Having just been in Chicago, one of the most prevalent subject of conversation (despite the football season of course) is the ever-rising number of tickets being given to drivers. The Daley administration first made Chicago the most expensive parking city in the country with a corrupt deal that bordered on the criminal. The city was also accused of corrupt dealings with the company handling red-light ticking. However, none of this has curtailed the city contractors and officials clipping motorists for revenue in the form of endless ticketing. The latest outrage was the city reducing the time of yellow lights — a small tweak of a second that resulted in nearly $8 million in new tickets. Drivers are being treated as sources for revenue and hit with the equivalent of speed traps and short lights to generate more and more tickets.
Near my mother’s house in Chicago, she constantly warns me of such a trap that suddenly reduces car speed to a crawl. The reason is that it is being treated as a school zone even though there is no school nearby. All of her neighbors have been clipped despite driving less then 40 miles per hour on the main street.
The short yellow lights resulted in thousands of new $100 tickets from red light cameras. These cameras seem to function as a new hidden tax but the cost is not just cash by destroying the driving records of citizens – impacting insurance and, for many, their jobs.
Chicago may have picked up this idea from the Florida Department of Transportation which in 2011 secretly reduced the length of yellow lights and bringing in a windfall. Since most people have a common notion of the length of time, a small tweak can catch them off guard and snare their cars in a red light run.
It would seem logical that all yellow lights should have a uniform standard time to avoid this type of manipulation. At a minimum, Chicagoans have got to rise up against this type of revenue-generated traffic trap. People are struggling in Chicago and they do not need city officials manipulating lights to find new ways to siphon us more of their money (before they have to pay the over-priced meters of course).
Source: Time
Paul, Do you PTSD, Pizza Traumatic Stress Disorder, burning the roof of your mouth w/ hot cheese?
Nick – I let my pizza cool to an eatable temperature. 😉 I am generally opposed to pain, mine or others.
“He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.”
Karen, Just another reason to not watch soccer. My Colombian son was a very good soccer player. I went to the games and cheered. But I HATE the game. I wanted to love it, or @ least like it, but I can’t. He’s a helluva and athlete and in his later years has really got into hockey, a big sport in my neck of the woods. I kid him he may be the only Colombian hockey player in the world.
In Los Angeles the company that installs the red light cameras also sped up the yellow light so that a driver would be ticketed. The company was making most of the money of the fines. The City finally did away with the cameras.
david:
“I am so sick of the trend in all communities to make traffic tickets not about safety but about raising revenue.”
That’s the problem, right there.
But I suspect if they reduced law enforcement, the politicians would put all the manpower into revenue generation than public safety.
Karen S wrote: “But I suspect if they reduced law enforcement, the politicians would put all the manpower into revenue generation than public safety.”
They will always go after the money, but if you have 30 officers on the force and you reduce that number to 15, I would hope they would prioritize their time such that traffic violations are not as high on the list as robbery, murder, etc.
It is a common gut reaction when seeing all these people being pulled over for speeding or whatever, “don’t they have more important things to do with their time?”
At the park where my nephew plays soccer, they did not build any parking when they constructed the park. Seriously. Zero parking. And then across the street, there is a no parking sign hidden in a tree, around a curve. The first time I watched him play, I parked, along with a long line of cars, across the street. We all got tickets, like 25 cars. The cop showed me where the no parking sign was, but it was not visible from where I was parked. I would have had to walk, away from the park, all the way around a curve to see it.
They make a lot of money every weekend.
Karen – you can defeat the ticket by showing the sign is not visible. It becomes a trap.
Pogo – great post.
The city has forgotten that the PURPOSE of traffic lights is to ease the flow of traffic and increase safety. Sometimes the government forgets its purpose.
Paul, I have a buddy in KC who has the same attitude as you. Hell, he’ll even eat frozen pizza and like it. Well, he cooks it first.
Nick – I actually like cold (not frozen) pizza better than hot. 🙂
Karen, Politicians can count quite well. They count both lobbyist dollars and tax dollars. It’s all free money to them.
The people should not let this stand.
If we act like sheep, and allow this to continue, it is no one’s fault but our own.
Our politicians answer to us, and they anger their constituents at the peril of their office. It’s pretty easy to vote them out.
Karen – we had a guy who was going around putting boxes over the cameras. It turns out, there is no law against it.
First of all, this is especially heinous, because this scheme must also increase red light accidents.
Second, tax-and-spend philosophies inevitably produce a never ending hunger for revenue, but this is especially out of control. To squeeze the population of a struggling city like that is terrible. Opposing tax-and-spend and spiraling revenue generators is what turned me into a fiscal conservative years ago. But math isn’t everyone’s strong suit, especially politicians, it seems.
hinky, Wow! I can’t believe I never heard of this book. I just read some reviews and downloaded it onto my kindle. I just finished, I Heard You Paint Houses. The title is a euphemism for hit man. If you “Paint Houses” you kill people for money. The narrator is Frank Sheeran, a Teamster from Philly and main hit man for Russell Buffalino, a little known boss and one of the best, Jimmy Hoffa, and other Mafioso. Sheeran says, as he is getting ready to die, that he clipped Hoffa and gives very credible details, actually taking the author to the house where he did it. Only someone who Hoffa trusted could have clipped him. That’s how it works, you get killed by someone you trust. Hoffa was livid that the Mob let Frank Fitzsimmons remain head of the Teamsters. He threatened to talk about the JFK assassination, which the Mob did for Hoffa and themselves. Hoffa was a loose cannon. Santo Trafficante’s motto was, “When in doubt, have no doubt.” Scorcese is making this book into a movie w/ DeNiro and Pesci. Joe Pesci has to play Hoffa, he’s PERFECT. Nicholson did a horseshit job playing Hoffa. He’s a great actor, just wrong for the role.
I love deep-dish, but the pizza in Bahrain and the Philippines were the two most appreciated.
Olly – I don’t care what it is, how deep it is, how thin it is, pizza is the food of the Gods.
hinky, Thanks for the lead on Sin in the Second City.
Bailers, don’t forget about the White Sox and the better pan pizza comes from Pequods! 🙂
Isaac, I drive all over this country. The most reasonable speed limits and cops, from my experience, are in the west and southwest. Now, geography plays a part in this, good open roads w/ reasonable speed limits[75-80]. But, politics also play a part. These are not Dem states trying to squeeze every penny out of you.
***Moderator please check my held comment.
A Long Term Study of Red-Light Cameras and Accidents
“41 signalised intersections in Melbourne. The RLC were installed in 1984, and reported accidents for the period 1979 to 1989 were used in the detailed analysis.
The results of this study suggest that the installation of the RLC at these sites did not provide any reduction in accidents, rather there has been increases in rear end and adjacent approaches accidents on a before and after basis and also by comparison with the changes in accidents at intersection signals.
There has been no demonstrated value of the RLC as an effective countermeasure.”
A Detailed Investigation Of Crash Risk Reduction Resulting From Red-Light Cameras In Small Urban Areas
“North Carolina 2004
The results do not support the view that red light cameras reduce crashes. Instead, we find that RLCs are associated with higher levels of many types and severity categories of crashes.”
Virginia DOT Study on Red-Light Cameras
“However, the information in the study actually shows red light camera intersections to be more dangerous. The study showed a definite increase in rear-end crashes and only a possible decrease in angle crashes. It also showed an increase in total injury crashes.“
Pogo hears a who, I retrieved your comment at 9:42. The post contained more than two links which causes the system to snag it. You were probably not aware of this but if you have more than two links you would like the viewers to read you can accomplish this by placing those within additional comments. I made the correction for you and the post is above.
“TALLAHASSEE | A new independent state report showing that crashes have increased at intersections with red-light cameras will add momentum to an effort to ban the cameras’ use in Florida during the upcoming legislative session.
The addition of nine new red-light cameras in Lakeland brought the city’s total in 2013 to 18, from which it collected $122,799 from its share of fines.
Total crashes at red-light intersections are up 12 percent, with side-angle crashes — most commonly associated with red-light running — up 22 percent.
Rear-end collisions were up 35 percent.
Fatalities are down 49 percent at the red-light camera intersections. Side-swipe accidents are down 84 percent.”
Source
If you want a primer on Chicago politics in the early 20th century combined with a review of the best brothel in town (the Everleigh Club run by Minna and Ada Everleigh) read Sin in the Second City. Consider if anything has changed.