[KaiserPro]

> Even just speeding offences, I think you probably catch everyone who actually drives in the UK,

So we have a fucktonne of speed cameras allover the place: https://www.speedcameramap.co.uk/ (you need to zoom in there are so fucking many)

But we have less redlight cameras than the US. we also have hatching cameras (yellow hatched boxes mean no stopping, usually at junctions) we also have bus lane cameras, where if you drive in a buslane you get a fine.

For the Speed cameras, they are normally put there based on evidence of road deaths linked to speeding. I dont like speed cameras, but they do serve a purpose.

When you get a speeding ticket, if its your first offence, you can take a speed awareness course, and you won't get points on your license. otherwise its three points and a £100 fine. The points age out after 3 years. the maximum you can normally get is 12 points on your license.

Its only in extreme cases do you get a ban, or license revoked.

The reason why people are still able to drive are numerous:

1) its been a gradual evolution.

2) we have fairly robust training for drivers (theory, comprehensive real world test)

3) Evidence based placement. Its not like they just shove these things where poor people live (or in the US where the city has zoned living for people with more melanin than others). If there are higher than average road crashes, the road is re-made to make it safer, speed limits dropped, traffic calming put in place, then speed cameras.

4) You are expected to follow the traffic rules

5) the traffic rules are actually pretty sensible.

[fc417fc802]

> we also have hatching cameras (yellow hatched boxes mean no stopping, usually at junctions)

Weirdly I've never encountered these in the US (only red light cameras) and do we ever need them. I'm generally opposed to government associated cameras due to concerns about turnkey authoritarianism but if we have to have cameras at intersections they could at least curb the awful self centered behavior.

[pclmulqdq]

Most states ban speed cameras and many ban red light cameras as 4th amendment violations. You cannot face your accuser when your accuser is a robot. As a result, speed camera tickets have always used some legal sleight-of-hand to nail you into confessing, and this has become unpalatable.

If we raised speed limits (almost) across the board to the actual safe limits of modern cars, I think a lot more people would be ok with speed cameras. There would still be a constitutional problem, however.

[saalweachter]

What are "the actual safe limits of modern cars"?

Data from various states raising their limits over the last few decades is that every 5MPH increase in state speed limits brings with it an 8.5% increase in traffic fatalities on freeways. With the 70MPH speed limit common for freeways through most of the US, we're already up 25% on road fatalities over the 55MPH that was chosen for gas mileage during the oil crisis.

For cities, pedestrians struck at 25MPH are already at a 10% chance of death, which reaches 50% at 40MPH.

[pclmulqdq]

Nobody goes 70 mph on freeways. They go 80 mph on that road because it's the speed of traffic. If you declared a "speed limit reset" and raised the speed limit to 80 mph, people won't be going 90 mph. They will be going the speed limit.

[iso1631]

In the UK 80-90 was quite normal 25 years ago, and off peak you'd find the outside lane of the M40 doing over 90 a fair amount

It's not today as there's far more traffic. It's rare to have the opportunity outside of a few areas (south of Bristol on the M5, north of Kendal on the M6 etc). When I first learned to drive I'd do M62 to M5 in well under an hour, today it's about 20 minutes longer.

[saalweachter]

So "the actual safe limits of modern cars" just means "the speed everyone is currently driving"?

[vel0city]

> You cannot face your accuser when your accuser is a robot

I don't really get this take though. If one contests the ticket, have it go to a manual review where someone looks at the tape and confirms the calibration history of the equipment, and boom now that person can be the official "accuser".

If its the argument that they might not have been the one actually driving the vehicle, just make the laws relate to the registered owner of the vehicle is ultimately responsible for the safe operation of the vehicle. If the owner wants to try and prove it wasn't them, they can deflect that in court and prove it was actually their friend or whoever.

If we had a CCTV of a murder happening we wouldn't just go "well that's just a robot not a real person making the recording, guess we need to toss that video!" I don't understand how we take that kind of position when it comes to moving violations.

Also FWIW the 4th Amendment has nothing about facing your accuser. Its the sixth amendment that talks about "...to be confronted with the witnesses against him".

[p_ing]

Other states deal with it by making it a civil infraction, not a moving violation, bypassing the 4th amendment issue.

[ben_w]

> So we have a fucktonne of speed cameras allover the place: https://www.speedcameramap.co.uk/ (you need to zoom in there are so fucking many)

Doesn't seem that many compared to what I was describing. At the scale of a country, "a lot" != "a high %".

Your point 3 is the biggest divergence between them.

Point 5 is only kinda true, the failure mode is weird: there's good reasons why the speed limit isn't enforced until you're significantly over it, but that in turn means it has to be set lower than physics and reaction times dictate, which in turn means people push back against them. 20 zones knowing people will do 25, chosen because if they were 30 zones people would do 35 and 35 is too fast, that kind of thing.

People who know that, let themselves go a bit over the limit; but a bit over means they get caught some of the time because of the same small occasional variations that are the reason why the speed limit isn't enforced at x+1 mph in the first place.