Reply to DC traffic cameras issued 3.3 MILLION tickets last year

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Did you know there's almost no stop sign cameras west of the park? I wonder how that happens....[/quote]

There's 17 speed cameras in Ward 3. In Ward 7, there's almost 60.

[/quote]
Listing this without listing data on accidents or fatalities isn’t that useful. 
Traffic accidents, injuries, and fatalities are FAR higher in ward 7 than 3. This isn’t the racist “gotcha” that you think it is.

[/quote]

Actually it is.

https://www.propublica.org/article/chicagos-race-neutral-traffic-cameras-ticket-black-and-latino-drivers-the-most[/quote]

Accidents and fatalities are much higher in majority black zip codes. Should city officials defer to those who break the law or those who are victimized by law breakers?

The underlying problem is that road infrastructure is generally much more conducive to speeding in black majority zip codes. The solution is more traffic calming etc..[/quote]

Accidents and fatalities are rare in every section of the city. The city should not bombard people with tickets that cost them lots of money and make no difference to accident rates. [/quote]

No one is bombarding you. You are actively breaking the law. You can choose to stop.[/quote]

It would make more sense if we just had the cops give out the tickets. So many of the camera tickets are bullshit-y foot fault tickets. It's just harassment. [/quote]

The cops do not give a crap. They never did.

And what the is a foot fault ticket?? Did you follow the law or not?  Sounds like no, but you want to whine about it [/quote]

A lot of the tickets are for trivial offenses. For example you stopped at a stop sign, but the nose of your car was beyond the stop sign pole when you stopped, so they say you didnt stop at the stop sign. [/quote]

The stop sign cameras record your speed going over the line and will automatically cancel the ticket if it's under a certain speed, specifically to avoid this situation. If the automatic cancellation doesn't happen for some reason you can appeal and presuming you were actually just inching over the line your ticket will be dismissed because they have not only your speed recorded but a video of the infraction that a human can review for an appeal.

People love to say "oh I was just doing this reasonable thing and the mean old speed camera punished me!" But in reality it's usually either a straight up lie or they have an utter lack of self-awareness of what they are doing in their vehicle, rolling through the stop sign at 8mph but in their mind they "barely inched over."[/quote]

It would be great if it actually worked like this, but that hasn't been my experience at all. Most of the traffic camera tickets I have ever gotten (and there's been a few) are penny ante complaints about how I stopped but not in precisely the right place because my bumper was over the crosswalk or something. [/quote]

That is literally how it works. It's right there on the DDOT website if you had ever bothered to take 2 seconds to look it up:

[quote]Drivers must come to a complete stop prior to the stop bar at an intersection controlled by a stop sign or traffic signal. This allows the driver to look around and ensure that they have the right of way before continuing. [b]The stop signs units use radar to detect if a vehicle stopped at, rolled through, or ran a stop sign.[/b] Tickets will be issued when vehicles fail to make a complete stop at a stop signs.

The stop sign enforcement camera system predicts using advance algorithms, when a stop sign violation is occurring and captures the violation event with digital camera and high-resolution video.

Step 1 The first image of the violation is taken BEFORE the vehicle passes the stop line.
Step 2 The second image is taken AFTER the vehicle passes the stop line.
Step 3 The license plate is taken from a close-up of the images captured.
Step 4 In addition, [b]a high-resolution video of the violation event is captured as a validation tool.[/b]
Step 5 Additional data collected includes the time, date, [b]speed,[/b] location, lane, and direction of the travel.[/quote]

https://asc.ddot.dc.gov/ [/quote]

They send you a video when you get a ticket. No one needs to look anything up. You can see how silly the tickets are in the video they send you. [/quote]

If the ticket is "silly," i.e. not video evidence of you breaking the law and deservedly getting the ticket, then you can easily get the ticket dismissed.

If the ticket is in fact video evidence of you breaking the law then the ticket is not "silly."

So what's the problem? [/quote]

Tickets have increased 10 fold. They doubled in the past year alone. Last year there 3.3 million tickets for a city of 700,000. [b]Speeding deaths have not gone down at all[/b], despite the massive increase in ticketing. How is that possible? Lots and lots of tickets for trivial offenses.  [/quote]

You picked the wrong year to make this argument. Traffic deaths are down 60% year-on-year after the number of cameras were doubled last year. You need to find a new hobby.[/quote]

The number of [b]speeding related deaths[/b] have gone up and down each year, without any clear pattern. If increasing tickets by 10 times over the past decade actually made a difference, you'd see a pattern.

2023: 22
2022: 9
2021: 12
2020: 15
2019: 10
2018: 9
2017: 12
2016: 8
2015: 11
2014: 12
2013: 11[/quote]

You can keep posting lies and I will keep calling you out for the liar that you are. You know that these numbers do not include many people killed by speeding drivers and yet you continue to claim otherwise. Why?[/quote]

You can look them up yourself. They come from the DC police department. The reports are here: https://mpdc.dc.gov/page/mpd-annual-reports[/quote]

I hate it when people make me repeat myself and you are making me repeat myself over and over again because you insist on spreading misinformation.

It states very clearly in the main table on page 44 on the 2023 report that the numbers constitute the “Predominant Cause of Traffic Fatality”.

I cannot believe that you do not understand the difference between a factor being determined to be a predominant cause and a contributing factor.

Therefore, I can only conclude that you are deliberately seeking to mislead the public in service of your hideous crusade against speed cameras, which persists in spite of all evidence that they save lives.

Do you want people to die on the streets of DC? Is that your goal here?[/quote]

[b]Everything has multiple causes[/b]. There are multiple reasons why I had eggs for breakfast. But the police investigated these crashes. They interviewed people in the crashes. They interview people who saw the crashes. They examined the physical evidence. Then they reported the primary reason for the crash and that was used in some cases to put people in prison. You can pretend you know better than the people who actually did the work, but it seems like it would be better for everyone if you just shut the fkc up. [/quote]

So you do understand how traffic cameras can be effective at reducing fatal crashes even though the number of fatal crashes is not changing in accordance with the expansion of those cameras? Because it doesn't sound like you want to admit that you understand that.

That said, it is kind of silly to expect that cameras will make a difference to how people drive across the city when there are only 500 cameras for 8,000+ city blocks and drivers by and large know exactly where the cameras are. Cameras aren't going to work in places where there are no cameras.

If the city cared about saving lives, there would be traffic cameras on every block. They are cheaper enough to buy and operate that cost can no longer be cited as a factor in preventing the city from acquiring more of them. With AI, the cameras could also catch not only speeding but also drunk driving, double parking, red light running and so on.

How wonderful it would be to live in a city where drivers actually obeyed the law.[/quote]

You sound like Trump pretending that DC is a crime ridden hell hole.

The reality is traffic accidents in DC are rare. Very, very few people die in traffic accidents. The vast majority of people are safe drivers, just like the vast majority of people do not commit crimes. Probably because so few people die in traffic accidents, it's hard to move the needle in further reductions which is why the numbers don't change that much from year to year.

You can blanket the city with tickets, but when you're issuing 3.3 million tickets to a city with a few hundred thousand drivers, [b]you're mostly just giving tickets to safe drivers who make minor mistakes[/b]. That has no impact on safety. It's just harassment. It's like Trump putting National Guard troops on every corner, giving everyone tickets for jaywalking and then pretending you're reducing crime. [/quote]

Are you nuts? The tickets are going to drivers who are speeding at least 11mph over the limit through residential neighborhoods? Only a true buffoon would describe that as a “safe driver making a minor mistake”. That you believe that drivers who break the law and endanger others constitutes “harassment” shows just how deranged you truly are. That you are trying to devalue the deaths of hundreds of people who would have been with us today were it not for such “safe drivers” who made “minor mistakes” is ghoulish. Please go away.[/quote]

There's a lot of streets in DC with speed limits that are so low that they are a joke. I drive on a lot of roads that, if they were in any other city, would be set at 35mph. DC puts them at 20mph, and then gives you a ticket for speeding for going 31mph, even though if that exact same street was in any other city, you'd be driving below the speed limit. A lot of what DDOT is just dumb. [/quote]

DC reduced the speed limits to save lives. Because the evidence shows that reducing speed limits to 20mph saves lives, a lot of them. Here is the research on that: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S002243752400152X

And what other cities do you have in mind? Maybe, Kensington, MD? The place where pedestrians are being killed left and right by speeding drivers (ICYMI: https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/1293666.page)

Why do you insist that people must die so that you can get to the next red light quicker?[/quote]
This does not show that lives were saved in DC. Where’s the DC data that supports your thesis, because this isn’t it. I prefer specific  facts, not some generic information. [/quote]

Why do you think that the laws of physics are not generalizable to Washington DC? Support your reasoning.

Do you also doubt that Newton's law of universal gravitation applies in each room you enter because you do not have room-specific data that supports that objects in free fall accelerate at 9.8 m/s^2 while you're there?[/quote]

Per the other poster's logic, they would refuse a vaccine because there isn't a published double-blind randomized control trial study with them and only them as a subject attesting to the efficacy of the specific brand of vaccine at that very minute. It's amazing at how naturally they will dismiss basic logic to affirm their own crazy biases.[/quote]

You can just say you have zero evidence that all these tickets have accomplished anything at all. In effect, that's what you've already told us. [/quote]

There is evidence, you've just refused to accept it. We're still waiting for you to justify your position that the laws of physics do not apply in Washington DC.[/quote]

There is no evidence, obviously. Over the past decade, DC has increased ticketing by 10 fold. We now issue twice as many tickets as Chicago, which is four times larger than DC. If there was a relationship between ticketing and traffic deaths, then traffic deaths would decline. They haven't. They're basically the same as they were 20 years ago. [/quote]

Reposting this from a few pages back because either you ignore everything that doesn't align with your existing beliefs or you have the memory of a gold fish . . .

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-camera...nty-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/...y-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/...ruck-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/...ruck-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.[/quote]

Is this a joke? This is not evidence of anything, except that you're a fkcingn idiot. [/quote]

That probably is a bit too much information for your feeble mind to process.

I see that one of the links - which describes a study of speed cameras in Montgomery County - is broken. Here is the correct link: https://www.iihs.org/news/detail/speed-cameras-reduce-injury-crashes-in-maryland-county-iihs-study-shows[/quote]

You'd think DC would provide an ideal test case of whether ticketing can make streets safer since we've had a 10 fold increase in ticketing over the past decade. So it doesnt inspire confidence when the only evidence you can muster is a 20 year old study of Barcelona and a brief blog post about Montgomery County that predates the explosion of ticketing in DC. You seem to be grasping for straws.  [/quote]

Straws? Is it that you want more studies? Here's some reading for you:

C. Wilson et al (2010). Speed cameras for the prevention of road traffic injuries and deaths. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews. Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1002/14651858.CD004607.pub3

E. De Pauw et al (2014). To brake or to accelerate? Safety effects of combined speed and red light cameras. Journal of Safety Research. Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jsr.2014.03.011

RA Retting et al (2003). Effects of red light cameras on violations and crashes: a review of the international literature. Traffic Injury Prevention. Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1080/15389580309858

RA Retting et al (2008). Evaluation of automated speed enforcement on Loop 101 freeway in Scottsdale, Arizona. Accident Analysis and Prevention. Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aap.2008.03.017

RA Retting et al (2008). Evaluation of automated speed enforcement in Montgomery County, Maryland. Traffic Injury Prevention. Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1080/15389580802221333

W Hu and AT McCartt (2016). Effects of automated speed enforcement in Montgomery County, Maryland, on vehicle speeds, public opinion, and crashes. Traffic Injury Prevention. Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1080/15389588.2016.1189076

ATE is effective in DC where it is. It is not effective where it isn't. DC has about 8,000 city blocks and 500 ATE devices. How do you expect ATE devices to be effective on the 7,500 blocks where there are no ATE devices?[/quote]

Good to know about (checks notes)...Flanders, Belgium? Got anything remotely relevant to what's been happening in DC over the past decade? Anything at all? The city is surely desperate to show the millions of tickets it now issues each year isn't a waste of everyone's time, money and energy and yet the silence here is deafening. [/quote]

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