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OK, first of all: what do you define as "nowhere" ... your workplace, a family emergency, or what? Most people don't speed just for the hell of it. They do so because they have to BE somewhere. It takes long enough to drive from point A to point B in this Valley with all the sprawl ... and with the road conditions & weather being favorable most of the time, there's really no need to move so slow.
So with that, I must ask: why is there such a need to drive 55 MPH on the freeways here? Sections of the 51, 10, and 17 freeways drop from 65 to 55 at certain points ... and there's really no need to move that slow on wide freeways. Don't tell me that traffic becomes more congested on those sections, because that's complete b.s. There's just as much (if not more)congestion on the sections where the speed limit is 65 MPH.
No, they shouldn't be here to stay. They can be just as easily taken down as they were easy to install. Furthermore, they were approved ILLEGALLY by a Governor who couldn't find any other means to reduce the state's budget deficit effectively. There was no vote on this issue by the public. This state has always allowed its voters to pass or reject initiatives related to public policy ... and this should have been one of them.
Not sure if you're just being a smart aleck ... but those five suggestions are pretty extreme. How about just eliminating the extra PORK in the state budget, such as Napolitano's all day Kindergarten (which was never approved by the voters either)? How about keeping road construction, but eliminating those weekend parties ADOT throws whenever a new mile or two of freeway is opened? There are all kinds of extra perks that we could cut back on, or do away with.
FYI: I-10 between 24th St and the Stack is now 65 MPH.
i don't want to cause an arguement, but if you have to be somewhere, maybe you need to leave earlier. Needing to be somewhere isn't a valid reason to speed. I don't condone speeding, but I'm out of work and can't afford groceries, let alone a speeding ticket, so I'm very careful. Even when I was working I was very carefull and I still got a ticket. I don't know how to find out if it was an error. I agree with you about the cameras being a source of revenue rather then a safety issue, but, what are you going to do about it?Can anybody tell me how to find out if another car drove by and triggered the camera or if it was really me.?
i don't mind the speed cameras. i`m ok with getting a pass to drive 10 over the limit.
i say get rid of the cops. a cop can be a jerk and ticket you for 2 over if they want to.
i wist they would put mobile ones or cops in construction zones. [ speeding there is bull shat!]
i drive the 60 east bound daily, the construction is posted 55. most don't slow down but i do and i ride a bike so every one rides up on me fast.
i don't want to cause an arguement, but if you have to be somewhere, maybe you need to leave earlier. Needing to be somewhere isn't a valid reason to speed. I don't condone speeding, but I'm out of work and can't afford groceries, let alone a speeding ticket, so I'm very careful. Even when I was working I was very carefull and I still got a ticket. I don't know how to find out if it was an error. I agree with you about the cameras being a source of revenue rather then a safety issue, but, what are you going to do about it?Can anybody tell me how to find out if another car drove by and triggered the camera or if it was really me.?
It's the same old tired out statement: "leave earlier". Well, if you have an emergency where you have to rush a sick relative to a hospital, you can't possibly leave earlier ... you have to get going as fast as possible, otherwise you stand a chance of losing that person if the condition is critical enough.
If you admit that the cameras are for revenue generation instead of safety, then your attitude shouldn't be so defeated by asking something like "what can we do about it?". Join camerafraud.com, write to the state representative in your district, etc. We can't just let the government continuously control our lives, and let them keep lying to us that speed is the cause of accidents, or that we need to be saved from the boogeyman. Look at the number of accidents, and what REALLY causes them. It's not speed ... it's things like inattentiveness (texting, cell phone gabbing, daydreaming, etc.) and impaired driving (intoxication, sleep deprivation, etc.)
Thats what ambulances & 911 are for . Let the experienced driver's do the work and stay at home. That way you won't kill a car load of kids texting, cell phoning OR just out to get some ice cream on your speeding trip to the hospital.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Valley Native
It's the same old tired out statement: "leave earlier". Well, if you have an emergency where you have to rush a sick relative to a hospital, you can't possibly leave earlier ... you have to get going as fast as possible, otherwise you stand a chance of losing that person if the condition is critical enough.
If you admit that the cameras are for revenue generation instead of safety, then your attitude shouldn't be so defeated by asking something like "what can we do about it?". Join camerafraud.com, write to the state representative in your district, etc. We can't just let the government continuously control our lives, and let them keep lying to us that speed is the cause of accidents, or that we need to be saved from the boogeyman. Look at the number of accidents, and what REALLY causes them. It's not speed ... it's things like inattentiveness (texting, cell phone gabbing, daydreaming, etc.) and impaired driving (intoxication, sleep deprivation, etc.)
I am going to say it once again. Anyone who actually pays one if these "scamera" tickets is an idiot. They are illegal by nature, and anyone who gives in and pays it deserves to be fleeced. I have posted over and over how to get out of them since I have received tons of them when I lived in Phoenix. I give up.
On a Saturday evening (5:30 PM) a few years back, when Scottsdale was testing the devices on the 101, I was going to a wedding and worried I would be late, I ended up passing all three cameras in the south bound lane at 13 MPH over the speed limit (the cameras are all within 3-4 miles of each other). Two days later my father recieved three citations in the mail (I was driving his car). Instead of just returning the citations with a copy of his drivers license (which would have canceled the tickets), I fessed up to them and filled in my name and address so, that they would be sent to my house and I could deal with them. The reason I did that was because I figured, it would be considered one ticket (it was only one incident, I didn't speed three times) and I'd go to traffic school for it....I wanted to be honest. When I went to settle up with Scottsdale, the clerk told me I had to go to court and talk to the judge if I wanted them reduced to one ticket, so I did. Well the court room was a special court room just for photo radar tickets. I guess they tried three cases at a time (because there were two other people there at the same time as me). They make you watch a video of how the court proceeding will go. It's judge and where the prosecutor normally sits, is an employee of the photo radar company. The judge walks out and announces that if you want to go to traffic school for your ticket, you have to ask for that before the trial starts....once he reads off the citation number, the trial begins and it's too late to ask for it. I was first and as I said I wanted to go to traffic school so I stood up and told him that. When I tried to explain that the three tickets weren't fair because if it was a DPS officer clocking me, he wouldn't check my speed three times and then pull me over and give me three tickets. Before I could start to say that though, the judge cut me off (already aware of what I was about to do, since he had all three tickets in front of him) and told me that I could only talk about one ticket at a time....I could not talk about the other two tickets yet and when we were done with this first ticket, I could not refer to it again while giving my defense for eith of the other two tickets. Although my defense was perfectly reasonable and I think made sense, they got around allowing me to say it with this crazy rule. The hearings are designed so that you can't win. The camera employee states the evidence, you defend yourself, he's allowed to rebut, then you're allowed to rebut and then you're not allowed to speak again...the judge makes the decision (which is guilty because, "that's pretty fast...pretty far over the speed limit) and that's the end of it. If you need to clarify something or say anything at all, you can't. I should have just been dishonest and not filled in my name.....it's cost $450 and I have two tickets on my record (the other I went to school for)....lesson learned.
Now, the last time I got a ticket before those three, was about 15 years ago. I was on Scottsdale Rd. heading south and I just passed Camelback. The speed limit there goes from 45 to 40 to 35 to 30 and then finally 25. I was well aware of that, I drove through there all the time. Right around where the 40 MPH sign was a Scottsdale policeman was sitting in his car off the side of the road. I was doing the speed limit when I passed and slowing down as the speed limit reduced. I was just passing the 30 MPH sign, when I saw him catching up to me with his lights on. I was pulling to the side of the road so he could pass me when he pulled up behind me. He tried to tell me I was going 50 in a 25 (it was 30 right there....and that's what I was traveling). I told him I was going 30 and he said no you were going 50. He comes back with a ticket telling me he's giving me a break and I'm getting a ticket for 40 in a 30. I was annoyed to say the least so, o went to court to fight it. I didn't know what I was going to say because it would just be his word against mine. I showed up on the court date a little early and the court room was completely empty. A woman judge came out and told me they were calling the officer in to testify and it would be a few minutes. When he got there, she started asking him questions about how my speed was determined. It turned out he had no radar gun so, he was trying to say he paced me (which was a lie since he was catching up to me with his lights on when he pulled me over). She started asking questions over what distance he paced me and when he answered she told him that it wasn't even close to adequate for determining my speed. She dimissed the ticket without me ever having to say a word and he was getting chewed out when I left the court room. He knew he didn't properly determine my speed, he was just counting on me not fighting it since he reduced it to 40 in a 30. I guess police do have quotas...I always thought that was baloney.
That's the difference between then along with a dishonest cop and now along with a photo radar camera and court procedure that's been figured out to not allow you to plead your case.
I almost forgot....in the photo radar court room the camera employee is basically testifying against you even though he wasn't there to see you speed...he's just reading data off about the citation. The problem is, since the camera company profits from each ticket they mail out, there's a conflict of interest with him testifying against me.....they profit from the tickets and they testify aginst the drivers they issue the tickets to. Explain that one to me?
The price of speeding tickets is based on the idea that violaters are ticketed on only a small fraction of the times that they actually exceed the speed limit. If you recieved a $350 ticket each time you exceded the posted limit the amount would be huge.
If the powers that be start issuing tickets wholesale with machines then they need to reduce the fines to reflect that.
The local PD has set up a roadside radar that displays your MPH. Half the cars that pass are going over the limit by some amount. All could be ticketed. In these cash strapped times that's a real temptation that I'm not sure our public servants will resist.
And yes, we ALL do it. You can't monitor your speed that closely especially in traffic.
Thats what ambulances & 911 are for . Let the experienced driver's do the work and stay at home. That way you won't kill a car load of kids texting, cell phoning OR just out to get some ice cream on your speeding trip to the hospital.
Apparently, you haven't been in the situation of caring for an elderly family member, or experiencing an emergency where the person needs instant care. It's not always in the best interest to force the sick person to wait around for an ambulance when that person is in critical condition. It's especially not in his/her best interest to have the caregiver "stay home".
Furthermore, anybody who texts while driving is being extremely inattentive, and is putting him/herself at risk, as well as everybody else on the road. The kid (or adult for that matter) who is more occupied with his/her cell phone or Blackberry instead of paying attention deserves what he/she gets! Unfortunately, in those cases, the inattentive idiot who is texting behind the wheel usually ends up severely injuring (or killing) an innocent person.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Danno3314
On a Saturday evening (5:30 PM) a few years back, when Scottsdale was testing the devices on the 101, I was going to a wedding and worried I would be late, I ended up passing all three cameras in the south bound lane at 13 MPH over the speed limit (the cameras are all within 3-4 miles of each other). Two days later my father recieved three citations in the mail (I was driving his car). Instead of just returning the citations with a copy of his drivers license (which would have canceled the tickets), I fessed up to them and filled in my name and address so, that they would be sent to my house and I could deal with them. The reason I did that was because I figured, it would be considered one ticket (it was only one incident, I didn't speed three times) and I'd go to traffic school for it....I wanted to be honest. When I went to settle up with Scottsdale, the clerk told me I had to go to court and talk to the judge if I wanted them reduced to one ticket, so I did. Well the court room was a special court room just for photo radar tickets. I guess they tried three cases at a time (because there were two other people there at the same time as me). They make you watch a video of how the court proceeding will go. It's judge and where the prosecutor normally sits, is an employee of the photo radar company. The judge walks out and announces that if you want to go to traffic school for your ticket, you have to ask for that before the trial starts....once he reads off the citation number, the trial begins and it's too late to ask for it. I was first and as I said I wanted to go to traffic school so I stood up and told him that. When I tried to explain that the three tickets weren't fair because if it was a DPS officer clocking me, he wouldn't check my speed three times and then pull me over and give me three tickets. Before I could start to say that though, the judge cut me off (already aware of what I was about to do, since he had all three tickets in front of him) and told me that I could only talk about one ticket at a time....I could not talk about the other two tickets yet and when we were done with this first ticket, I could not refer to it again while giving my defense for eith of the other two tickets. Although my defense was perfectly reasonable and I think made sense, they got around allowing me to say it with this crazy rule. The hearings are designed so that you can't win. The camera employee states the evidence, you defend yourself, he's allowed to rebut, then you're allowed to rebut and then you're not allowed to speak again...the judge makes the decision (which is guilty because, "that's pretty fast...pretty far over the speed limit) and that's the end of it. If you need to clarify something or say anything at all, you can't. I should have just been dishonest and not filled in my name.....it's cost $450 and I have two tickets on my record (the other I went to school for)....lesson learned.
I commend you for being honest and paying the fines. However, in the case of those cameras in the Scottsdale section of the Loop 101, you probably could have just ignored the citations. The city of Scottsdale installed the cameras along that stretch, which was ILLEGAL because Scottsdale doesn't have the jurisdiction to patrol the freeways ... DPS does! That whole deal with Scottsdale and the radar cameras was mysteriously swept under the rug. The installation of the cameras by the city was against the law ... but since politicians were involved, I can see how the whole thing would be covered up without any investigation.
I commend you for being honest and paying the fines. However, in the case of those cameras in the Scottsdale section of the Loop 101, you probably could have just ignored the citations. The city of Scottsdale installed the cameras along that stretch, which was ILLEGAL because Scottsdale doesn't have the jurisdiction to patrol the freeways ... DPS does! That whole deal with Scottsdale and the radar cameras was mysteriously swept under the rug. The installation of the cameras by the city was against the law ... but since politicians were involved, I can see how the whole thing would be covered up without any investigation.
No, you couldn't ignore them, they would send out a process server...if he/she didn't catch you after a certain (not sure what it was 3 or 6 months), then you were safe. What I could have done was just not write my name on them in the first place but, I wasn't trying to get out of the fact that I got caught speeding (but, only one time....not three...I couldn't believe they would try and do that). Scottsdale was a test and that's why we have 100 more cameras now but, the DPS runs them (and they took over the ones in Scottsdale on the 101 too).
Yes, you're right though, it wasn't in their jurisdiction and there were a lot of other things too that were illegal about that situation but, they got away with it. The people that made appeals and spent the money to do it, got their tickets thrown out often (for reasons that would applied all the tickets issued the same way) but, according to Scottsdale, that fact has nothing to do with any of the other tickets they issued....you had to pay the money and go appeal it. No order was made to stop them from issuing the tickets. If one person proved it to be illegal you would think something would be done about it but, no...it was done on a one-by-one basis.
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