[skorecky]

> Police higher-ups say the traffic unit has made Port Arthur a safer place to drive

They don't show any data to back up this claim that they make throughout the story. IMO part of the problem is that the speed limits are far too low for modern vehicles. They keep them low so they can continue to collect.

It's not about safety it's about money. How is going around with plate readers making anyone safer? Unless they were using that technology to find a fugitive, but they're not they're using it to collect.

[sandworm101]

Speed limits have a long history that is largely unrelated to ticketing. The do seem slow today but they made sense only a few years ago, before the magic that is modern rubber tires. Road noise, fuel efficiency and the prevention of congestion have also been factors.

The recent rise in for-profit ticketing has less to do with low speed limits than the steady increase in penalties. The decriminalization of speeding has also increased the incentives for cops to ticket quickly and often.

[bryanlarsen]

The article links to a study[1] in the Lancet that says that aggressive traffic policing results in fewer car accidents and fewer deaths.

1: http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140673...

[skorecky]

Ah, I missed that. However that doesn't mean increasing the speed limit would be bad. Instead of speeding tickets they could focus on aggressive drivers constantly changing lanes and other more serious maneuvers that could cause more danger.

[bryanlarsen]

There are hundreds of studies on increasing the speed limit. Most say increasing the limit causes increased fatalities, others say the effect is negligible. Most of these studies focus on highway speeds, though.

But lowering street level speed limits has a dramatic effect on fatalities. Sweden reduced their street speed limits to 15-20mph and strictly enforced them.[1] This dropped their fatality rate to essentially zero. It didn't reduce accidents significantly, but reduced their severity massively.

1: http://www.visionzeroinitiative.com/

[ap3]

Like cameras on the street that capture aggressive lane changing coupled with license plate readers?

What's next - thought crime?

[revelation]

Increased speed saves time only linearly but requires a with the square increase in power to overcome wind resistance, the major factor. With the power increase comes a similarly large increase in crash damage and mortality particularly for pedestrians. This is in addition to the increased crash risk simply due to the increase in speed while mental capabilities of drivers remain constant(ly poor).

See the data here:

http://humantransport.org/sidewalks/SpeedKills.htm

As this makes clear, even 30mph is too fast for a residential area in the sense that the tradeoff makes no sense; 20mph brings a massive reduction in deaths but only a comparatively much smaller increase in travel time (in a grid city with constant lights anyway).

[vcarl]

And having speed limits set too low for the road leads to a mismatch between posted risk (the speed limit) and actual risk (the actual speed of cars) to pedestrians. There's evidence that speed limits have no impact on how fast people actually drive[0], so posting a lower speed limit is less likely to have an impact than designing roadways for a certain speed in the first place.

[0]: https://www.ibiblio.org/rdu/sl-irrel.html

[revelation]

Hence the need for speed enforcement. We've come full circle.

[vcarl]

Designing roads properly for the desired speed removes the need for enforcement. And enforcement doesn't mean that people go the posted limit, it just means more tickets.

[sandworm101]

Nope. All sorts of vehicles drive on roads. A motorcycle will always be able to navigate a road far faster than anyone intended. Roads need some sort of speed limit to specify unseen dangers, to communicate to the motorcycle that there is a reason the designer doesn't want him moving at the speed of which he is physically capable.

[dalke]

Yes, there will still need to be speed limits. But if, say, the roads are designed with a 12' lane, the people will tend to drive faster than on a 10' lane. (See http://www.citylab.com/design/2014/10/why-12-foot-traffic-la... .)

I believe vcarl's point is to design the roads for the speed limit, so the speed limit matches what people will perceive to be the right speed for the road. Don't have speed limits which are lower than the perceived limit.

The clumsy way to do this is to put in traffic calming devices. Narrowing the streets is less in-your-face, and comes with other advantages, like cheaper road maintenance. Both are also ways to communicate the appropriate speed limit, in addition to a sign which says the same thing.

[wahsd]

Well, to be fair, if you are jailing people you are taking drivers off the road and thus making them safer. And considering they seem to be jailing people with driving related offenses, it's probably a true statement. Whether it is a morally defensible course of action is a totally different story though.

[pstuart]

What if the tickets are for parking or other infractions that have no real bearing on safety? If you think this is about safety then you are sadly mistaken.

[sandworm101]

That depends on the specifics of each parking tickets. Tickets for parking in places where cars are supposed to be (fire lanes etc) are safety related. City parking policies are also generally tied to preventing congestion and dissuading people from driving, both of which are safety-related.

[pstuart]

Are you serious or just being punctilious? At this point I'm taking you to be proposing that throwing people in jail for unpaid parking tickets is in the interest of public safety?

By your own logic public safety is served if you park anywhere you want (including fire lanes) but can afford to pay the tickets.

I'll try to keep civil here, but your attitude reflects an utter lack of compassion.

[ap3]

They would usually get towed for that