How true is 'Speed Enforced by Aircraft' Sign? (2016) (opens in new tab)

I'm sure in most countries you can choose to take the fine or fight it in court.

How often do you not know whose driving your car?

> Dystopian is the day that Apple sells your location information to the local police force and you just get a speeding ticket in the mail every time you drive 1mph over the speed limit

Something like this happened with TomTom several years ago: https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2011/04/28/135809709...

Considering the defacto speed of 80 on a road that is limited to 65 dominates the whole of New Jersey I think there would be so many people caught in that net they wouldn't be able to properly prosecute it.

As usual, it's all about money. If they used Ez-Pass data (remember, Ez-Pass is a private company) to issue speeding tickets, then no one would get an Ez-Pass and they'd have to go back to toll booths. The system only works because drivers believe that Ez-Pass data is only used for toll collection and nothing more. If they used it to hand out 3mph-over tickets, everyone would stop using it.

I've always wondered about why that hasn't been implemented with EZ-PASS too. My assumption is politicians don't want it because they all like to speed, and it's easier to tell a cop who they are instead of fighting a digital ticket.

> I'm surprised that they don't issue speeding tickets based on the time that EZ-PASS sees your transponder in various locations.

They don't want to do this. Toll systems are set up as private corporations (often with government money) so that they can operate for-profit, and are a tacit "Speeding Pass". E.g. usually there is no enforcement in toll lanes / toll roads for speed limits compared to standard roads. They do this very specifically as an enticement for people to pay in order to get to their destination faster, that is the entire USP (unique selling proposition) to a toll road.

If they started using toll data to automatically enforce speed limits, it would immediately making tolling impossible/unsustainable, and nobody would use transponder systems. There's already issues with people cheating tolls using various methods to obscure their license plate for systems which support license plate tolling.

Backlash indeed. Americans would flip their shit. No more EZ-PASS!

Pretty much any effort to constantly monitor everyone's behavior at all times is dystopian, yeah.

Safety regulations are just the justification for why it's necessary.

The income from fines is the real reason it's done.

Speeding != dangerous driver.

I speed, effectively every day, just as do most other people, because many roads still have a speed limit of 55mph from the 1960s and the expected (and safe, partly because of this) speed on these roads is 70-80mph.

Dangerous drivers are the MANY people I see every day who are on their phones, not looking at the road, with bad lane-keeping practices, who change lanes without using blinkers, or make erratic and sudden movements.

Dangerous drivers are the MANY people I see every day who tailgate and then pass aggressively via weaving between lanes, passing on the right.

Dangerous drivers are the MANY people I see every day who camp in the left lane while going significantly below the expected average speed for the lane, causing some people to feel it necessary to pass them on the right and obstructing the flow of traffic.

Speeding probably isn't good, but it's not even in the top 5 things I would be most concerned about on public roadways in the US from a safety perspective.

As a passenger or another driver on the roadway, I'd much rather be surrounded by attentive drivers with both hands on the wheel who are speeding than inattentive drivers with one hand on the wheel and the other on their phone watching a Tik Tok video and texting their friends while cruise control is set.

The limits that municipalities deliberately set lower than the road can handle so people are more tempted to speed because they feel safe doing so.

This isn't some conspiracy theory. Governments all over use speed fines as part of their budget, it is absolutely within reason to think that they also set up the rules in such a way as to get the outcome they want.

Going the limit when prevailing traffic speed is 15-25 over the limit is not exactly safe. If it were we wouldn't have minimum speed statutes.

I think having fines be a major funding source distracts from the purpose of the enforcement. They’re supposed to be there for public safety, not for making sure there’s a Christmas bonus.

There are countries where traffic fines are based as a percent of salary rather than flat rates. That way the rich are equally incentivized to obey the laws.

That being said I’ve always felt frustrated by speeding tickets. Everyone goes 5-10 over the limit at all times so it makes a system where cops can basically pull over everyone and give them a ticket at will.

It seems like if it’s a limit, it should be an actual sensible number and be an actual limit. Instead of this kafkaesque system where everyone can be deemed guilty at will.

Likewise I feel other behaviors like tailgating and aggressive driving aren’t enforced and (imho) cause more accidents.

There's no alternative here. You're asking for a law where a driver gets to interpret the situation and decide whether a traffic law should apply to them or not. That's just unenforceable, imagine trivial court cases hinging on whether a "reasonable person" would drive a certain speed. Plus, most drivers think they're a better and safer driver than they really are. Do you really trust them to correctly assess the risk, not just to themselves but to others? I certainly don't.

These rules have to be black and white! Do triple digit (mph) speeds on a highway? Get an expensive ticket, even if the highway wasn't busy.

In a country where the first responders, hospitals, etc. are obligated to provide expensive services and care for victims of motor vehicle accidents - regardless of their ability to pay - there is the moral and public policy issue of "My high-speed fun, somebody else's high taxes and medical bills".

> The ticket didn't even pay for the helicopter fuel and the cost of manpower, while zero people were non consensually endangered.

We don't decide to prosecute people based on profitability, thankfully.

In other countries there are fixed cameras, which can even be programmed to have some grey area (do they trip at x+2, 1.1x, ...?). These can probably pay for themselves and then some if placed correctly. They're conspicuously absent from the US.

Mostly abolish them and make the guilty party in an accident cover everyone's expenses. In severe cases suspend their DL for a decade. People have those things called common sense, tradition, individual responsibility, and experience. We should rely on them much more.

We all know that in CA you drive at the speed limit +5. +10 is actually fine too frequently outside HWY 1 so to speak. Once in a while I see people doing what looks like 85 mph and I question their judgement. But if they stay in the same lane I'm OK with it.

The really dangerous things to be punished for are suddenly crossing 4 lanes for an exit and driving in the left lane slower than the car right behind you.

It’s possible this expensive operation ensnares not just the ”innocent” risky drivers but a number of even more dangerous criminals who are driving like they stole it because they actually did steal it or worse.

Affirmative consent from other drivers using the road, pedestrians/cyclists in the roadway, and passengers and children in the car isn’t always practical for each episode of risky driving behavior.

It’s probably enjoyable for some folks, but driving like Vin Diesel (even in the desert) makes me feel selfish and negligent which harshes on my buzz. Therefore it’s not a wise use of my resources.

It cost a lot to make that air/land traffic stop, so I think the fine is probably a bargain!

> How could we rephrase speeding laws so they make sense, instead of this black and white stupidity ?

Ironic considering the lack of nuance in your first sentence. You seem to think that if the guy had wrecked his bike because he was speeding that he would just blink out of existence with no cost to society at all. Do you really think that the only negative externality from speeding is a risk of physically harming somebody? Or are you saying that preventing physical harm to others is the only reason for laws to exist?

> while zero people were non consensually endangered.

because someone is still going to have to scrape your remains off the road after the guardrail you hit decapitated you and degloved your face.

I guess they were spending the fuel cost and heli from a different budget?

No chance the ticket revenue from that operation covered its costs.

It’s an excuse to air out the toys, not a revenue stream.

The data could be used to generate and mail warning tickets to the registered owner of the vehicle, in cases of egregious/reckless mean or a pattern of high speed trips.

Whatever that magic “bad” number is could be derived from crunching one or more of their massive data sets on tolls, driver history, violations, traffic volume, crashes with injuries, etc.

It could be combined with data from a radar camera at the toll reader to verify the license plate for the transponder account, and identify the owner who is nominally responsible.

In some cases where a family/friend is using someone else’s car to drive at highly excessive speeds over multiple trips, the vehicle owner is not aware and may like very much to know!

I don’t see how using transponder data in that way is any more or less Orwellian than speed cameras or redlight cameras. In my US city these levy actual, cumulative $100+ fines on the car’s owner.

These are “non-moving” violations, so the only impact on driving privileges is from failure to pay the fine.

That's exactly what this sort of enforcement avoids: You're averaging across multiple transponders, so unlike a cop with a LIDAR gun taking a single reading (where people do already suddenly slow down) you'd need to consistently not speed across every single one you pass.

In some areas there are several transponders less than a mile apart, so unless you plan on slamming your brakes every few thousand feet you're better off just not speeding

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I'm someone who chronically speeds, but I'm also for blanket highway speed enforcement. Right now speeding seems to be about what you can get away with in a really frustrating way: If can learn the right speed traps, or you can chat a cop the right way, or your car even looks a certain way, you can get away with some ridiculous things.

Blanket enforcement wouldn't necessarily be regressive either: Regardless of how many tickets you can afford, eventually points stack up and you lose your license

It's interesting how many laws need to be selectively enforced because consistent enforcement would enrage people.

Considering the revenue incentive behind express lanes, this is likely the reason. The most salesworthy point of buying your way into that lane is so you can go faster than the flow of traffic. Capping that at the speed limit is the same as capping the marginal utility.

That said, I use the lanes regularly on my motorcycle, and I've witnessed triple-digit speeds (estimated, as I would never violate the law so egregiously) from vehicles in those lanes. At some point, license plate readers and toll tags tell a tale of recklessly high speed.

You mean the Department of Transportation that administers Fastrak (and also the CHP), the individual toll agencies, or the contractors that do various aspects of administration like billing and customer service?

At least some of them do have a positive interest in traffic enforcement beyond tolls.

>Left: people who disregard the physics of air resistance and blast without limits

Left: some guy in a X5 driving steady 150km/h, not reacting to getting flashed and immediately accelerating if you try to pass on the right.

Somehow, as soon as you get out of Germany this stops happening. In France and Benelux you get to comfortably cruise at 250km/h and everyone just moves out of the way.

German autobahns are not exhausting because of the lack of speed limits, they're exhausting because of the Germans.

> ...has not fared particularly well for non-white people...

I (old white male) have not yet had problems. But certainly I know white people who have - best-guess because they were young, or female, or "looked too rich or too poor" for the area in which they were driving. And from second-hand accounts, a fair number of police officers have "law unto themselves" pet theories about what sorts of people they should target for tough enforcement, or let off with a warning.

> Leaving hazy judgement calls up to the police for enforcement, at least in the US, has not fared particularly well for non-white people. See, for example, the history of enforcement of "jaywalking", a "crime" which was recently decriminalized in California for precisely that reason

You will notice that this wasn't solved by setting up enforcement cameras on every street that ticket all jaywalkers equally.

How do those lights work if there are multiple cars on the road?

If you feel confident in your calculations, sure. I've seen the same argument in average speed zones in UK - "in theory" if there's heavy traffic and you go slower than 70mph for a good while, when the traffic clears up you should be able to go much faster and not get a ticket, right? Well, it's not so simple, because the "average" calculation can be done over small stretches instead of the whole big stretch(so if there are 12 cameras on the stretch, the average might be taken from the first 4, then next 4 then next 4 - so it's not so easy to avoid being charged for speeding). The easiest way around it is to....just not speed.

If you're going to go through that kind of trouble, you might as well just register your car in a different country and ignore the cameras.

We have some in france, mostly on highways with lots of tunnels.

Feel free to stop on the emergency lane or in a tunnel, I'm sure the ticket will be as bad if not worse.

A sheriff's helicopter providing evac: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dckKcpqSgDs

You might want to...reread TFA. Perhaps you missed the last few paragraphs the first time around.

Maryland employs state patrol helicopters staffed with paramedics.

Over on the west coast, less so (I work as a ground paramedic in the PNW).

Speed is rarely the only factor in a fatal crash. Alcohol and drugs are the more pertinent issues. Aside from that, pedestrians are 1/6 of all fatalities, as are motorcycles. Most remaining fatalities are single vehicle accidents. Hard collisions with solid objects, ejections from vehicles and bodies of water are fairly common modes. The rear seat in vehicles is noticeably less safe than the front seats. The time of day in some states shows massive swings in the rate of fatalities, and not always correlated with rush hour traffic patterns. The state you are in also seems to be a large factor, and again, not correlated with overall population density.

There's a huge number of data points, and speed does seem like a relatively unimportant one. If you do want to have an impact there, then I suspect that simply redesigning your roads with good considerations for pedestrians would be a better use of your budget.

Which is why the last bank robbery I know of in my city involved an old Iveco truck carrying a radio jammer (the local paper said it was some crazy EMP thing at first). I'll see if I can find the article.

That explains it, thank you. I guess the reason for not using GPS or other instruments for ground speed is also legislation?

Just about any state in the U. S. could haul you off for 20mph over the limit. I'm not going to look up every state, but I'm aware of several where 20 over is "reckless driving", which can put you in the back of the patrol car while your vehicle gets towed away.