Clang, Clang! Camera!

I feel so much safer now that we have red light and speed cameras in town. Our politicians insist they're for our safety, not revenue generation, so it must be so. Since the companies that supply and maintain the systems get their cuts, the tickets are very expensive.

I've nothing again ticketing or otherwise deterring red-light runners. I do object to added road congestion because people are afraid to enter the intersection for their left turn when the light is green for fear of being ticketed if the light changes while they wait to make a safe left. I object to people slamming on the brakes a millisecond after a yellow light, increasing the chances of a rear-end collision. The yellow lights are kept intentionally short to maintain the camera's "take".

I do object to ticketing for speed with no other consideration. If someone is a danger to themselves or others, a ticket should be issued. Police officers have little more flexibility than the robot cameras in enforcing speed limits. The cameras are no better or worse in this aspect -- they just add more chances to get caught in a moment of forgetfulness.

Fortunately most of the cameras are in fixed locations. One company makes a device that uses GPS to compare your location and bearing to known camera locations and sounds a warning when you approach them. Some GPSs have custom POI (Points of Interest) capability with alarm notifications. Since I already have such a GPS, I use the latter solution to remind me of camera locations as I'm approaching them. My Magellan unit says "Clang, Clang! Camera!".

I expect that, someday, it would be going off at every intersection in every town and every quarter mile on a freeway. Or maybe by then we'll be required to have equipment in our cars so they can continually monitor us and debit our bank accounts as we drive.