At least 11 Toronto speed cameras vandalized this week
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I believe rural school zones are sometimes 50km/h. In context the non-school zone speed limit is usually 80km/h or more, often with visibility from one horizon to the other and a sprawling parking lot, it’s not quite the same as a congested urban school with a driveway big enough to fit a single bus and dozens of cars parked along the curb.
Even when I lived in rural areas, the zones were 30kph where I am from. Parks, and playgrounds, are also generally included.
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How about instead of speed cameras you change your road designs? People won’t speed if they cannot speed safely.
Make your roads less wide. Add some curves, depending on required max speed, you make the curves larger or smaller. On lower speed roads, add obstacles to drive around.
There are many forms of traffic management that don’t require speeding cameras but then again, speeding cameras are for making the government money, not for traffic safety
Honest to god, it’s not that hard to do 40 km/h in these zones. They post a sign telling you there’s a speed camera coming up. You just have to go 40 for like 20 meters to avoid a ticket.
Why should we socialize the cost of “fixing” the road design, when we can instead make the individuals who speed pay?
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We literally do not have enough law enforcement to properly enforce traffic laws. It is part of why average speeds have crept up to 10-20 over the limit. In fact enforcing traffic laws was kinda just something that was thrown at the police when cars were invented and we’ve never really stopped to think about it since.
I can’t even remember the last time I even saw a cop doing speed enforcement in Toronto. Definitely not on the highways. It makes total sense to automate this, and I highly doubt anybody lost their job over it.
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I don’t really care that much either way for speed cameras. They work in a very limited fashion, but they punish the poor the most, and the money goes to cops.
At the end of the day speed cameras are a solution to a problem that doesn’t need to exist. We are failing to use technology available to us for basically no reason - we already know how to slow people and calm traffic without any kind of economic/punitive incentive.
and the money goes to cops.
Actually most of the money goes to the company that owns and operates the speed cameras. A smaller portion goes to the city.
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How about instead of speed cameras you change your road designs? People won’t speed if they cannot speed safely.
Make your roads less wide. Add some curves, depending on required max speed, you make the curves larger or smaller. On lower speed roads, add obstacles to drive around.
There are many forms of traffic management that don’t require speeding cameras but then again, speeding cameras are for making the government money, not for traffic safety
People won’t speed if they cannot speed safely.
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I get it, good road design helps stop speeding but the idea that safety even crosses the mind of people going 80 in a 60 is laughable.
The fines should be compounding, after each ticket the fine goes up 10% until people learn to just drive the fuckin limit.
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I don’t really care that much either way for speed cameras. They work in a very limited fashion, but they punish the poor the most, and the money goes to cops.
At the end of the day speed cameras are a solution to a problem that doesn’t need to exist. We are failing to use technology available to us for basically no reason - we already know how to slow people and calm traffic without any kind of economic/punitive incentive.
but they punish the poor the most
They punish people who speed the most. If you make the needle on your dash point to the number that is posted on the road signs, you don’t get a ticket.
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I can’t even remember the last time I even saw a cop doing speed enforcement in Toronto. Definitely not on the highways. It makes total sense to automate this, and I highly doubt anybody lost their job over it.
It may actually be a net positive in job creation between the installation, maintaince, and bureaucratic stuff.
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This is the way, but good luck getting that implemented. NIMBYs and “frustrated motorists” will push back, and it only takes a few to ruin good ideas.
Fun thing about design changes, the motorists get less frustrated.
A big part of our frustration whole driving is that (at least in Ontario) design speed MUST be at least 20kph higher than posted speed.
So yeah, you get frustrated doing 30kph on a road designed for 60kph. You get less frustrated on a road with no posted limits anywhere that jsut naturally nakes you want to drive a speed that feels safe, and happens to be 30kph.
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Have you ever seen an idiot driver in a roundabout?
There are more design choices than just roundabouts…
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There are more design choices than just roundabouts…
There are more design choices than just roundabouts…
Do I have to list every single one for you to get the point?
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At least 11 Toronto speed cameras vandalized this week, the latest in west end: police | CBC News
At least 11 Toronto speed cameras have been vandalized this week, police say, and the latest is outside Dufferin Mall in the city's west end.
CBC (www.cbc.ca)
I’m sure the city loves these cameras. Did you speed? Doesn’t matter, the camera says you did so pay up. Also these will ticket you for going even half a kilometer over, you can get a ticket for going 71 in a 70 where a human cop would just let that shit go
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Honest to god, it’s not that hard to do 40 km/h in these zones. They post a sign telling you there’s a speed camera coming up. You just have to go 40 for like 20 meters to avoid a ticket.
Why should we socialize the cost of “fixing” the road design, when we can instead make the individuals who speed pay?
Both is good, because the way our streets are designed are both dangerous and expensive. Narrowing that 40 zone by the school can remove excess road space that now doesn’t need to be maintained, cleaned, plowed, or salted. The excess space could be used by school, have trees planted, or be used for alternative transport like transit or bikes.
The roads are currently designed to prioritize driver throughput and provide “wiggle room” for driver error, often at the expense of people outside of the vehicle. Many of the concepts that engineers use to make highways safe were applied to city streets, which in hindsight maybe we don’t want our city streets to be designed like highways.
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but they punish the poor the most
They punish people who speed the most. If you make the needle on your dash point to the number that is posted on the road signs, you don’t get a ticket.
I’ve gotten a ticket for going 1 over on a downhill. If you think that’s reasonable, you’re likely one of the idiots who created these things.
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I’ve gotten a ticket for going 1 over on a downhill. If you think that’s reasonable, you’re likely one of the idiots who created these things.
Citation needed. They don’t set them at 1 over because it’s hard to prove they are that accurate, your speedo also only has to be +/-3% in Ontario.
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Both is good, because the way our streets are designed are both dangerous and expensive. Narrowing that 40 zone by the school can remove excess road space that now doesn’t need to be maintained, cleaned, plowed, or salted. The excess space could be used by school, have trees planted, or be used for alternative transport like transit or bikes.
The roads are currently designed to prioritize driver throughput and provide “wiggle room” for driver error, often at the expense of people outside of the vehicle. Many of the concepts that engineers use to make highways safe were applied to city streets, which in hindsight maybe we don’t want our city streets to be designed like highways.
The problem is that people are AWFUL at evaluating their own risk when driving, and drive at speeds that ARENT safe. Look at how few people leave appropruate stopping distances between vehicles, which is the #1 factor in preventing accidents.
The methods you proposed would likely decrease the speed vehicles travel at (ie from 80 to 60) because drivers feel like they can’t travel at that speed, but the road likely still isn’t safe for vehicles to travel at 60 when its that narrow.
Speed cameras catch everyone speeding, 24/7, and are the single best, economical, way to eliminate speeding from a road. Cop can’t pull over every vehicle going 80 on a 4 lane road rated for 60, but the camera can ticket them all.
For sure, promote a narrower road, encourage MUP over sidewalks, and encourage safer driving when you talk to your councilors, but road reconstruction happens, generally, once every 25-50yrs. We can’t wait for that timeframe to fix these problems.
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Fun thing about design changes, the motorists get less frustrated.
A big part of our frustration whole driving is that (at least in Ontario) design speed MUST be at least 20kph higher than posted speed.
So yeah, you get frustrated doing 30kph on a road designed for 60kph. You get less frustrated on a road with no posted limits anywhere that jsut naturally nakes you want to drive a speed that feels safe, and happens to be 30kph.
Bigger problem is people are bad judges of risk while driving. People’s perception of how fast they can safely travel doesnt line up with their actual abilities.
Roads are built with a design speed 20kph higher than the posted limit because that’s the margin left for safety. That covers things like balding tires, like a distracted driver not paying attention, or bad weather.
There can be some changes (ie the number of municipalities that insist on a 4m wide lane is RIDICULOUS for residential roads), but the vast majority of the factors that make it “safe” to drive that speed are there for a reason.
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Honest to god, it’s not that hard to do 40 km/h in these zones. They post a sign telling you there’s a speed camera coming up. You just have to go 40 for like 20 meters to avoid a ticket.
Why should we socialize the cost of “fixing” the road design, when we can instead make the individuals who speed pay?
There will always be new people that speed. And people not knowing the place that speed.
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I’m sure the city loves these cameras. Did you speed? Doesn’t matter, the camera says you did so pay up. Also these will ticket you for going even half a kilometer over, you can get a ticket for going 71 in a 70 where a human cop would just let that shit go
… Where a human cop would light you up, slowing down all the traffic around you to safer levels, and give you immediate feedback.
But no you’ll just get the same ticket for 10 over 5 days in a row before you notice the camera, and then get 5 tickets in the mail a month later.
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There are more design choices than just roundabouts…
Do I have to list every single one for you to get the point?
Have you considered installing the roundabouts anyway and removing the driving licences of those incapable of manoeuvring around a simple roundabout?
Driving is not a right. If they can’t perform simple manoeuvres without endangering others, they shouldn’t be controlling a machine that can easily accidentally kill.
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You know that you can drive a car you don’t own right? And not every person who is ticketed is driving like an asshole. I got a 100 dollar ticket for driving 57 in what was normally a 50 km zone, but there was brand new signage up that I had literally 4 seconds to read (I went back and timed it) that gave: months of the year, days of the week, and hours of the day that the new 40 km/h speed limit was enforced. But because I can’t read at the speed of light while driving down the road, bam, ticket.
It doesn’t help if this was a long time ago, but you could contest the ticket with the information you gathered.
I know someone who got a ticket but the sign was obscured by a tree branch. After contesting the ticket, the ticket was dropped and the signage was fixed
