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Consistent, low-impact enforcement is better at preventing unwanted behavior than the rare and severe but also capricious enforcement performed by human police.

It can also give permission for unwanted behavior. Cf. the Haifa study, where the rate of late pickups increased when daycares added a fine. One explanation is the fine turned a complex moral obligation into an ordinary financial transaction.

In the UK, speeding fines are also backed by "points" added to your license - get enough of them and you lose your license altogether for a while. It's similar in at least some other European countries.

That is a definite punishment for anyone that cares enough about driving that they were doing it in the first place, while also clearly not being revenue generating (in fact it prevents future fine revenue). I'm not sure that would wash in the car-centric States though (but it would make it an even juicier punishment). But since you don't get banned immediately, it's potentially low-impact on a per-ticket basis.

Hopefully other states don't follow this pattern; I don't think the government should be installing surveillance arrays, even if it's "for the children" or public safety.

Trading a little liberty for a little safety and all that.

But AB 645 is designed to punish and deter rather than compensate, which creates a genuine constitutional vulnerability under California's Article I, Section 16 jury trial guarantee.

The structural problem is that revenue goes to program costs and traffic calming, not to anyone harmed by speeding, which makes the fines punitive in character under any substance-over-label analysis.

The lack of DMV points and criminal record weakens the argument somewhat, but under California's substance-over-label approach those omissions aren't dispositive. They merely show the legislature knew how to stay on the civil side of the line, not necessarily that it succeeded.

If a court finds the penalties punitive in character, the owner-liability structure becomes a compounding problem: California's state due process protections are arguably more robust than federal, and imposing a punitive fine on a registered owner without proof they were driving, while burden-shifting exculpation to them looks increasingly difficult to sustain.

PA did this with construction zone cameras. I'm not sure where that landed because its been a while since I've seen one. I successfully appealed my ticket to the magistrate. It initially started as a pilot program and the law requires signage which during the pilot was quite inconspicuous. After the launch the sign was changed to a tiny little thing, about 1/5 the size of the pilot program.

I was going 5 over the reduced speed limit, in the slow lane with rush hour traffic. That thing must've issued thousands of tickets.

Why can't they impact insurance? Are CA insurance companies prohibited from using non-criminal information when deciding who to cover or set rates?

Given that they insure cars more than drivers, it seems kinda reasonable that they be allowed to look at tickets for cars.

>It also means penalties are limited to fines and can't impact your driving privilege or insurance.

If this is the case, what are the consequences of not paying the fine? I interpret your statement to mean that they can't prevent registration of your car. Can they tow you in SF for unpaid fines?

There's the timing aspect of it as well. As it stands, you only find out about your 'offense' weeks after the fact. If it were a human interaction (eg speeding/police stop) you'd know right away and still have the relevant information in mind to understand the charge and maybe defend. The ability to know and defend should be critical to any charge. K

Yea, that would be great then I can completely ignore them as I am not poor.

It just turns speeding into something you can buy.

AIUI, calling a law civil vs criminal and/or limiting penalties to fines only are not always enough to remove the protection of due process.

That sounds fine except the part where private companies have cameras everywhere surveilling us, directly tied into dmv records to identify us, and then do whatever they want with that data. And not on a random store front or a persons front door but the major roads we all must use.

Even forgetting that, all this means is people that don't care about getting a ticket, either because they won't pay or it's a such a small amount to them that they don't care. just do what they want. Nothing is being "enforced", just taxed.

I don't this is is as cut and dry as you're making it seem. See SEC v. Jarkesy. The Supreme Court decided that, when the SEC seeks civil penalties for securities fraud, the defendant has the right to a trial by jury pursuant to the Seventh Amendment.

So to work around civil protections in law, California now does not consider speeding to be an offense that should impact one's driving privilege or insurance? Just so they could collect that sweet fine money?

These systems are still often too expensive to operate safely. Over and over again these systems have been seen as needing to break even rather than being treated as a public service. But if they actually work then incidence of red light violations should go down, and hopefully substantially. So whatever fines you expect to receive in the first months before drivers adapt are more revenue than you should see at one year or more.

So when you start worrying about it as a cost center, then there is a perverse incentive to do things like shorten yellow lights. Short yellows have been proven to create more vehicular fatalities than people running red lights intentionally. And so the person who makes that decision to shorten yellows to boost tickets is effectively committing murder to keep the system “working”. Which is disgusting. Ghoulish, even.

It is literally better in such situations to simply dismantle the system than keep it running.

Interesting that your use of "solves for this" is with regards to the end result of being able to write more red light tickets. In my view, the courts solved this by deeming at least certain uses of red light cameras illegal.

"It also means penalties are limited to fines and can't impact your driving privilege or insurance."

Wow! So if you have enough money, it's cool to run as many red lights as you want?

What do you mean other states follow this? Of course not. It’s a nuisance, not a safety measure.

>Tickets issued by these cameras are civil penalties issued to the owner of the vehicle, like parking tickets, rather than a criminal moving violation. This means the tickets are just as constitutional as parking tickets. It also means penalties are limited to fines and can't impact your driving privilege or insurance.

So what does this say about the legitimacy of having those fines affect your license and insurance when issues by a real flesh and blood cop?

Sounds to me like that by default they shouldn't be affecting squat because there's an implicit "the cops will mostly only pull people over if it's unconscionably bad" filter going on.

...and just like parking tickets they shouldn't exist on govt property

Or maybe not have automated surveillance robonannies playing gotcha games and pocketing money, often impacting those who can least afford it, over technicalities and arbitrary rules made up to benefit the people doing the collecting.

The idea that AI enforcement won't be just as corrupt and capricious as any other form of government run extortion is bonkers. You're talking systems with less oversight than openclaw being run by people whose entire goal is to make as much money as possible, no matter the source. Private, unaccountable companies with effectively no oversight with the legal right to send you invoices for things you might or might not have done, and the cost for disputing it might well exceed the cost of just paying it and getting it over with.

Why are Californians so hellbent on giving their money to the government, given the absolute shitshow that is their budget and track record? The only good things that have happened in California for decades comes out of private enterprise, but all the crazy nonsense is fostered and maintained, apparently quite vigorously, by elected governments.

I'm furious that 10% of my federal income taxes end up going to California's bullshit, I can't imagine what it would be like having to live there.

Seriously, it's bordering on levels of insanity right up there with thinking that Jefferey Epstein would make a great babysitter. Do people just not pay attention? Does the weather just make everyone complacent and docile?

Speed cams and automated gotchas allowing the government to raid your pocketbook are a bad thing. There's no framing or circumstances where that's good.

I feel like when these tickets are struck down it's still smart to send notices to the homes of the cars doing this in more of a shaming way - even if the fine itself isn't legal. I suspect it would increase safety a small amount just by doing that.

Fines (and points) are better of course.

The objective evidence indicates that accidents tend to go up after red light cameras go up, generally because the operators lower the yellow light time to increase fees.

Couldn't you say the same of drug testing spectrometers etc? The end operator of the equipment has to appear in court to testify to the proper operation of the machine. [0]

[0] Unless the defendant waives that right and stipulates to the prosecutor's statement about the machine.

They started putting them up in the midwest where I live. The interesting thing is if you get a ticket and just pay it? Nothing. If you get a ticket and you challenge it, the judge will immediately throw it out for the reason you pointed out or just dismiss it before it even gets to court by sending out a form letter saying they nullified the ticket, no reason to pay it.

So in essence, if you know this is what they're doing, you're good. But they're not telling people so the money grift continues unabated and in place.

possibly, although I suspect the quote from above:

> Although nominally civil, traffic infraction proceedings retain every substantive hallmark of criminal prosecution...

Is going to matter here. A moving violation (ex: red light) is quite different from a non-moving violation (ex: parking) in how they're handled, and often how they're classified.

Ex - my in state, a moving violation is a criminal misdemeanor, while a non-moving violation is entirely civil.

Do parking tickets result in “a formal finding of guilt, and consequences tied to a driver’s record”?

Almost, except parking tickets are still typically civil “owner-liability” citations tied to where the car is parked, while red-light violations are intended to target the driver’s conduct

And speed light cameras

No. Parking is leaving your possession somewhere and should apply to the registered owner. It is not illegal to own a car that someone else used to run a red light.

Two paths:

Higher quality cameras equipped with facial recognition connected to a database to issue a ticket to the correct person (driver), or

Hire more traffic officers to sit at traffic intersections to catch red light offenders, which will scale in cost by the size of the city, so

Pick your poison

>but I don't buy that argument. We have plenty of non-money civil remedies. Code enforcement departments can require changes to property. Family courts can make all kinds of requirements. It's not outside of constitutional bounds for a traffic rule to result in forfeiting a license without criminal proceedings.

All of which are an affront to people's rights.

The fact that we use a "special word" (civil) for the category of laws where we won't throw you straight in prison if you don't comply, we'll add the extra step of waiting for noncompliance and then charging someone with contempt doesn't fundamentally alter the relationship between the enforcers and the people, so why should the people have to put up with their rights being ignored in those cases?

If people routinely run the red light, it seems like an easy case to post an officer to do traffic stops and issue tickets. AFAIK, tickets issued by a sworn officer are broadly constitutional.

I people are routinely running a red for a particular intersection, it seems likely that there is a design problem with the intersection or the signaling. Improving safety would be fixing the underlying problem.

In America, we have the fifth amendment, and the right not to divulge any information whatsoever unless we're granted immunity.

It is enough to say absolutely nothing, and request the government to prove its case.

If someone shot a person with my gun, I would invoke the fifth amendment, and ask the government to prove who did it beyond a reasonable doubt.

You don't need to explain anything to the government, that's why we have the 5th amendment. It is the government's job to bring charges against you and prove them beyond reasonable doubt. The government is right to investigate and ask questions to accomplish that and I am right to refuse to answer anything.

It's basically "innocent until proven guilty". Red light cameras turn that assumption around since if your car gets ticketed it is assumed you are "guilty until proven innocent".

Please don't project the laws and norms of Poland onto the US.

The US is a very big place. And in this place, we have fifty (!) different states. That's fifty different sets of rules relating to owning and driving cars -- nearly twice as many as the EU has member nations.

A Florida judge might decide that red light camera tickets are unconstitutional, while an Arizona judge might decide that they're completely OK. These two very different rulings can co-exist, without conflict, potentially forever.

Each state doing their own thing independently of the others is just how we roll here.

A sane and rational person might reasonably conclude that this situation is literally insane -- and they may be right! -- but it is this way anyway.

(And it is this way by design.)

Sure, that would be sufficient probable cause for police to ask questions. But it’s not sufficient evidence on which to write a ticket because we specifically wrote into our Constitution that the police must know and be able to prove who the guilty party is _before_ they write the ticket (or make an arrest, in the case of more serious crimes). Poland doesn’t protect its citizens to the same degree, so what is acceptable there is not acceptable here.

> They know the car was yours so, by extension, you should be aware of its whereabouts at any given moment.

This is an absurd assumption. I own many cars. Often, I'll borrow a car to a friend, I'm generally totally OK if they borrow it to other people. I don't care, and should not have to care, who those people are.

Also, for what it's worth, the government has no idea who owns any of my cars. EU registration certificates are typically not proof of ownership (are they in any EU country? I suspect quite possibly not). At best a government might be able to figure out the registered keeper of my vehicle, but they're not going to know anything about who drives the car.

>If someone shoots a person with your gun, you gonna say it wasn't you and expect them not to question any you further? Not very no-brainer, is it?

If I say "it wasn't me" and refuse to answer further questions, I would expect them to stop asking me pretty quickly. Being excessively bothersome about asking further questions would be a clear violation of the ECHR.

Most of the world also doesn't have the same degree of protections against self-incrimination that the 5th amendment provides. If someone shot a person with my gun, while the police can obviously ask questions, in the US I have the right to not answer and force them to prove beyond a reasonable doubt who fired it.

Four people in my family drive my car. I'm supposed to track that? sure.

>They know the car was yours so, by extension, you should be aware of its whereabouts at any given moment.

Lol your "Tool" analogy breaks down here.

Its not the responsibility of the defendant to prove their innocence, no matter how you want to twist it.

> expect them not to question any you further

Wow. No one expects you to not be questioned, but for questioning to take place before punishment because duh.

Build a case, test it. Not issue fines based on an assumption.

Speed camera tickets show up in the mail weeks after the fact. Say your entire family uses your car. You know who was driving the family car at 2pm on a random sunday five weeks ago? I'm guessing not...

> you should be aware of its whereabouts at any given moment

Says who? If the car is mine, I am free to do with it whatever I like (of course, excepting criminal acts). I do not owe anybody an account of what I - or the care - did at any particular moment. If the car was used in the commission of a crime, it's up to the prosecution to prove I had something to do with it. If they think I know who did it - prove it and prosecute me under the law. You can't just prosecute because you think I should know, that's not how proper law works - otherwise every cop in the country would be 100% sure who they caught is the criminal - because why not, if it's enough for conviction, why work harder!

> If someone shoots a person with your gun, you gonna say it wasn't you and expect them not to question any you further?

They can question all they like, but to secure a criminal conviction, they must prove, beyond reasonable doubt, that I was the person who did it. Otherwise you get no conviction. If they strongly suspect I did it, they would find a proof - but the fact that I owned a gun is not that proof (for one, guns can be easily stolen, and frequently are).

> but then again you need to plausibly explain why was someone operating your car while you were not aware of it.

There is no such requirement.

> They have every right to question you.

Sure, but they have no right to issue you a ticket without proving you broke the law. Same as in the gun case: they have every right to question you, but they can't convict you for murder based solely on evidence that it was your gun that killed the victim.

Of course they are going to question you further. But they still do have to prove it to convict you. If the prosecution provides no evidence that you were the shooter other than the fact that you were the owner of the gun, then you are going to get off.

The relevant law here is US constitutional law, not Polish nor EU law.

I think it's like this in the UK, you are required to either admit to it or inform the police who was driving at the time.

For speeding there's a website where you can view photos and a certificate showing the equipment was calibrated recently, and you can admit or nominate another driver (or you can do it via paper forms)

In Poland, ticket enforcement from speed cameras is about 50% (because if you don't accept it voluntarily, they need to file court case and burden of proof is on the government here, as with any other criminal case).

> but then again you need to plausibly explain why was someone operating your car while you were not aware of it.

Why? IMHO, I shouldn't have to. It's the police's job to make sure they have the right person.

In Japan the driver's face needs to be clearly visible in the photo. At least that's what I've been told. I don't drive.

> If it wasn't you driving, you know who

That's not necessarily true. What if it's a shared car in your family and you weren't home to see who took it?

This comment is the tech equivalent to "falsehoods programmers believe about <thing>"... real life does not fit into such neat boxes.

> They know the car was yours so, by extension, you should be aware of its whereabouts at any given moment.

People's spouses and kids drive their cars. I've lent cars to friends before. Unless you've got some kind of log book, you might not know (or even remember) who was driving at any given moment or location.

> you need to plausibly explain why was someone operating your car while you were not aware of it.

This is the point of the judgement, under US law it seems that you don't need to plausibly explain anything, the authorities need to be able to show who was driving as the penalty is pseudo-criminal.

> I assume, most/all of EU and the rest of the world.

Under UK law which is much less definite about the state proving who was driving, one must make a good faith effort to identify the driver. But my Father got into a situation that took months to resolve when a speeding ticket arrived. The photograph of the driver didn't capture the head and was otherwise too blurry to identify from the body. It's a month after the fact on a road they both drive down frequently, and they only have one car. Was it him or his wife driving? Nobody knows.

The primary vehicle owner is not allowed to just assume responsibility for the ticket, because the liability for the offence is with the specific driver. Giving the wrong information is an offence itself, because people have tried those sorts of tricks to (for example) give penalty points to their spouse and avoid a ban.

So ... what do you do?

It's possible to take such cases to court in the UK and receive a not-guilty verdict if the vehicle owner can show a good faith effort has been made to identify the driver but there is no reasonable way of doing so.

You are missing a nuance. It is simply a separate offence (a misdemeanor) to not identify who was driving when the car was used to commit a violation.

But also traffic cameras here generally take frontal pictures, so typically the only way you can get away with claiming it wasn't you is if they are very lazy / not interested in investigating further.

> you should be aware of its whereabouts at any given moment.

Why? Americans liberated themselves from this kind of relationship with the government hundreds of years ago.

> If it wasn't you driving, you know who.

I don't have to prove who was driving. I don't have to prove I wasn't the one driving. The state has to prove that I was the one driving.

>If someone shoots a person with your gun, you gonna say it wasn't you and expect them not to question any you further?

I don't expect them not to question me further and that's not what this is about. This is about whether your car running a red light is proof, in and of itself absent any other facts, that you ran a red light in your car.

>This is how it works in Poland

This is not how it works in the US

>I assume, most/all of EU and the rest of the world.

You assume incorrectly

Even if I know who, why would I ever give that information to the court?

> If someone shot a person with your gun, you gonna say it wasn't you and expect them not to question you further

Running a red light is not remotely equivalent to shooting someone with a gun, get a grip

They have the right to question, but I don't have to testify to anything, that's what the fifth ammendment is for.

As usual, Europe doesn't care about internal consistency when it comes to rights. They just legislate (or rule) whatever 'works' for the current definition of 'works'.

> If someone shot a person with your gun, you gonna say it wasn't you and expect them not to question you further? Not very no-brainer, is it?

Nobody has said you can't be questioned.

Same here; tickets always include the photo of the driver. If the photo is unclear or differs from the registered owner, tickets are easily dismissed.

However, I agree with Florida on this; the onus should be not be on the accused to prove innocence after a citation is issued. Feels like a 'call us to unsubscribe' time-wasting dark pattern.

If you read the article, you would see that issue addressed. The claim was that it wasn't civil, it was quasi-criminal which is why they had to follow due process.

But the risks that running a red light pose aren’t civil in nature, so it feels like a perversion to use civil infractions as an excuse to get sloppy with enforcement.

Sort of. Basically you can fine the owner of the car and revoke the privileges of driving that car in a given state. Where it gets to be a problem is if the charge is against the 'driver' of the car and the state's not able to prove that. Normally, in courts we can face our adversary and cross-examine, etc. We hit this problem in NJ during the red light camera pilot program, I can remember a guy I worked with getting a ticket because his roommate borrowed a car and the front was hanging out a bit into the intersection.

Some other thoughts: An illegally parked car can be fined, impounded, booted. Car with outstanding parking tickets can also have all of the above. But typically the driver wouldn't see points or a moving violation for any of these offenses. For example: NYC you can get blocking the box tickets written by parking enforcement but they don't carry the weight of a moving violation like a police officer's ticket would. (and if you don't pay it, it's not the driving privilege that's suspended in the state, it's the car itself that would be targeted for booting/impounding, etc)

>I see your point, but these are civil tickets rather than criminal charges.

Yeah that's what they said when ICE was unilaterally kicking in doors.

The way I see it anything that would prompt the government to use violence upon you without you taking action to escalate deserves the same level of protection for the accused as a "real" criminal matter.

Yes I'm aware this includes just about everything beyond library late fines and would break the system at least for awhile. Worth it. The government shouldn't be able to assess the same penalties (fines) and threaten the same enforcement actions (forfeiture of property, arrest for nonpayment, etc, etc) as they do in criminal matters and side step people's rights simply because they say it's civil. The rights and procedural protections are what they are not to prevent the application of a label, but to prevent abuse at the hands of the government.

No more lending your car to a friend in need, no more letting your children learn to drive on your car or borrow it ever. Families must now own and insure a car for every individual driver because we can't be bothered to find robust solutions for traffic enforcement

Shift the problem onto individuals, make it a burden for the public. Typical HN attitude

Yup. Camel's noses should always be shot. Otherwise they creep in more and more.

Some examples that come to mind:

Look how the exception for searches at border crossings has expanded.

The use of actions against licenses for behavior that has nothing to do with the license.

The use of permits to get companies to do things only marginally related to the purpose of the permit.

The encouragement of universities to expel those accused of criminal acts--just because the punishment isn't jail should not mean the state can hand it off to a kangaroo court.

Pressuring financial companies to cut ties with disliked things. (For example, getting Steam to remove games with any whiff of incest. Either declare them illegal or don't take action against them!)

They are not required to know who is driving their registered vehicle at all times, just that anyone that is allowed to drive it has a license.

Seems untenable because I can just lie to you about my intended use. I borrow your hammer to build a cabin. Oops, I actually used it to murder people. Enjoy the millions in damages.

>I don’t think it would be crazy to hold me financially responsible if a shooting happens with my gun.

States have had to write laws for this to be a criminal matter. Before then it was a civil matter, but it was individuals against individuals and not state against individuals.

>Which seems to just relabel any fine from the government as a criminal matter?

It wasn't exactly about the fine, but points on a license I believe.

Hit and run is different; the car is insured, regardless of the driver. If criminal, they will interview to see if the owner was driving, who else had access to the car, and so on.

In Finland there is fun thing on that. There is both tickets by municipality where the ticket goes to keeper. But as private parking fines are contractual violations they need to track down or at least reasonably prove the person who parked...

Still, seems to me that it is reasonable to prove who did such violation. Maybe photo could identify person. Or maybe other data could be requested like phone location data. Doesn't seem unreasonable or high hurdle. Probably not cost effective in every case.

Parking tickets don't go on your driving record. They are just a tax on parking improperly.

>Or just not penalize dangerous infractions?

Perhaps needing to show these are dangerous infractions should come first?

I mean this entire case was the state attempting to have its case and eat it too.

These US states considered them moving infractions with points. Now the state must adjust by removing points or doing its due diligence.

Right, many other countries let you point the finger at someone else. The problem is that in the US the government is not legally allowed to even issue a ticket unless they can prove that the person they are prosecuting is the guilty party. Merely being the owner of the car is not enough.

My city seems to be fixing this by having yellow lights extend when it sees a car reasonably close to the intersection. And also helps by switching lights quickly based on car presence.

If you can't tell who was driving, you shouldn't be sending anyone a ticket.

In my jurisdiction, the GP point is irrelevant because the biggest problem drivers just ignore the fines [1].

It's very common to just have fake plates / registration, with the plan in the case of an accident to just bail out and run.

[1] https://www.wmar2news.com/homepage-showcase/how-md-drivers-w...

You mistakenly believe that these camera systems are not functioning exactly as intended: they're a revenue stream. If they ended up shutting down the offenders that revenue stream would dry up. The sociopath you've identified is called a whale instead.

I suspect this is some light with chronically-bad timing that gets run by tons of people every day. The camera is taking a photo with a bunch of vehicles in the frame and it's ticketing the one that had the license plate unobstructed, even if a few of the vehicles in the frame technically entered the intersection when the light was yellow.

Sometimes lights are just so poorly implemented, and drivers pass through them so often, it feels like whoever designed the intersection was actively goading drivers into running the light.

> Maybe they just stop running red lights?

Some lights change timing depending on the time of day so e.g. rush hour might have different timing than midday or late night.

I also believe there are and likely still are cases of malicious short yellow lights at camera intersections to increase revenue.

If someone is using your car they cant legally give you a ticket. If the picture taken doesnt clearly show you theoretically it needs to be dropped but of course thats not how it works in reality

It depends on whether the ticket is considered a criminal or civil matter in the US.

For a criminal case, yes, they need to prove "beyond a reasonable doubt" - which would require that you are positively identified as the driver.

For a civil case, they only need to prove by a "preponderance of the evidence" - which is a much lower standard.

This is why tickets from red-light cameras in many states are zero-point citations. You're still charged a fine, but there's no finding of guilt attached to the offense, which keeps it away from being considered a criminal matter. (This is the same way parking tickets work.)

I guess the car could require inserting a driver's license in order to start, and then store records of who was driving at what time.

What does "North America" have to do with Florida?

I'm in Canada and they issue you a fine without any ID. It goes straight to the registered car owner. Simple as.

The issue is that currently in FL there are points / demerits issued for violations, and these can cause the loss of a license, increases to insurance, etc. This is not a problem if an officer can ID you directly.

In Brazil, you can identify who was driving the car and they will get charged with the fine and get the points on their licence. You can do it all using an app on your phone. It's really simple.

I don't know what happens if the other person denies it though.

Many US states have switched to that approach. The ticket goes to the registered owner of the vehicle and no penalty points are attached. It's treated more like a parking citation than a traditional moving violation.

... which is why they are supposed to be regularly calibrated by an independent third party - with tickets automatically being void if law enforcement can't prove that it was functioning properly.

Which is why they are supposed to have a sworn officer review the camera footage. I have certainly had a camera flash me while waiting to turn right on red, still outside the intersection. They never sent me a ticket however since I had clearly not done anything illegal.

Everywhere I've been, the owner of the car gets the ticket, and it's up to them to figure out if they were driving, or if not them, collect from whomever they loaned the car to.

No camera I've ever seen tries to figure out who the driver is.

The logic is, it's your car, you're responsible for loaning it/owning it, so you get the fine. Don't like that? Don't loan your car out.

The trade off is no points are deducted from a driver's license. It's a pure fine, because they can't prove you were driving.

So the person just seems to be speaking gibberish to me.

edit:

More context...

The same logic applies for parking tickets. No one cares who parked the car, the car's owner gets the ticket... not the person who parked it. While I dislike red light cameras, the logic holds.

Well if this abuse is common the fines should rise. How would you enforce it otherwise?

Well, objects used in the commission of a crime are frequently confiscated. That's not outrageous. If I lend someone my gun and they rob a bank, I will likely not get my gun back though "it's not the gun's fault". Automated machinery has the advantage that it is impartial and effective, and given that law enforcement costs a lot in these circumstances, and that chasing cars for small enforcement violations creates worse outcomes, it seems thoroughly reasonable to apply the crime to the detectable object.

> A perpendicular intersection uses way less area than a roundabout.

That’s not actually true. It’s entirely possible for them to have the same footprint.

I don't see how that could possibly be true. The same flow has to be achieved either way, and lights will always have some margin of inefficiency in switching. Seems lights will always be strictly worse than roundabouts in this sense.

There are also solutions for large vehicles where the center is raised but not impassible.

The only difference is Americans aren't yet used to them because they're uncommon. You fix that by making them common. It's not like there's a genetic difference in Europe that makes them capable of roundabouts and Americans not.

There’s nothing complicated about roundabouts: entering it is like joining the traffic from a parking lot/your own driveway, exiting it is like exiting a highway.

I've driven them.. fantastic and no technology to go wrong.

One time when I was living in Shanghai, I accidentally took the train to the wrong airport and had to take a cab to the other one. The cabbie was driving on the highway right at the speed limit, and I was worried I wouldn’t make my flight. I asked him if he could rush a bit, but he replied that he would not speed because 100% he would get a ticket.

It only doesn’t work if the system is half assed. But I agree that in low speed pedestrian areas, the built form is a better solution, but knowing you will get caught is also effective (if you accept the privacy tradeoffs).

Set the fines to any level, it doesn't matter.

I only mean that all revenues collected from the fines must be distributed to the public at large. They must never be treated as a revenue source for the government.

Sin taxes are meant to reduce bad behavior - or incentivize good behavior. Ideally you'd collect $0 in red-light fines because everyone's following the law. If some politician's budget or private company's revenue stream depends on traffic fines they have adverse incentives. I don't want my city council member voting against traffic safety initiatives because it makes people better drivers and that means less money for some other city program.

Back to taxpayers. Subtract only the cost of installing and maintaining the cameras and aggressively audit that annually. Cut everyone a check at the end of the year. Buy each household a pony. Have a really good 4th of July fireworks display. It doesn't matter, as long as the government can't spend it for any government program. (And actually the pony and fireworks programs might be susceptible to corruption - just send a check)

Or in the case of a private company contracted to run the cameras, don't give a private company a contract to run the cameras. At least not a contract where they get paid in proportion to the fines collected.

No one should profit off bad behavior. No government program's funding should have to depend on people driving badly.

bike lanes, pedestrianized streets, and public transit

Explain. Is this like "guys walking with rifles in the woods cause deer"?

>drivers have expired temp tags

Then the state needs to start doing immediate impoundment of these vehicles. Add on massive fines before release of the car for repeat offenders and you'll see this dry up pretty quick.

> lurk in the middle of the road and make a left turn once oncoming traffic is stopped for the red

In the jurisdictions I'm familiar with, this is the proper way to make a left-hand turn. Many intersections are designed such that this is the only realistic way to ever turn left (high traffic, no left arrow).

Most red light rules are written against entering the intersection on red. If you're already in the intersection, you're allowed to safely proceed through and out of the intersection on red. That can be challenging, of course, if oncoming traffic is running the red light.

San Francisco also has a good number of unprotected left turns. Cities are just asking for trouble.

Yep, the states acted like aunts to get more money and have made the whole system more unsafe for everyone.

Anyone involved in those yellow light lowering schemes should have been criminally charged.

You don't say things like "I was ticketed here twice" if it was someone else using your car.

Or you have a heavy, inbalanced object in your car you don't want sliding, something fragile in tow you don't want to have fast decelaration, or just don't have super-human reaction time since some light have extremely fast yellows.

Or, a deer jumped out on the side and you briefly looked away at it.

Or you could tell the driver behind you wasn't slowing down, so the safer option is to go.

Or. Or. Or. Real life is messy, and there's a million reasons to go though a yellow instead of slowing down.

> Most countries even have cops judge the tickets, just to already filter out those weird cases. The registration is done by a robot, but the policing is still done by a human.

This is common in the US as well. The machine takes the picture, filters out the illegible ones, and sends the rest to an actual officer who will issue the ticket.

Huh? No, you don't stop if it turns yellow, you yield.

Running red lights? That's not all the cameras are used for. If are making a right turn on red and didn't come to a complete stop first you can get a ticket.

> that's why they are being automated

There are many citizens, like me, begging for red light cameras so something can be done about the rash of crashes and killings from willfully reckless drivers.

> Fines have become an important revenue stream, that's why they are being automated

Maybe we should legislate traffic fines out of existence, and just use points. Or at the very least the fines should never go back in any recognizable way to the budget of the police doing the enforcement.

“all the time”

When was the last person killed by someone running a red light? When was the time before that?

What kind of time and money and opportunity cost would it take to right this wrong?

I can see that you have sand in your underpants about getting infringements for breaking the law. It is obviously uneconomic to have very expensive police officers enforce traffic crime when automated cameras are so effective. What you are really arguing for is individual exceptionalism for rich people to violate speed limits.

It isn't a "social experiment" to deter crime, and calibrating punishment to have an actual deterrent effect has a long precedent. If it is "nanny state" policy to set speed limits that penalise repeat offenders and hoons in high powered cars, you will find it has broad community support.

I’m skeptical.

The average cost of car ownership is $0.69 per mile without insurance, $0.25 per mile to store it, and $0.49 per mile in societal costs (death, injuries, delays due to accidents). So about $1.43 per mile. I do not enjoy driving, so would add more cost per mile, maybe some would want to pay more but I do t see that much joyriding outside of teenagers and classic car enthusiasts, so I don’t think those that do it for pleasure is a large population.

Tesla cybercab is targeting $0.20 per mile. Waymo projections are $0.40 per mile by 2030. Assuming both hit $0.50 and are twice as safe, this is basically $0.75 per mile.

I don’t see may paying more to drive themselves. And I think as society there will be non economic reasons human driven cars get banned. Like MADD but for human cars.

So I expect 5 years and human cars will not make sense in many cases, 10 years new human car sales to be <50% current levels, 15 years you start seeing bans. 20 years bans common.

I like to drive. I support taking asshole drivers' licenses. They ruin my driving experience.