The city of
Scottsdale, AZ officially flicked on its system of speed cameras last Wednesday morning at 12:01 AM, which was
immediately followed by a southbound vehicle on the Loop 101 Freeway triggering the first snap. By noon the cameras had
flashed their bulbs 167 times. Scottsdale’s project follows a 31-day warning period in which 770 vehicles a day were detected going 11 mph or more over the 65 mph speed limit. That average rose to about 1,400 times a day during the weekend and holidays.
An average speeding ticket is expected to cost a Scottsdale motorist $157, which means speed camera-generated revenue may soon be able to fund Lyle Lanley’s proposed monorail.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Source1 @ Feb 24th 2006 9:16AM
Where is the ACLU when you need them? Oh that's right they are working hard to get 'God' off from or out of everything public while Big Brother god' is growing stronger everyday. sheeesh.
ChrisTots @ Feb 24th 2006 9:56AM
Last I heard the top speed they had clocked was 133 MPH.
Joe @ Feb 24th 2006 9:59AM
Lyle Lanley: Well, sir, there's nothing on earth
Like a genuine,
Bona fide,
Electrified,
Six-car
Monorail!
What'd I say?
Ned Flanders: Monorail!
Lyle Lanley: What's it called?
Patty+Selma: Monorail!
Lyle Lanley: That's right! Monorail!
[crowd chants `Monorail' softly and rhythmically]
Miss Hoover: I hear those things are awfully loud...
Lyle Lanley: It glides as softly as a cloud.
Apu: Is there a chance the track could bend?
Lyle Lanley: Not on your life, my Hindu friend.
Barney: What about us brain-dead slobs?
Lyle Lanley: You'll be given cushy jobs.
Abe: Were you sent here by the devil?
Lyle Lanley: No, good sir, I'm on the level.
Wiggum: The ring came off my pudding can.
Lyle Lanley: Take my pen knife, my good man.
I swear it's Springfield's only choice...
Throw up your hands and raise your voice!
All: Monorail!
Lyle Lanley: What's it called?
All: Monorail!
Lyle Lanley: Once again...
All: Monorail!
Marge: But Main Street's still all cracked and broken...
Bart: Sorry, Mom, the mob has spoken!
All: Monorail!
Monorail!
Monorail!
[big finish]
Monorail!
Homer: Mono... D'oh!
Dreamer @ Feb 24th 2006 9:59AM
Amen.
Corey W. @ Feb 24th 2006 10:13AM
Has anyone seen or have experience with those license plate covers that suppose to keep the license plate from being photographed?
Steve Kaplan @ Feb 24th 2006 10:17AM
At the rate quoted times the number of violators, it's over $1 million per month on a stretch of road less than 8 miles long! Looks like the answer to the national debt to me if all states use them everywhere. Trouble is we'll all be broke.
P. Chappy @ Feb 24th 2006 10:17AM
Source1 -- I have news for you: you don't have a right to speed. Ten MPH over is actually quite generous. The ACLU has better things to do, like keeping your religious preferences out of my face.
John B @ Feb 24th 2006 10:39AM
Forget the ACLU, where is the NRA and a little target practice.
Bob Davidson @ Feb 24th 2006 10:54AM
Was there on Tuesday, the last day of warning and the electronic signs were everywhere warning of the upcoming photo snap. One motorcyclist was shown on the news riding over 120mph.
Source1 @ Feb 24th 2006 10:57AM
P Chappy: You just put your belief system (religion) in my face by telling me get mine out of yours ....and therefore contradicted yourself. You believe the ACLU should battle religion when the ACLU is a religion itself.
Alan @ Feb 24th 2006 11:02AM
They tried this in Denver a little while back and the problem ended up being enforcement. If the speeder ignored the ticket that was mailed to them, Colorado law required that a real person deliver another copy to them face to face before they were prosecuted. So people began ignoring the tickets left and right and there wasn't enough manpower to hand-deliver the tickets. As far as I know, the program is now obsolete, thank goodness.
Heffer @ Feb 24th 2006 11:05AM
Source1 - Umm...No. The ACLU is not or does not act as a religion. Big, big, difference. Believing in something does not equate it to being a religion.
Joe @ Feb 24th 2006 11:16AM
Funny i always thought it was freedom OF religion, not freedom FROM religion...
bernie @ Feb 24th 2006 11:17AM
Wouldn't it be nice if they spent the same amount of resources trying to reduce the real sources of traffice fatalities and serious injury: Inattentive and impaired drivers, people driving in the fog, rain and dark with no headlights, not wearing seatbelts, tailgating, changing lanes with no signal, cruising the left lane of the Interstate for no reason*, unsafe merging to name a few.
The guy who cruising along on a sunny day at 67 with seatbelt on and both hands on the wheel isn't a threat. The guy in the left lane in the fog with no lights on talking on his cellphone is. Where's the high tech effort behind getting HIM off the road?
Speeding is easy money, so law enforcement abandons real traffic safety for the lure of budgetary bliss. That's a shame.
Juanpablo13 @ Feb 24th 2006 11:31AM
"A town with money is a lot like a mule with a spinning wheel"
kevin @ Feb 24th 2006 11:37AM
Jesus f***ing Christ.
I didn't reaize that all other forms of crime had been taken care of and solved and now they put resources towards new ways of bullying motorists.
Attack me if you will for "questioning the rights of cops." In Texas, the cops operate under this backwoods-country-bumpkin-law system where the judges are weekend drinking buddies with the sheriffs/cops/deputies...and it goes on.... good luck fighting a ticket in this city. They have almost unlimited power.
Random Coil @ Feb 24th 2006 12:30PM
As Chappy (#7) reiterated, this only tickets drivers going 11+ mph over the speed limit: that's 76 in a 65 zone. You're not going to get ticket for going 67 Bernie (#13). I don't have a problem with that. Hopefully it will let traffic police spend more time looking for aggressive/drunk/stupid drivers.
Chris B. @ Feb 24th 2006 12:40PM
We have this system, or one similar to it where I live. The cameras however aren't stationary, such as at intersections or on telephone poles and the such. There are special police vans with cameras mounted in their sides parked in sneaky spots around curves or in blind side streets. However, for these vans to set up, they must also set up a warning sign 100-200 feet from where they're located. There are STILL a good 150 tickes issued a month, and the system debuted in July 2004. Go figure.
Talis @ Feb 24th 2006 1:57PM
I live in Tempe right now, getting a "Design Management" degree from Arizona State University. When I first got here, I was bombarded with news about the loop 101 and 202's major traffic problem (being from New Jesrey my whole life the "traffic" they are quoting is nothing). almost ALL of the accidents on the highways here are linked to someway in speeding... because of the DESERT Scottsdale is built in, there is almost never any fog; not since I've been in Tempe have I seen any fog. As far as people talking or reading the paper, or generaly not driving, I agree, there must be something done to get these people off of the road. Thankfully my home state of New Jersey has passed a cell phone ban when driving. The crappy part about NJ's law, is that it is a SECONDARY violation, so you have to be speeding, or have a tail light out, first. If none of you guys have been or live in the greater city of Phoenix (Tempe, Mesa, Scottsdale, Glendage, etc) then go and see for your self just how stupid people can be behind the wheel.
Forget about the high ways for a second, I walk to class everyday at different times (morning, noon and night) and I have almost gotten run over by people driving cars while speeding, or not watching the road. I was not j-walking, nor was I not watching traffic as I crossed the stree. I always wait for the cross signal, and look both ways. The cities in this area are doomed to be over worked with giving out tickets. the camras are a good way for the cities' cops get the funding they need to stop real crime. click the link below to read about a hostage crysis last night here in Phoenix.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060224/ap_on_re_us/high_rise_crisis_17
NEBTEK2002 @ Feb 24th 2006 1:57PM
According to recent articles in "Car and Driver", the people administering red-light camera programs are paid per I.D., not per ACCURATE I.D. many false I.D.s have ensued costing many innocent motorists time and money to go to court.
In many jurisdictions you can't bypass court just by showing the DMV drone or the county clerk your motel bill for a business trip 1000 miles away at the date/time your car was "positively identified", you gotta go to a 10 am cattle call and wait to see a judge.
Consider one of my own plates which begins with PRQ.
A little snow, salt spray, mud, crud on the camera lens, what have you, and you can't tell if those letters are PRO,BPO, PPO, BBO, BBQ, PPO, PPQ, RRQ, or PRQ.
If someone paid piecework rate to "make a
quick guess and get on to the next one DAMMIT" says I'm BBO, someone with BBO and my last 3 numbers unfairly gets my ticket.
Or if BBO is guessed to be PRQ, I'm stuck for BBO's ticket.
If the companies had to reimburse for lost wages plus a at least $1000 whenever they screwed up, then let'em set up.
If town councils gave contractors bonuses for high accuracy, say 97%+, and fined heavily for high inaccuracy, say >3%, I might not be so negative about this whole scheme.