Robocop! To cite, or not to cite

C

Capt. Charlie

Moderator Emeritus
OK, this really isn't firearms related, but given the amount of prior heated debates over traffic enforcement here in the past, I thought it might be relevant and thought provoking. The city here entered into an agreement with a private firm to provide for photo traffic enforcement. They brought three machines in, one that uses radar for speed and takes a picture of the speeder's license plate. The other two are to be set at intersections to photograph those that run traffic lights. Now I will tell you that we (the PD) have very little to do with this other than to recommend locations. Citations are sent by mail and supposedly there are no points against the driver's license. I'm not altogether sure this is a good idea since we can't interview the driver to see if there were extenuating circumstances such as an emergency at home, etc. The machine doesn't discriminate; you get a ticket, no matter what. But I can also see the argument that the machine makes it fair across the board; no favoritism shown. So if you are stopped, would you rather it be by a real, live cop, or robocop?
 
I would rather be stopped by a real, live human cop. Robocop really isn't there to provide increased traffic safety but is merely a revenue generation device, thus no points awarded. Therefor, if you can afford the fee, you are free to get 20 tickets a day with legal impunity. Same for running red lights. This does nothing to remove reckless and dangerous drivers from the street.

How often are the radar units calibrated? What happened to the right to confront one's accuser? Why is the owner of the car responsible for the moving violation and not the driver?
 
My father has gotten somewhere around 5 of these just south of Baltimore City, MD. I've driven with him, oh... a bizillion times... he's not a speed demon, nor does he make a habit of running lights.

He says if the light is anywhere near the half-way point of the yellow light, and your past the line, you get a love letter from the Baltimore City PD. See, it only takes pictures on the way OUT of the city... not the other direction.

He's also a retired Anne Arundel County police officer. So your right, it doesn't show any favoritism.

But, I'm sure Jesse Jackson will find a way to play the race card with this one.
 
My friend's father received a ticket in the mail for running a red light in an intersection he never knew existed. The picture of the license plate showed the back end of a dark car... my friend's dad drives a champagne colored silverado. Turns out the machine read the license plate as ***-H** when it was really ***-W**. My friend's dad just had the unlucky ***-H** plates. He appealed the ticket and won, but he still had to deal with the red tape of getting it cleared up.

I would definitely prefer being pulled over by a human.
 
The citizens of Anchorage revolted a few years ago when the municipality started using electronic bounty hunter for revenue generation.
 
They use cameras to police toll violations here in Florida. Much more, now that they started the automated toll systems. And it's more of a joke now than it ever was. All our company vans are registered in the company name, of course. The sunpass system works 99.9% of the time. You pass 10-12 tollbooths a day and you're bound to get a goof or two. So they only send notice if you pass a toll both 6 times in a month without paying. They don't have a picture of the driver, so all they send is a warning. In our case, to our boss. He doesn't care; he doesn't pay the toll or the ticket.

It scared my wife half to death when I got one of those warnings in the mail when driving her car. It was in her name. She wanted me to call and resolve it over the phone. I told her "yeah, right, ha-ha." "We get these all the time at work and throw them away." Of course, I know who really is the boss in the family, so I called. The state told me how to properly mount the sunpass in the windshield.

I asked her, "How can the state give you a ticket for something no one saw you do?"

They can't. O.k., they can, but they can't make it stick.

Long and short of it is, the robocop thing is voluntary here unless you get a good picture of the driver. As long as that's the way it works, make them all robocops.
 
Cheerleading for putting us under a surveillance state regime makes me :barf:


As far as I am concerned, there should never be a law in place that the govenrment HOPES people will break...

and that is exactly what goes on when they set up revenue-generating laws like these involving catching speeders.

As was mentioned, these systems do not deter people from speeding. They simply make people pay money. Over and over again, if necessary. The state/local government LOVES it! They are ecstatic when more people break the speed limit, or run the red light, and they get to send out a "pay us" notice.

If a law is to be ethical, it must be a law that seeks to punish people for doing something that the government would prefer you DON'T do, not something the government is happy when you DO do.

-blackmind
 
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