Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
I expect that the same will happen here. Then watch out how fast you walk because they will put speed cameras on the sidewalks.
"It was a combination of the camera company’s salesmanship and the city’s greed,” says camera critic Barnet Fagel. Chicagoans are costing the city tens of millions of dollars -– through good behavior.
You heard that right: Good behavior is bad for the budget. Real bad, reports CBS 2 Chief Correspondent Jay Levine.
Remember the old P.T. Barnum line about no one ever going broke by underestimating the intelligence of the American people? Well, Mayor Rahm Emanuel underestimated the intelligence of Chicago drivers, and the city paid for it big time. On a smooth, wide, well-travelled stretch of Irving Park Road, running between two cemeteries — no homes, no stores, no parking — the city of Chicago is trying to balance its budget.
Each flash means a photo; each photo, a violation. Each violation: a hundred bucks, from red-light and speed cameras. CBS 2 has learned the speed cameras caught far fewer speeders than expected. According to the Mayor’s 2015 Budget Overview, there have been “lower than expected violation rates.” How much lower? Fifty million dollars lower."
Perhaps the beloved company ATS has overreached. And when those lawsuits start here, guess we will be picking up that tab too (of camera removal) for our politicians short sightedness and reluctance to truly resolve the budget issue rather than slapping a band-aid on the problem.
Tickets issued due to red-light cameras are illegal, says Florida court
"This particular case involved American Traffic Solutions. It bills itself as "the leading provider of traffic safety, mobility and compliance solutions for state and local governments, commercial fleets and rental car companies.
The Fourth District Court of Appeals phrased it like this: "The City is not authorized to delegate police power by entering into a contract that allows a private vendor to screen data and decide whether a violation has occurred before sending that data to a traffic infraction enforcement officer to use as the basis for authorizing a citation."
Newsday reported the cameras are raking in over $220,000 a day, far more than anticipated. Now I'm wondering if this windfall will encourage more profligate, wasteful spending by the county and expect they will spread cameras everywhere. Every public sector union will be hoping to get their greedy fingers on that money, so there will be demands for increases in the near future.
Below the report (are links allowed?) there's almost 900 comments, mostly against the cameras. In all my years of living here, I've never seen so much anger and anti-government passion. Makes me wonder if any kind of change could actually happen. I'd love to see a few incumbents picked off on 11/4, but this is LI.
Newsday reported the cameras are raking in over $220,000 a day, far more than anticipated. Now I'm wondering if this windfall will encourage more profligate, wasteful spending by the county and expect they will spread cameras everywhere. Every public sector union will be hoping to get their greedy fingers on that money, so there will be demands for increases in the near future.
Below the report (are links allowed?) there's almost 900 comments, mostly against the cameras. In all my years of living here, I've never seen so much anger and anti-government passion. Makes me wonder if any kind of change could actually happen. I'd love to see a few incumbents picked off on 11/4, but this is LI.
I saw that and I read the comments as well. I think as people catch on, the revenue will go down just like there. There is a lot of anger and I think its justified. Just because I am against these speed cameras in schools doesn't mean that I don't agree that speeding and reckless driving are out of control. I drive the SSP daily and witness it every day.
It’s clear that the cameras change behavior so if the politicians really represented us and “cared” about their constituents behavior, those cameras would have been placed on roads where safety and speed issues are REAL concerns, such as the SSP, Hempstead Tpke and parts of Sunrise Hwy, you know where people really get killed.
They have no interest in safety and just money (they even said that’s why the cameras are there) and have pretty much given authority to a for profit company in lieu of carrying out their elected responsibilities. Because they refuse to deal with real budget issues, they have created anger in the populace, and caused more traffic problems in the surrounding areas where those cameras are. I bet business’ will suffer as people find alternate routes to avoid the cameras. That will be great for the tax base.
To me, this issue is like the cigarette tax. I don’t smoke but that infuriated me too. Do you really think that they care about your health and if you smoke or not? In this case, the gov’t acted like nothing more than a heroin dealer. They know those people are hooked on cigs and would pay. And again, by not addressing real budget issues, the cig tax has resulted in more crime (Cigarette Taxes and Cigarette Smuggling by State | Tax Foundation).
This disingenuous behavior by our pols is what has people so angered. The government is supposed to help people not make their lives worse by unintended consequences of bad decisions. It is also why I strongly believe that we are no longer truly represented by any our our government.
In the end, these cameras will cost us, the taxpayer in more ways than one and our taxes will probably still go up. Can you blame people for being mad?
BTW, in Nassau County this is new but the backlash is well under way in other parts of the country. It will happen here too...
As in Chicago, I'm sure that some of our pols are getting their pockets lined and its a matter of time until it comes out:
"A retired Chicago official who managed the city’s red light camera program for almost a decade was arrested Wednesday for allegedly accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes to steer city contracts to Redflex Traffic Systems, Inc.
In Arizona, people have simply stopped paying the fines because they are so angry (google around, lots of articles on that state). And in Hollywood , FLA, the court said that they were illegal as did Ohio.
Newsday reported the cameras are raking in over $220,000 a day, far more than anticipated. Now I'm wondering if this windfall will encourage more profligate, wasteful spending by the county and expect they will spread cameras everywhere. Every public sector union will be hoping to get their greedy fingers on that money, so there will be demands for increases in the near future.
Below the report (are links allowed?) there's almost 900 comments, mostly against the cameras. In all my years of living here, I've never seen so much anger and anti-government passion. Makes me wonder if any kind of change could actually happen. I'd love to see a few incumbents picked off on 11/4, but this is LI.
If the cameras are taking in more money than expected, how can you characterize their proliferation as "wasteful?"
I expect that the same will happen here. Then watch out how fast you walk because they will put speed cameras on the sidewalks.
"It was a combination of the camera company’s salesmanship and the city’s greed,” says camera critic Barnet Fagel. Chicagoans are costing the city tens of millions of dollars -– through good behavior.
You heard that right: Good behavior is bad for the budget. Real bad, reports CBS 2 Chief Correspondent Jay Levine.
Remember the old P.T. Barnum line about no one ever going broke by underestimating the intelligence of the American people? Well, Mayor Rahm Emanuel underestimated the intelligence of Chicago drivers, and the city paid for it big time. On a smooth, wide, well-travelled stretch of Irving Park Road, running between two cemeteries — no homes, no stores, no parking — the city of Chicago is trying to balance its budget.
Each flash means a photo; each photo, a violation. Each violation: a hundred bucks, from red-light and speed cameras. CBS 2 has learned the speed cameras caught far fewer speeders than expected. According to the Mayor’s 2015 Budget Overview, there have been “lower than expected violation rates.” How much lower? Fifty million dollars lower."
This is a very good example of very bad writing (more so than this sentence).
"Chicagoans are costing the city tens of millions of dollars." No, they're not *costing* the city anything. An unanticipated reduction in revenue is still revenue; not an expense.
"...no one ever going broke by underestimating the intelligence of the American people...". I think that might be, "no one ever went broke...". Anyway, this means one can't underestimate American intelligence...however dumb one thinks they are, they'll be even dumber. So, does the Barnum "quote" even apply in this case?
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
