickets/) and yet was still allowed on the road. The driver who killed a pedestrian in Foxhall Village in 2024 had more than a dozen unpaid camera speeding tickets at the time of the fatal crash (https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2024/09/17/dc-child-struck-driver-tickets/). The U.S. Attorney's Office declined to prosecute that driver, so they are presumably still out there on the road racking up more speeding tickets and putting the rest of us at risk. There are countless other accounts of pedestrians being hit by vehicles with huge amounts of outstanding camera tickets. You can read about them if you so choose here: https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2024/09/17/dc-child-struck-driver-tickets/ If you don't like pedestrians, cyclists, drivers, and passengers getting injured and even dying, you'd advocate for more speeding cameras and consequences for those who are caught speeding. Yet the only thing you seem interested in is removing speed cameras and absolving those who break the law from any consequences and so I must conclude that you have no concern whatsoever for the wellbeing and lives of other road users. |
Do you worry about murders too? Because murders are way more common than dying in traffic accidents. Traffic deaths in this city are rare. They're also inevitable. If you're uncomfortable with that, maybe you should move. A small town might be more your speed. |
+1000 You don't get to take cops out of traffic enforcement, and then complain about a lack of traffic enforcement. Looking at you Washington Area Bicyclist Association. It's like closing the IRS and then complaining about rich people not paying taxes. |
Absolute nonsense. Helsinki, which has a population almost identical to DC's, just went a year without a single traffic death: https://www.politico.eu/article/helsinki-no-traffic-death-roads-eu-accident-finland-driving-transport/ Unlike solving murders, we know very well how to reduce fatal traffic accidents. Yet people continue to die needlessly because ghouls like you believe the convenience of your commute is more important than other people's lives. |
This is obviously untrue. Nothing the city has done in the past decade has made an iota of difference in the incidence of traffic deaths. Here's the number of deaths caused by speeding drivers in DC: 2023: 22 2022: 9 2021: 12 2020: 15 2019: 10 2018: 9 2017: 12 2016: 8 2015: 11 2014: 12 2013: 11 |
| Sounds like we need a reminder that "Vision Zero" can never be achieved in DC because it's already killed one person. |
Vision Zero is designed to be impossible so the car haters can always demand more |
| Car apologists lamenting that traffic deaths are the inevitable price we have to pay like Charlie Kirk lamenting that gun deaths are the inevitable price we have to pay... |
I'm sure that's true, but that's not what happened in DC. We replaced actual enforcement with traffic cameras, which are two variables, not one. That's the issue I have with the way cameras are used in DC. Yes, they have their place in a road safety program, but relying exclusively on them in the absence of real enforcement is what I and many others are concerned about. |
The number of people who die in this city in traffic accidents is tiny. We have more important things to worry about. |
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