Highway Speed Cameras; Next Up: MD, TN and MO
The Newspaper steps up to the platform and says, “You must be joking son, haven’t we paid our dues?” (Steely Dan fans need apply). In other words, Maryland, Tennessee and Missouri are all contemplating adding highway speed cameras to their revenue generating highway safety schemes. “Officials from Maryland, Missouri and Tennessee joined Illinois Governor Rod R. Blagojevich (D) at a two-day event designed to promote the use of speed cameras on freeways throughout the country.” Although the Newspaper doesn’t tell us any more about this highway hoedown (‘ho down?), it does give us a heads-up on Illinois’ entirely predictable plan to extend speed cameras from their current construction work sites to the rest of the state’s highway network. The good news? The Newspaper reminds us that democracy knocked-down Connectitcut’s highway speed camera scheme, so the Prairie state’s plans may also get scuttled. And, with a bit of luck and a few of your emails, MD, TN and MO’s scameras may never see the light of day. Not that I’m not objective on this issue…
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"And the thing is they enforce 45mph 24 hours a day, regardless of construction occurring or not." I can attest to this fact. Got a ticket in dark hours of the a.m. in a Georgia 'work zone'. Only cars on the road were me and the Trooper writing the ticket with a wry smile. Do they get bonuses for that sort of thing?
It seems that the photo radar vans in the Chicago area are doing a fine job of catching "violators". However, when the cases get to court they are failing in a fantastic manner. The Chicago Tribune did an article on this earlier this week. Pretty much 50% of all cases are simply dismissed. Virtually all of the rest are knocked down to a lesser violation. So far this year there have been exactly ZERO convictions on the original $375 work zone speeding charge. In the last two years only about 5% of the photo cases for work zone violation were convicted of the original charge. Here's a link to the article. http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/transportation/chi080929getaround_wgfx,0,4084414.htmlpage
When private greed becomes part of public service, this corrupts absolutely. Case in point: the drug forfeiture laws that used to be in place in Louisiana. Officers could seize your car and assets and never even charge you with a crime. The officers got incentives, namely the car they seized from you, for doing this. They finally took notice when 20/20 or Dateline did an expose on it and it cut into their tourism business back the mid-90s. They would get people who were doing nothing wrong, mainly out-of-staters who had a nice car like a Caddy or Lincoln. In the documentary, the driver from Dateline or 20/20 was going under the speed limit, yet still got stopped. On the show there were many people who got their cars seized, never got charged with a crime, then had hell getting the cars back even after it was admitted that they were innocent of whatever they got accused of (but sometimes changed their tune when the TV reporters paid them a visit). I remember thinking, this is America. Can they do this?! Yes, they can do whatever the hell they want evidently. I agree with fisher72. Since we're the crime capital of the western world, you'd think they'd have more to do than worry about speeders.
Completely unsurprising in the case of MD. The Legislature voted in favor of red light and speed cameras, and only some squabbling about how to divvy up the pot of gold has delayed the latter. The previous governor, Bob Ehrlich (R), was against red light and speed cameras and vetoed bills creating them. But he lost re-election to O'Malley, a big proponent of cameras in 2006, and since then it's been "send in the cameras." Elections do have consequences.