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this post was submitted on 02 Sep 2023
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"Just don't speed"
Meanwhile in reality they can craft these traps to maximize revenue by doing things like changing speed limits for specific sections of the same road for no apparent reason other than to charge people for speeding.
In addition to your point, there are certain places (I'm looking at you, Houston) where a whole lot of people just have paper tags. They're all faked. So where are we sending those tickets?
There are also a load of unregistered motorcycles with plates from three owners ago. It's not their fault that no one bothered to register after that.
TXTag tried sending me bills for someone who bought my car after I traded it in. I proved it was no longer mine. They dropped those charges. Then it started over the next time whoever owns the car drove on their tollway. Went on for two years.
I'm sure long-term they will improve the system and things like this will happen less and less. I'm sorry that happened to you, but it doesn't mean the idea as a whole is bad.
I'm literally arguing against privatization in the adjacent post. Again, this is not productive discourse. "Burn everything down" isn't a realistic or helpful suggestion.
What you're describing may be an issue. I suspect it is a tiny minority of the speeding tickets written. The above poster is advocating for well advertised limits and automated ticketing. I think this is a very reasonable solution to an undeniable problem: driving is dangerous, speeding more so.
The situation your describing a contrived edge case and is not a valuable contribution to the discussion at this stage.
"Just don't speed" is, by and large, a very reasonable thing to ask of drivers.
Just because you can't see the obvious issue of deriving revenue (and thus eventually relying on it) from traffic violations, doesn't mean it's a contrived edge case. Here are a couple of articles to help you along: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/31/us/police-ticket-quotas-money-funding.html
https://www.digitaltrends.com/cars/red-light-camera-controversy/
I read the article second article, the first is paywalled. I still think cameras are a good solution. The argument in the article sounds a lot like "some police are bad, we shoud disband the police" or "some government officials are greedy, we should disband the government".
Frankly, it sounds like the real issue if that they have privitized the production and configuration of the traffic cameras. If there was legislation in place that ensured fair and consistent implementation of the devices much of the issues identified by the author would be moot.
Any system that we put in place to enforce rules can be abused by those in power, but that doesn't mean the system is bad or wrong. The reality again is that cars are dangerous, and I argue we should prioritize protecting the public.
It's easy to hop in a discussion and say "no that's bad", but a lot more productive to say "here's an alternative".
Privatization is an issue, but also cities or police departments that rely on such revenue will also push for systems that drive revenue since it is a significant portion of their budget. Here's another piece that explains it: https://www.npr.org/2023/05/09/1174962751/paved-paradise-examines-how-parking-has-changed-the-american-landscape
It's a pretty long piece which covers other aspects of parking, but if you start reading from this excerpt: "GRABAR: I think so. Essentially, parking enforcement serves as a subset of what is now known as revenue-driven policing. And the idea here is that cities take advantage of these parking laws to try and get as much money out of people as possible, but not in the way that you would think, right?" and onward, it covers how underlying problems aren't solved because the revenue derived from the existing situation is too convenient for the city. They even build around that by giving certain companies discounts on parking tickets because of how often they get them from just trying to do their job.