Score one for us! Arizona to remove speed cameras

[Alps]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100507/ap_on_re_us/us_arizona_speed_cameras

[agentsteel53]

sweet!

while Arizona is in a repealing mood, I've got several ideas I'd like to run by them.

(yes, that.  Also, can we make the rural speed limit 85 like the legislature was debating a couple years back?)

[hm insulators]

I myself, along with my mother and lots of other people, like the speed cameras. The drivers are behaving themselves and slowing down!

An unscientific observation: Every couple of weeks, I go out to my mother's house in Sun City West. Driving home, I go north on Loop 101 from Bell Road. The freeway soon bends east and ultimately ties into I-17. There are three fixed speed cameras along this stretch. At I-17, I turn south and usually get off at Bethany Home Road. There is a speed camera for the southbound lanes right under the overpass, and you can see the camera flashes reflect off the bridge out of the corner of your eye when you're waiting for the light to change at the end of the offramp.

When the cameras went up in 2008, as I drove home (observing the speed limits), I was guaranteed to see at least one or two flashes from each of the three cameras on Loop 101 as they flashed speeders going more than 11 mph over the speed limit. In addition, while waiting for the light to change at the Bethany Home offramp, I would see the camera flashes there three or four times as speeding drivers triggered the shutters.

In the last several months, I almost never see the cameras flashing speeding motorists any more. My last trip to Mother's house, I saw one flash reflection at the Bethany Home camera. I can't tell you when was the last time I saw the Loop 101 cameras taking pictures. So obviously, the motorists are slowing down!

I'd love to see speed cameras on Los Angeles area freeways!

Unfortunately, as those of us who want more sanity on our highways are finding out, putting teeth into our traffic laws is more like pulling teeth.

[agentsteel53]

When the cameras went up in 2008, as I drove home (observing the speed limits), I was guaranteed to see at least one or two flashes from each of the three cameras on Loop 101 as they flashed speeders going more than 11 mph over the speed limit.

it seems like everyone knows this but me.  When I last went down I-10 a few weeks ago, I drove a consistent 63mph, figuring that my odometer may have had an error, and I had no idea what their threshold was, but I figured 65 (as signed) was a reasonable guess.

now I know why everyone else was doing 80-85, and slowing down to about 73 every time one of the "photographic enforcement zone" warnings signs came up.

and, no, that is not safe driving behavior, modulating your speed like that. 

[shoptb1]

Also, can we make the rural speed limit 85 like the legislature was debating a couple years back?)

Oh wait...it's not?  I guess I just decided it was 85-90 mph last week on I-40 between Kingman and Williams

[Sykotyk]

The problem with the speed cameras (and red light cameras) is people modify their behavior for that one camera. That becomes dangerous. Especially those that slam on their brakes at stop signs to avoid a red-light camera (causing the trailing car trying to make the light plow into them) and for speed cameras, causing freeway travelers to use their brakes unnecessarily just to make sure the camera catches them going the legal speed. It's like speed bumps/humps. All it does is entice people to drive faster between the speed humps to make up for the lost time going slow over them.

Sykotyk

[Bickendan]

Also, can we make the rural speed limit 85 like the legislature was debating a couple years back?)

Oh wait...it's not?  I guess I just decided it was 85-90 mph last week on I-40 between Kingman and Williams

"Sir, I'd like to see yer license, insurance and registration..."

[Truvelo]

From what I saw when driving there last year the fixed cameras were only on the freeways and not the surface streets. Call me a cynic but could this be because freeways are likely to have a higher concentration of thru traffic that originates from outside the area so those getting caught don't have a say on local matters?

[vdeane]

Freeways also have a higher concentration of speeders.  Except in situations where the speed limit is under-posted, people generally do within 5mph of the speed limit on surface streets (at least in upstate NY).  It's only on freeways where people driver faster than that.

What is needed is a way to make sure people don't know where the cameras are.  That way, they will have to modify their behavior all the time.

[Brandon]

^^
Why?

Why not simply raise the freeway limit to something that fits the road anyway?  Artificially low limits are a very bad thing.

[roadfro]

^ If only it were that easy.  Politics and safety advocates generally have a way of preventing traffic engineers from raising speed limits to the design speed and/or the 85th percentile speed where they should be...  That's a discussion for another thread.

[vdeane]

Artificially low limits are the norm in upstate NY.  We're lucky that many roads in Monroe County are likely to have speed limits raised to 45 mph (due to a dispute between the town and county limits; the county limit is 45, but all the towns specify 35, and they're supposed to be the same).

[Crewdawg]

today the cameras are no longer working on the freeways   

[shoptb1]

today the cameras are no longer working on the freeways   

Instead, Arizona will be replacing them with "Mexican Identification Cameras". 

[AZDude]

Probably a coincidence but since the camera's were shut off there have already been five crashes on the freeways of Phoenix.  The day after they were turned off there were three crashes.  One on I-10, and one on US 60, and one on the 101.  Today there was one on the 101, and the US 60.

[english si]

The question is how many were there before? Also two days isn't a great statistic sample. Look at annual data, and the change in it from other, similar, places. In the UK the decline in fatalities levelled off when the war on speed was at its peak, whereas similar areas in Europe were seeing a good decline.

There's loads of factors at play, of course. My local council celebrated a speed limit reduction near my house as being successful three years afterwards, due to there being less crashes. However the main reason why the limit was lowered was that in the previous three years, there had been two nasty one-car crashes by teenage drivers (IIRC one was under-the-influence) driving at over 60 along there at night (the limit was 40), leading to 3 deaths on that stretch of road (quite how we didn't have to suffer a speed camera as well as the limit reduction, I don't know). Since the silly too-fast drivers had crashed their way out of driving, then there weren't going to cause multiple-causalities again. Given the recklessness of the driving, would a 30 limit being there before have changed anything? Has it changed anything now?

[agentsteel53]

Probably a coincidence

given that drivers are now no longer distracted by the old slow-down-flip-off-speed-up routine and can concentrate on, you know, driving - I'd say indeed it's a coincidence.