When the USA starts using the speed cameras, tail gating monitoring, etc…like the Europeans, then I will drive like a German in the USA. Until then, it’s a cat and mouse situation. IMO, the Suisse take the cake, they busted a driver for sitting at a green light for 19 seconds. Wait until the tollway bridges in the USA are used to calculate your average speed. Technically the authorities can already do it, but they are not enforcing anything. The first time I drove under those conditions was in Austria and I swear I did not exceed 3 km/h over the speed limit and stayed in the right lane.
If you build insane streets, people will use the in insane manners
They’re doing the whole thing where I live where they’re reducing speed limits to 40km/h instead of 50 to reduce deaths during accidents. Its a whole movements and has a name, but part of the process is you’re supposed to alter the roadways so the 40km/h feels like what you should be driving. Narrow the roads, add bike lanes etc. If its designed for 50, people will go 50
They’ve done none of that. They just lowered the speeds on major through ways across town to 40.
No one does 40 they keep doing 50, including cops which dont seem to care for enforcing it.
All I can think is that if youre going too fast it gives the cops leeway for a bigger ticket e.g people would speed and do 60 before but now that would be 20 over instead of 10.
No one does 40 they keep doing 50, including cops which dont seem to care for enforcing it.
I have never seen a cop do the speed limit.
Have you been to Phoenix? Pedestrian accidents are high probably because no one believes anyone would be walking and crossing their 6 lane city streets that are straight and go on for miles and miles.
Never been to Phoenix but do drivers who drive or use these 6 lanes (assuming 3 lanes per direction) use there phone and get distracted while driving?
Yes…
Or from the limited time I have been there…
Also people very regularly go the wrong way down the roads
We have speed cameras everywhere in Australia. No idea what the Issue is honestly. Don’t speed like a dickhead and you’ll be fine
Everything in America is run by private corps that will fudge shit to generate revenue. That’s the only problem I have with red light cameras and speed cameras. Red light camera contractors have been documented shortening yellow lights to purposely make people run them to generate revenue.
In my city, they added Red Light cameras. Then they found that they were setting the cameras to catch a little before the yellow light ended, boosting their revenues by millions.
Then they added speed cameras to school zones. Then the found out they conveniently placed them outside the official school zones, again boosting revenues by millions.
Maybe you can trust the management of them in Australia, but in America, they WILL cheat, and even if they get caught, nothing will be done about it, because they’re stealing MONEY from the Citizens, and that’s always okay.
A lot of places also like to shorten the time that the light is yellow which conveniently boosts profits.
Yeah, I see this and wish they’d put one in front of my kids’ school. Every road in my town is 25mph, every single one. We have those digital signs in a couple places in town that read exactly that. People still do 40 in front of the school, where kids walk. We are a town where a good chunk of people walk to school, I walk my kids, and people still fly around. Leaving earlier is never an option, need to speed everywhere to make up 30 seconds.
They have one of those signs that tells you how fast you’re going, though. So effective.
I drive by a school with those signs on my way to work. I slow down because, obviously, kids. The cars behind me get enraged that I’m not going 40 and then they pull into the school and drop off their kids.
Do your police exist to harvest revenue from the population in order to support their budgets, or do you have a logical, reasonable method of funding law enforcement?
The first one
This violates the principle that crime shouldn’t pay.
I interpret this to apply to everyone. No one should be profiting from criminal activity.
They should just take your license away for a day.
There has to be SOME incentive to not speed…
That would disproportionally affect the working poor.
So come up with some incentive to get people to drive like normal caring humans.
So, make it like Europe and then driving is just needed as supplemental rather than required? I think the car lobby is not okay with that.
We have both…
The cameras aren’t a big deal here. The good thing is that it lets our police focus on other things
Also, they’re calibrated anyway, and we get 4kmh (minimum) leeway
Actually easier than getting pulled over by a cop
Actually, I’ll clarify. Our local sovcit idiots complain. The rest of us just don’t speed
Arizona is the flordia of the west but fuck these tech companies too
Just say Phoenix. It’s a fucking huge city that probably has more notoriety world wide than the state does.
Arizona city is like the new York city of Arizona.
Yeah this is wishful thinking. These cameras actually cause accidents because people slam on their brakes as soon as they see one. But good luck Phoenix.
Ha. Just don’t pay them. They are not moving violations from the police, they are pictures from a private company asking you to pay. I know you will think I’m crazy, but I did (or didn’t) for many years, and wouldn’t you know it, they were deemed illegal and all tickets void.
Or… and this is gonna sound fucking lunatic, how about just go the fucking speed limit.
Because then you’re probably going 10mph slower than traffic?
Let me break the law because everyone else is. See if that holds up in court.
If you get a ticket in a prima facie state, the law allows you to argue in court that your speed was reasonable and prudent given the conditions. If you can prove that driving the exact speed limit would have caused a hazard, such as cars dangerously swerving around you, a judge may well dismiss the ticket because your behavior was safer than following the literal rule.
It won’t, but in the US it’s best to drive smoothly and safely with the flow of traffic. In most places that is over the legal speed limit.
It’s like a school of fish where one gets picked off by a radar speed trap as a sacrifice to the group to keep on swimming as-is.
Or… Keep up with the person in front of you, as to not cause a slow down.
Also, very few for speeding. Majority was “not coming to a complete stop for 3 seconds before turning right on red.” so, driving the fucking speed limit isn’t the issue.
So depending on how fast the flow of traffic is going, the person going the speed limit is the one creating the dangerous situation. If everyone else is driving sixty in a thirty and you’re driving thirty, you’re the one that’s going to cause a wreck. In many jurisdictions keeping with the flow of traffic actually supersedes posted speed limits.
This is beyond stupid.
It’s backed up by all available data so whether or not it makes sense to you it’s the truth and the reality. Keeping up with the flow of traffic is always safer.
Of course, the other user is just pointing out that many people who don’t care about speeding also know that the fines these cameras send out usually don’t have any legal bearing and don’t care to pay them.
The author must not be aware that there is literally a city called Arizona City in Arizona and the title of the article is extremely stupid because of that.
The article is about Phoenix, which happens to be pretty close to Arizona City as well.
“Arizona city…must be some small town we haven’t hear—” “…Phoenix.” “Jesus fucking Christ.”
To be fair, that’s kind of a dumb name for a city. New York should be the only state getting away with that kind of naming convention.
Oklahoma City seen sweating in the background…
Kansas City would like a word.
Which part
KC MO Or KC KS
I read that some cities are putting garbage bags over existing Flock cameras. Would that work in AZ where it’s so hot the bags are likely to melt?
If it permantly ruins the camera, go for it
They likely wouldn’t melt but would sun rot so fast. Honestly az has been in and out of speed cameras and usually they get put in deemed illegal and left for years after anyways
The last photo in the article shows the real culprit. The road has six lanes and looks like a highway, which encourages people to drive at highway speeds. Then there are a bunch of businesses and side streets, which mean many vehicles enter and exit the road, and pedestrians cross it, which is bad on a road with people driving at highway speeds.
They hoped to solve the problem with signs asking people to drive slower. Speed enforcement might help a little, but it’s a patch over a bad design.
Yup, Phoenix drivers don’t believe there are pedestrians cause no one is crazy enough to walk around in that heat.
That’s rather common? A middle traveling lane an exterior lane for accepting merging traffic. Even roads at 60kph are that width.
Really busy roads often do need a middle lane for turning without blocking traffic and being able to enter traffic when turning left. Roads with this problem are typically slow-moving in urban areas.
Yep, that’s a stroad for you. You fix those by either removing lanes and adding traffic calming measures, or isolating it from the surrounding businesses.
Stroads are the work of the devil
Converting two of the lanes into one-way frontage roads seems like it would improve things a lot in that particular case.
Ooh, yeah. Frontage roads, roundabouts, and speed humps.
Yeah, that’s it. Talk dirty to me about your frontage…
Yeah but if you don’t make it that wide, you can’t fit as many cars through the roads. And it’s not like there’s any other way to transport people around a city.
What’s the trigger threshold?
I know technically 1 mph over the limit is illegal, but somehow as a society it’s become the standard to go 5-10 over, at least where I am.
Typically they are set well above the speed limit.
They weren’t in Ontario. And it pissed people off so much there was a huge backlash and they got taken down. If they had just upped the trigger it would have been good.
If it’s catching that many violations then, regardless of the absolute trigger threshold, any sane city authority would start the cameras at a very high threshold and gradually reduce it. Having people start driving exactly at the speed limit, while many are still expecting to go significantly faster, will cause more accidents and avoidable road rage.
Give people time to adapt, be clear about what’s happening, and it will still bring speeds down.
Of course, not as much in ticket revenues. Then again, a sensible country would not allow police forces to keep fines, because that’s fucking insane.
flashback to Alt 90 in Houston with a 65 MPH speed limit but if you aren’t going 85, you’ll cause an accident
I hated driving through the Chicago area because that’s how they do this and I had out-of-state plates, making me more likely to catch the attention of traffic cops.
