8 thoughts on “OP-ED: Are We Ready for Automated Traffic Enforcement?

  1. Not only is this potential, Big Brother and privacy issue. It is also the first step for reducing Police Officer jobs.

  2. By all means, let’s give people a ticket for using their discretion as to whether it’s safer to drive 25 mph or to keep to the pace of traffic. Obviously, we should slam on the brakes and get rear-ended rather than drive across while the light is yellow. Clearly rigid enforcement of the rules in all circumstances and weather conditions is the highest form of safety. I really hope the rest of the legislature has a lick of common sense.

    • I think that Will is not promoting the use of automated enforcement, but rather laying out the issues and asking for input.

  3. Let’s be clear… This is about revenue enhancement and not about public safety.
    There is no due process…. there is no human judgement involved, whereby a police officer can assess if the person just ought to get a warning. And it’s just more Big Brother.

    Moreover, it’s another way to stick it to motorists, who are already paying fees, tolls, meters, excise tax, gas tax, etc…. much of which to subsidize those that take public transportation, that ought to be paying for their own damn transportation and not getting a subsidy from those that don’t use it. We certainly don’t get subsidies for the tolls we have to pay.

    So you can try to wrap this in a mantle of public safety. But we can see through it. It’s about raising revenues, for a State that SPENDING PROBLEMS, not a revenue problem.

    • Oh John, what do you have against public transit? Do you really think that the roads are not subsidized to a greater extent than transit? You are making a very misleading argument.

      Though I do not favor traffic cams because of their surveillance potential, I have one question for you: Do you always obey the speed limit?

  4. Basically, Mr. Brownberger believes that traffic cops should have their discretion taken away from them. I would ask him whether there are any circumstances that would merit a warning. Because his proposed system is either violation or not violation. If he is in favor of purchasing cameras to do traffic cops jobs for them, is he in favor of firing police officers? Finally, if he is right that these “crimes” are under-enforced, he’s not accounted for how suddenly enforcing them will choke the system, leading to additional costs and delays in mailings, appeals, and courts.

  5. I have many issues with automated enforcement, mostly of the “Big Brother” varietyHuman enforcement, with human contact is preferable as long as it is fair and not driven by revenue. Mixing enforcement with the need for revenue undermines public confidence in the fairness of the system.

    On the other hand, in my neighborhood, often driver behavior is out of control. Speed limits are not consistently enforced, especially on side streets that are used as cut throughs to avoid major thoroughfares.

    But enforcement should be a face to face human encounter and police should use the opportunity to remind the public of the destructive potential of the vehicles they drive.

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