Why doesn’t this surprise me in the least? Police in the United Kingdom admit that nearly half of their speed cameras are not switched on, they’re just sitting there, useless boxes.
Sure, in a way, they still “work”, inasmuch as seeing one of the boxes while driving will make you check your speed, but if you think about it for more than a minute, you’ll realize that is only half their job. The other half, supposedly, is to dole out some for of law enforcement, and assumedly punish the guilty. And if you think about THAT for a few minutes more, you’ll realize that’s a big juicy rationalization at best.
The problems with using speed cameras (or red light cameras for that matter) are pretty big. Not only have they been shown to be regularly abused as surveillance devices, but even using them for their stated purpose, catching speeders, is problematic at best. In addition to that, there is the whole issue of turning over a chunk of a societies judicial system to a mechanism, not person. ‘The machine said you’re guilty, and that means you’re guilty’, is the prevailing view of most courts. The less people (i.e. cops) involved, the harder it is to challenge.
Add to that the deployment of speed cameras and red light cameras increase accidents, and it’s fairly obvious why a given municipality will use these things: to generate income.
Source: AutoBlog
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