ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit

[neonjoe]

No front plate? Was the driver from out of province?

[ac3r]

Maybe the collision knocked it off?

[ijmorlan]

Maybe the collision knocked it off?

Who says they have a back plate?

[nms]

No front plate? Was the driver from out of province?

Doug Ford promised to do away with them in 2019, but I don't know if he actually made it a thing yet (or at all)

[ijmorlan]

No front plate? Was the driver from out of province?

Doug Ford promised to do away with them in 2019, but I don't know if he actually made it a thing yet (or at all)

How stupid. Cars should have more mandatory identifying information on them, not less. If it were up to me, they would be subject to the similar rules as airplanes.

[allknowing2012]

No front plate? Was the driver from out of province?

Doug Ford promised to do away with them in 2019, but I don't know if he actually made it a thing yet (or at all)

I believe the Police said no to the idea and it was scrapped.

[ijmorlan]

Doug Ford promised to do away with them in 2019, but I don't know if he actually made it a thing yet (or at all)

I believe the Police said no to the idea and it was scrapped.

I’m not sure what I think of that. On the one hand, I’m opposed to further reducing the amount of identifying information on cars; on the other, I don’t really want democratic governments giving up on ideas because the police don’t like them. On the third hand, though, sometimes the police will have useful things to say about a policy based on their experience and not on their own self-interest and they should be heard, just as doctors should be heard when they express an opinion about the medical system.

[danbrotherston]

I believe the Police said no to the idea and it was scrapped.

I’m not sure what I think of that. On the one hand, I’m opposed to further reducing the amount of identifying information on cars; on the other, I don’t really want democratic governments giving up on ideas because the police don’t like them. On the third hand, though, sometimes the police will have useful things to say about a policy based on their experience and not on their own self-interest and they should be heard, just as doctors should be heard when they express an opinion about the medical system.

Frankly, I'm not sure why police care. They don't really do any road enforcement anyway.

FWIW...I'm kind of indifferent. I think there are more important issues, and Quebec already has only rear plates. Last vehicle I drove was from Quebec actually.

[tomh009]

Frankly, I'm not sure why police care. They don't really do any road enforcement anyway.

Automated speed and red light enforcement is far simpler if cars have front plates.

[ac3r]

Red light cameras are just a big scam anyway.

[plam]

Red light cameras are just a big scam anyway.

Perhaps one could Google "effectiveness of red light cameras".

[ac3r]

Red light cameras are just a big scam anyway.

Perhaps one could Google "effectiveness of red light cameras".

Out of curiosity, I did, as I was unsure whether you were disagreeing with me.

The first result from Scientific American talks about how they don't tend to make anything safer. They lower the number of those who do run lights (since they know about the camera) but may cause increases in rear ending. Additionally, the author of the article writes:

In a study I co-authored with economist Paul J. Fisher, we examined all police-recorded traffic accidents for three large Texas cities over a 12-year period – hundreds of thousands of accidents. We found no evidence that red light cameras improve public safety. They don’t reduce the total number of vehicle accidents, the total number of individuals injured in accidents or the total number of incapacitating injuries that involve ambulance transport to a hospital.otal number of individuals injured in accidents or the total number of incapacitating injuries that involve ambulance transport to a hospital."

A link to his paper can be found here: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?...id=3078079

Additionally, Scientific American ran a small study in Huston. They write:

Our study showed no evidence that cameras reduce the total number of accidents. We estimate that total accidents are reduced by a statistically insignificant 3 percent after the cameras are turned off.

Likewise, there’s no evidence that the camera program reduced the number of traffic-related injuries or the likelihood of incurring an incapacitating injury.

A mouse scrollwheel down on the search results shows a page about how they are more about money than safety (which is expanded on in the video link below).

Another link in the search results goes to a paper from the Traffic Injury Prevention Journal that shows that while they appear to often prevent the running of reds and help safety, they found methodological flaws and could not come to any conclusion other than "we need to study this more".

And it's indeed true. Road Guy Rob recently released a video about how they're mostly useless, often unethical and are more about making profit for the companies that sell them to cities: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pH9dnJ8BmY0

They can work, maybe, but they're very flawed in how we acquire them from companies and how/where they're used and more which is why the USA's second largest city took all of theirs out.

[Rainrider22]

Nice read. Thanks for that..

[ijmorlan]

I would say that 2 things are needed for red light cameras to have a positive impact on safety: (1) they need to be run with that as the goal and (2) everybody needs to know and believe that (1) is true.

A necessary but not sufficient condition is that the vendors must only supply equipment. For example, the camera company sells cameras; the cable company sells cables; the signpost company sells signposts; and so on, possibly up to a systems integration company which puts the pieces together and installs them. The municipality must be responsible for implementing the legal policies by programming the systems.

Next, the policies must support safety. This means fines that progressively increase based on the severity of the offense, and start at nothing at all for events which are just barely an offense. For example, slightly mis-judging a yellow and exiting the intersection 0.1s after the light turns red shouldn’t attract a fine. However, it might make sense for it to attract a warning notice, so the driver knows they were a little over the line. The purpose should be education and compliance after all.

I was about to say that it would be OK for fine revenue to pay for the system itself, but I’m not even sure of that. Whatever the fine revenue is used for, it must be something whose funding situation cannot affect the enforcement system. In the event revenue drops, possibly partially as a result of implementation of the system, there must be no resulting political pressure back on the system to change its behaviour. I’m not sure what this should be, but I wonder if sending the money to the Bank of Canada to be destroyed would work (note: I don’t mean withdrawing it as cash and then burning the cash, because that would be stupid, but simply cancelling the money — the opposite of the money creation that the Bank sometimes does).

Also, I don’t think there is a need to individually sign intersections with red light cameras. If they are properly configured to encourage safe driving, all they are doing is monitoring for illegal behaviour. So a simple way to avoid being fined is to drive legally, as one is already obligated to do. Signs at the border of the municipality advertising the policy and linking to a website that explains the goals and setup of the system would make sense.

[plam]

Yes, I'd rather have a red light camera than a cop on the corner. And the municipality absolutely should not be getting the revenue from the red light cameras.