Mike's Railroad Crossing Forum

Red light cameras Im fine with them whats your opinion (now speed cameras and mobile cars im not fine with)
here in St Louis Mo you get caught $70 FINE no points or traffic school and if you take it to court unless you hit someone while running the red light they'll dismiss the case

its quite interesting what the cameras have caught
and here is some in Missouri
the 5th one is really close to my house

That's a FIRM no, on both speed and red lights. One person wrote in to the Prescott Newspapers earlier this year that she got caught by a camera, got a $190 fine, and 3 points on the license.

If you want to fight it, it still costs $20 out of your pocket to fight it. There are 3 places with speed cameras, and 2 with red lights. With the ones with red lights, I avoid those areas when I can.

The speed cameras don't bother me too much, because for the most part, I only go about 5 MPH over the speed limit at times. The cameras catch you at 11+ MPH on normal roads, and 6+ MPH for school zones.

By the way, all school zones in Arizona are 15 MPH. Go 21 and over and you can face a double fine as well.

The mobile ones are semi-okay, which are just for speed, as I mostly go as much as 5 MPH over the speed limit, which on state highways range from 45 to 55 in my town, and 25 on our main street, to 35 MPH on a 6-lane highway.

In a way, I think Arizona is a bit paranoid about speed limits around here.

Although, if I think Arizona is bad, I've seen some signs in California showing a $400 fine in some places.

Smjh1979 wrote:That's a FIRM no, on both speed and red lights. One person wrote in to the Prescott Newspapers earlier this year that she got caught by a camera, got a $190 fine, and 3 points on the license.

If you want to fight it, it still costs $20 out of your pocket to fight it. There are 3 places with speed cameras, and 2 with red lights. With the ones with red lights, I avoid those areas when I can.

The speed cameras don't bother me too much, because for the most part, I only go about 5 MPH over the speed limit at times. The cameras catch you at 11+ MPH on normal roads, and 6+ MPH for school zones.

By the way, all school zones in Arizona are 15 MPH. Go 21 and over and you can face a double fine as well.

The mobile ones are semi-okay, which are just for speed, as I mostly go as much as 5 MPH over the speed limit, which on state highways range from 45 to 55 in my town, and 25 on our main street, to 35 MPH on a 6-lane highway.

In a way, I think Arizona is a bit paranoid about speed limits around here.

Although, if I think Arizona is bad, I've seen some signs in California showing a $400 fine in some places.

west coast UGG

I could care less if there are or not. They aren't going to prevent accidents. But it sure does help in the legal process of determining who's fault it was...that's for sure if the parties can't agree.

owensri wrote:I could care less if there are or not. They aren't going to prevent accidents. But it sure does help in the legal process of determining who's fault it was...that's for sure if the parties can't agree.

ACTUALLY
cases show the red light cameras have helped reduce red light runners at some intersections up to 50%

As a school bus driver part time, I had to vote a yes. Even driving my private vehicle, I see so many ridiculous things on a daily basis it is not even funny.

Everyone is in such a hurry, or too busy talking (or texting) on their cell phones, they are not paying hardly any attention to what they are doing behind the wheel.

I would be willing to bet a good majority of the accidents in that video are because people were not paying attention to the lights and more attention to something else.

Maybe sometime this week, when the weather warms up to near 60, I may go out to one of the camera spots and check things out with the DVD camcorder, and film a few sequences, and see if I capture anyone going through.

Red Light cameras, I really don't have a problem with. You have 99.9% control whether you take the chance or stop.

Speed cameras on the other hand... I have a problem with. Few automobile speedometers are spot on, Also, I've found in places where they put up a radar gun and display, that even if I try to hold at the posted speed limit... the moment I take my eyes off the dashboard and look at the display by the road to check myself... that I put a little extra pressure on the petal unwittingly anyway. I would much rather have a live person (officer) who knows this over a machine that just chooses a set level. Also there could be geographical issues such as hills that can cause your car to speed up as well. If they want to use something as such to issue warnings in an area... I can live with that... but I take issue with getting an actual fine or something that would impact my record.

Technically, I really don't like red light cameras, yes, the will help prevent accidents, but at the same time, once the light starts to turn amber (or yellow) and you're like 500 feet from the intersection and traveling like 40 - 50 m.p.h, then you have to slam on the brakes and boom, you'll end up in a major fender-bender accident.

So personally, I really don't like red light cameras

Well since this topic is being brought back from the dead I'll post some more info.
Alot has changed in the photo enforcement industry and I've tried to keep up since I'm fascinated with these devices

There a number of company's out there that offer cameras,

ATS (American Traffic Solutions) They bought out Nestor Traffic Systems, Traffipax and LaserCraft, Inc.
ATS by far has the best cameras at catching violations to the equipment used. There also the largest company in North America
http://www.atsol.com/

Redflex Traffic Systems- based out of South Melbourne, Victoria. Huge company, yet have a lot of problems, I noticed here in the US it can only catch one violation at a time. Also how they use a secondary camera to grab a plate, that has cause a lot of wrongful tickets including one to a friend of mine.
http://www.redflex.com/index.php/en/rtsi-home

GatsoUSA- http://www.gatso-usa.com/solutions_rlc.php

ACS Affiliated Computer Services, Inc http://www.acs-inc.com/public-safety-se ... t%20camera

I'll post some more info and videos if anyone else is interested.