Does the Triangle need more traffic law enforcement? (Raleigh, Cary: calculated, salaries)

[Gard]

One thing that drives me nuts is the people that drive with their high beams on right behind you for no reason. I also hate those newer headlamps that are ultra bright even not on high beam. Those can blind someone and cause an accident IMO. People driving way below the speed limit without any apparent reason irk me too. My home state has minimum speed on roads, which I'd love to see in other states.

[jelenap]

This is a rather complex issue that IMHO can't be remedied by just placing police everywhere and ticketing everyone. Is there a single person on this forum who abides by traffic law 100%? In this case you're probably that left line camper that annoys the heck out of everyone.

As several people noted, there are underlying problems, e.g. why do so many people have to drive? There is no public transit. The large IT employers force people to come to the ofice daily. Why? We have high speed Internet and VPN.

Then there is quality of road management. The Hwy 1 / 40 intersection can turn anyone into a mad person. (I'm surprised there are no accidents hourly.) Many traffic lights are timed very badly. The lane marks are barely visible in the rain.

I'm hoping technology can help us some too, as old cars are replaced with the newer models that offer more safety features. Hands-on texting really should've been already done away with since Siri and bluetooth came around. Perhaps some education and campaigns like giving away free bluetooth pieces could help.

While I don't disagree that traffic law needs to be enforced, I believe it may not be the best method to achieve long term behavior change. Hopefully, self-driving cars will eventually take all the human drama out of equation and we'll have much more efficient traffic.

[macalan]

Originally Posted by pierretong1991

While a great idea, you would have a hard time distinguishing if someone was driving or if they were a passenger.



Given the backlash to red light cameras, I doubt this would be successful.



When I was in college, I was once pulled over in Kings Mountain for "following too closely" while driving back from Christmas break from Charlotte to Clemson. But I'm in the minority probably for that one haha (and I just got a warning)

Where's the backlash for cameras coming from? People running the red lights?

[bfkidd]

Red light cameras are run by for profit companies whose incentive it is to generate revenue. They have a history of reducing yellow lights shorter than normal and other practices to make sure they catch as many people as possible.

[pierretong1991]

Originally Posted by bfkidd

They have a history of reducing yellow lights shorter than normal and other practices to make sure they catch as many people as possible.

Which isn't true.....

but any camera discussion would likely have complaints attached it. Not to mention that people don't like the fact that Big Brother is watching.

[Gard]

Originally Posted by macalan

Where's the backlash for cameras coming from? People running the red lights?

From the state legislature. They have proposed banning them numerous times.

[mclarksn9]

I do think as autonomous vehicles become the norm the human annoyances in this thread that people want police to put an end to should become a non issue. Are we talking 20 to 30 years from now? That, I don't know.

[pierretong1991]

Originally Posted by mclarksn9

I do think as autonomous vehicles become the norm the human annoyances in this thread that people want police to put an end to should become a non issue. Are we talking 20 to 30 years from now? That, I don't know.

It'll be interesting what happens in the transition period - with autonomous vehicles having to put up with mistake prone drivers (or if the autonomous vehicles make mistakes themselves)

[LM117]

Originally Posted by pierretong1991

Which isn't true.....

Some local governments have been known to install cameras even after being fully aware that the timing of yellow lights were dropping below federal guidelines beforehand. It was a problem they took advantage of. Here's a prime example:

City reaches $38.75 million settlement in red light ticket lawsuit - Chicago Tribune

[rory breaker]

Originally Posted by pierretong1991

Which isn't true.....

This is not accurate. I dont have first hand knowledge of lights in Raleigh, but this is absolutely true for other areas with red light cameras, no question.