Tuesday, March 19, AD 2024 3:37am

O Honest Judge! O Righteous Judge!

I hate speed cameras.  They are mere money making schemes and have nothing to do with traffic safety, drivers in areas infested by the cameras often concentrating on trying to spy the cameras rather than paying atttention to their driving.  In tight economic times drivers who are poor, rather than poor drivers, are hardest hit.  Additionally the use of the cameras is usually legally defective and most attorneys can often defeat such ticket prosecutions if an accused wants to go through the high expense of hiring one to fight the ticket.  Finally, finally, a judge has stood up to this form of legal theft from motorists:

The ruling passed down by Judge Robert Ruehlman grants a permanent injunction  and prohibits further use of the cameras.

Judge Ruehlman called the village’s traffic camera system a game that  Optotraffic, the company that operates the cameras, has a financial stake in. “I used the term ‘game’ because Elmwood Place is engaged in nothing  more than a high-tech game of 3-Card Monty,” the judge wrote in his ruling. “It  is a scam that the motorists can’t win.” “The entire case against the  motorist is stacked because the speed monitoring device is calibrated and  controlled by Optotraffic,” he wrote. Judge Ruehlman pointed out that  Optotraffic had already received $500,000 at the time of the January hearing on  the case.

Some Elmwood Place residents were enraged after speed cameras dispensed $105  citations in the small, economically-struggling village for about six  months.

Adam Price, who received two tickets in two days from the speed cameras, told  9 On Your Side reporter Bryce Anslinger Friday that the entire system was  “ridiculous.”

Go here to read the rest and to read the entire text of Judge Ruehlman’s opinion.  Speed cameras are a small issue in themselves, but they are part of a disturbing trend by government to pick the pockets of citizens under the guise of “public safety” or some other high sounding phrase to disguise a purely mercenary intent.  This too is tyranny and free Americans should not tolerate it.

 

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Jay Anderson
Tuesday, March 12, AD 2013 11:47am

And, as a result of these speed traps, Ohio has already abolished the so-called “mayor’s courts”, and a bill is currently before the legislature to outlaw traffic cameras (both red-light cameras and speed cameras) altogether.

Mary De Voe
Tuesday, March 12, AD 2013 11:54am

All traffic cameras ever caused is back end crashes.

Dante alighieri
Admin
Tuesday, March 12, AD 2013 12:38pm

I won’t hold my breath on them getting rid of them here. DC is making a mint off these machines. It would be refreshing if they were honest about their purpose – revenue – instead of the song and dance about safety.

Don the Kiwi
Tuesday, March 12, AD 2013 5:17pm

Despite many claims by the Transport dept. here that they were NOT revenue gathering means, the publice reaction against them had them taken out. They were installed in about 1993, and by about 2005 they were gone, except in a very few danger points, and at light controlled intersections to spot red light runners. Many of them were vandalised, and the public backlash against them gained political momentum – so we don’t have them any more. But the police do have hand held and vehicle mounted radar, and vehicle mounted speed cameras parked/ located only in problem areas.

J.A.C.
J.A.C.
Wednesday, March 13, AD 2013 3:32am

speed cameras not only result in traffic control…they also keep theives at bay…now there is something to think about..

Foxfier
Admin
Wednesday, March 13, AD 2013 9:29am

speed cameras not only result in traffic control…they also keep theives at bay…now there is something to think about..

Have a lot of sneak thieves in the middle of large highways in your area? That are worried a speed-triggered snapshot will foil them?

Art Deco
Art Deco
Wednesday, March 13, AD 2013 10:28am

England has gone the Orwellian constant surveillance route by cameras everywhere in public and it is more violent today than any time since the Eighteenth Century.

Aye. They need to leave state security cameras to the premises of public agencies and let private business buy their own cameras. Theodore Dalrymple has written briefly on this subject and what the source of the trouble is: the decision-making class in Britain (judges especially, but also higher civil servants and politicians) simply does not believe in punishment and continues to seek to reduce the prison census. He gives examples of the most horrid crimes met with a slap on the wrist while law-abiding citizens who defend themselves with firearms get draconian punishments. You can see it in this bit of stupidity a couple years’ back from the ‘conservative’ minister of police:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/8690466/London-riots-Theresa-May-rejects-calls-for-water-cannon.html

You see the same attitude here among academics, policy wonks, and the helping professions, but not so much anymore among journalists or aught but fringe politicians. It just amazes you the common cultural impulse everywhere: the chatterati and the elites seem driven to be at war with the interests of their own countrymen.

Foxfier
Admin
Wednesday, March 13, AD 2013 10:50am

… and continues to seek to reduce the prison census.

Read that as “continues to seek to reduce the prison sentence.” Both work, but yours makes a LOT more sense.

Up here in Seattle, they’re trying to follow England. Even while they’re being accused of racism because those kids listed as “black” or “hispanic” are punished more often and harshly, taken as raw percentages, than those listed as “white.” (Tellingly, they did actually list Samoans or possibly Pacific Islanders as a separate category…and they were punished at the “white” levels or lower. Amazingly picky racists….)
It couldn’t possibly be that raw racial categories aren’t evenly distributed across the behavioral spectrum, or that someone is more likely to list themselves as a minority if they’re a trouble maker.
(Which did actually happen in my high school, with siblings. Older sister considered herself “other,” because dad was from some tropic island; younger brother considered himself “black,” because he could and it was useful for getting lighter punishment when his criminal actions were discovered.)

Juan Diego
Juan Diego
Wednesday, March 13, AD 2013 10:12pm

he honorable John Kerry Sec Of State put it best.Americans have the right to be
stupid.You purchase the vehicles,give them free maintenance,gas, oil and insur-ance.They ask you to call if you see any drivers breaking the law.
Then the protect and serve people turn around and give you a ticket to repay you
and further insult your intelliegence. I love this contry. Viva America

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