Dubai Debt Issues Push Stocks Down
Family Gets Early Christmas Gift From Ellen DeGeneres
Photos of D Train Murder Depict Bloody Panic
Stuy Pyro Leaves Notes In Hieroglyphics
Mayor: Sex Trafficking Victims, Please Speak Up
As of a little more than a year ago the city had 50 traffic cameras to catch drivers who run red lights. Last summer the state legislature approved doubling the number of cameras. The new cameras were installed in December and they have been busy capturing the license plates of red light runners ever since.
City Department of Transportation figures, as reported by the Post, show more than a doubling of red light running drivers --from 21,799 in January 2006 to 56,312 this past January. If that pace continues the city will collect an extra $33.8 million in fines this year. Outgoing DoT Commisioner Iris Weinshall says the program is about safety, not revenue generation, and that the program is extremely effective.
In addition to the 100 operating cameras, which rotate between 175 high-traffic intersections, the city also has 200 dummy cameras. The dummies flash when cars run a red light but don't take a picture. Weinshall would like to increase the number of working cameras ten-fold so that there are 1000 cameras amongst the city's 12,000 intersections.
Some residents are complaining about the new cameras. The Times talks a few residents of the Parc Vendome condo on 57th St., near a newly installed camera at 57th and 9th. The flash used by the camera is a 300-watt strobe light. Residents see the flash day and night, but the problem is worse after dark, especially late on a Saturday night. Complaints to City Councilmember Gale Brewer have gotten the DoT to promise to reposition the offending flash.
Fort Greene traffic camera by ultraclay! on Flickr
add to stumble upon
add to reddit
tweet this
post to facebook
good thing i have a paintball gun
Can we get these in the Financial District and rig them to work at stop signs? The livery cabs serving the fat cats of Wall Street think the signs are Stoptional.
And just because your car is pointed the right direction does not mean you can BACK UP a one-way street, especially in excess of 10 MPH for more than A BLOCK.
Paintball gun? wow, you must be mature.
Or, the king of Nerd toys, whichever one fits.
The biggest problem with these cameras and the reason I know they use them simply to generate $$$ is the lights with the cameras have an extremely short yellow period and I've seen continuous rear end collisions by the intersection that I walk by on the way to work that has one of these installed -- you see people people jam on the brakes to avoid going through the yellow (which lasts for a split second) and getting caught by the camera.
If I'm at a red light and an ambulance pulls up behind me, they can kiss off! No way I'm moving out of the way and risk getting a ticket.
Red light camera detector for all these cameras is now available - chekc it out
chris
navalert.com
http://www.navalert.com
Red light cameras are not about safety. They are about revenue. The traffic light timing at many intersections is not adjusted properly including the red light camera intersections and generate quite a few false tickets.
Beyond the money issue, intersections governed by traffic lights are inherently unsafe to begin with. There are a number of factors that influence a driver's decision to proceed through an intersection . The red light camera does not record or evaluate all these variables. At best, they capture mistakes in judgement. In my neighborhood in Queens, I've watched many vehicles blatantly blow red lights at 50+ mph...the red light camera flash goes off well after the car has cleared the intersection. Tell me how safety was served as a the red light camera would not have prevented an accident with another vehicle or collision with a pedestrian.
It is sad that in this day and age - not one person considered the discomfort it could potentially have on the residents before installing those cameras at certain angles.
If people were driving the speed limit they wouldn't have to make life and death decisions at every traffic light. It would also help if people didn't tailgate. That said, Jeffrey is right that it's more about the revenue but then just about every ticket or summons these days is.
Sadly, This is needed, Around my way (St.Albans) these assholes speed all the time . They need one of those camera's on every third, or fourth corner on both sides of all busy streets ! If your not speeding or running y red lights then you shouldn't have a problem with it . I mean it's not like the camera's are trained in on the activity within the car itself . They only capture the license plate #'s I agree with "Patrick" What if an ambulance pulls up behind you, and your stuck at a red light . I'm not moving either ! If a cop asks me why I didn't yield to the ambulance I'll point to the camera taking my license plate number down .
I work right down the street from that camera on 57th and 9th. I walk by it every day, and each day I see people blow through the light.
It flashes for every car that blows the ligh. Sometimes multiple times per car.
When it first went in, my first reaction was that there was an emergency vehicle coming. That's how bright the light is.
There is a way to legally beat these cameras:
A majority of red light & speed cameras utilize strong flash to photograph the license plate on your car. Once sprayed on your license plate, PhotoBlocker’s special formula produces a high-powered gloss that reflects the flash back towards the camera. This overexposes the image of your license plate, rendering the picture unreadable.
http://www.answerdots.com/detail.php?link_id=25
It is obvious some of these people dont own cars. And one idiot said if an abulance or cop is behind them they wont move into an intersection where the camera is. This idiot said he lives in my neighborhodd(St Albans) therefore he is propbably black, like myself. If you think you wont move out of the cops way, you have another thing coming, they will tear your black body apart or put you in jail.Ill try to keep it clean, but basically they will mess you up. Anyways, these cameras are dispriportionately in black neighborhoods even though we have less cars. Anyways, cameras are good to protect pedestrians, but they are being used for evil. They are used to generate money. I like Bloomberg but hes a bastard on my wallet.