Newschannel5.com reports that the bloom may be off the rose when it comes to relations between local government and employees slaving away at Nissan’s new Tennessee plant. “Murfreesboro recently installed six red light cameras to catch people who ignore traffic signals. About 2,600 citations have been issued since July. Thousands of drivers have been ticketed and employees for one of Rutherford County’s largest employers have been repeat violators. ‘When we’re looking through the citations and Nissan North America did stand out. There were nearly 40 citations,’ said Murfreesboro Police spokesman Kyle Evans.” Problem: a lot of the violators are driving leased vehicles, registered to Nissan. Evans smells a rat. “‘When you have this many citations perhaps when you’re driving a vehicle that’s registered to you directly and you may have the idea you’re not going to be held accountable or responsible for it,’ he said. ‘Pretty much all these citations have not been paid.'” Good neighbor that it is, Nissan promises to trace the plates to the employee leasing the car and make sure they pay the citation. That ought to make everyone happy.
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Always, my first question is this: were the tickets justifiably issued, and can this be proven to any reasonable person? I still have my doubts.
I’m really torn about red light cameras. In the town I happen to live in I routinely have to wait at a green light while two to three sometimes four cars run the red light. It’s come to the point where at some intersections with limited visibility I wait for a few seconds and then creep slowly out just to make sure I’m not hit.
In one of the few times I will give local police credit for something, they do a reasonable job trying to enforce red light running. There have been rumblings of red light cameras at some intersections. I just don’t like the whole for profit angle. For that matter I don’t like the for profit angle (for local jurisdictions) for most traffic tickets.
I’d feel better if, after administration costs, any moneys left over from traffic enforcement were used for charity or overall community improvement. Of course that would change the whole traffic enforcement landscape, wouldn’t it?
ya know thinking about these speed cameras and red light cameras. If the incident rate of infractions is so high, it makes you wonder if what they are calling an infraction is truly that unsafe? So if 2500 people “ran” the red light, shouldn’t there have been 2500 crashes? or say 1250? hell why not 250?
Always, my first question is this: were the tickets justifiably issued, and can this be proven to any reasonable person? I still have my doubts.
How can you prove that if it was issued by a police officer? Without a reliable witness, that is? ETA: Even with a reliable witness, now that I think about it.
After having been on the receiving end of an officer on a fishing expedition, I’d take a camera eight days a week.
I think they should convert red light cameras to blocking-the-intersection cameras. $1,000 fine, per motorist who is inconvenienced.
I would suggest someone go out and time the yellow light to make sure its duration was not decreased to generate more tickets and revenue – which is illegal. How many cities have had to refund tickets for this exact violation now?
I hate these cameras with a passion, as I regard them as revenue generators of the worst kind.
HOWEVER, I DO wish the police here in Michigan would actually get out of the donut shops long enough to actually enforce a few road rules and write tickets to deserving reprobates.
Just this morning, for about the eleventy millionth damn time, I had some bingo the clown pull STRAIGHT OUT IN FRONT OF MY CAR FROM A SIDE ROAD WITHOUT STOPPING (as I’m driving 50-55 through a green light). Brake test, horn test.
Followed this individual to the next light and wonder if he/she were DRUNK at 7:15 in the A.M. Wandering, weaving, over the center line, over the other line, 42 in a 55, then 62 in a 55, then back to 50 and so on.
Got to the divided highway red light which has two left turn lanes, I got into the left most lane and glanced over at the idiot-extraordinaire.
A teen girl. Probably texting, cell phoning, putting on makeup – or all 3.
Then I dropped my wife off, headed for a small side-trip to go fill up with the only real gasoline left in the area (a small side-journey, thankfully). I’m watching other drivers weave, wander, nearly drive into my rear end (well, I am actually trying to stay within a tad of the speed limit, after all). I glance back at the one individual behind me and she’s busy putting makeup on. I glance to my left and the SUV which had been in front of me (and which had likewise been weaving etc) – she was putting HER makeup on.
Any wonder that I took the wimpy tiny horn out of my Prius and put two Hella autobahn horns, a relay and an inline fuse from the main 12 volt box under the hood?
I just hope I live to get home tonight.
Oh yeah, Michigan has a law which prohibits camera tickets – it’s part of the Michigan Constitution that if you are arrested and ticketed, it has to be “in person”.
But that would involve the po-lice actually doing their damn job, wouldn’t it?
I guess the new expression, at least in Murfreesboro, is “Drive it like you leased it.”
I’m not torn at all about red camera lights, as long as there are no shenanigans going on regarding the length of the yellow light signal. I agree with psarhjinian that they are much more reliable than an officer.
Menno:
About one month ago, I was behind an SUV that was weaving all over the road. I had had enough of this sort of driver; so, I asked my wife to call the police on her cell phone. She did, giving them updates of our progress through the streets of our fair city for approximately 5 minutes. I continued to follow the car on a very circuitous route to the parking lot of a Subway shop. The driver continued to mostly drive very slow with occasional bursts of acceleration and weave into and out of the driving lanes of the roads we were on, nearly hitting one jogger and severl light posts. No cops. I asked my wife to call them back after the girl finally stopped at the Subway and 20 minutes later (she was still there in the parking lot) a cop finally showed up. She tried to pull out, but he used his cruiser to block her in. After talking to her for several minutes, he left with her still behind the wheel. She then continued to sit in the parking lot (I stayed parked on the opposite side of the street approximately 1/2 block away) for at least 5 minutes longer, during which time the cop cruised by again (I guess she decided that she didn’t need to go wherever she had been headed to when the cop first pulled up). It makes me wonder what she was on and why the cop let her go. Oh, I have also seen drivers run red lights in front of cops with nothing happening.
Menno:
The problem is you live in Michigan.
Actually I don’t know how you can drive a Prius there with the condition those roads are always in.
Hi BlueBrat
Yes, Michigan drivers are well known throughout the entire midwest as amongst the worst in the union, but I hear it’s a matter of warped-pride that people from the people’s socialist repugant of Massachusetts insist THEY are even worse drivers than LA or NYC inhabitants.
I moved back home from the UK 16 years ago (where, if you drive incompetently, you’ll end up dead or worse – in a British gaol; that’s jail to the rest of us).
As for Michigan roads, it was positively embarrassing to be from Michigan and drive US 2 in the Upper Peninsula a few years ago. There’s a spot where US 2 meanders into Wisconsin. Suddenly, the “suspension and patience test” ended – smooth roads. Ker-POW wham, slam, shake rattle roll – we were back in Michigan….
US 2 is significantly better now, even in Michigan, but pretty much the rest of the roads in Michigan SUCK.
Just goes to show that Prius’s are TOUGH little sunsabitches, doesn’t it? My first Prius, a 2005, put 48,000 miles on these craptastic Michigan roads over 3 years (one loose wire on the self-levelling headlamps was the ONLY PROBLEM)*, and the new one has 16,800 miles on it – I’ve had it a year. (I drive a lot – hence my need for a hybrid).
BTW 4 weeks ago, diesel cost 75 cents a gallon more than gasoline here, now they’re even. So either the oil companies are cutting diesel drivers some slack (OK you can all stop laughing hysterically now) or else gasoline prices are about 75 cents per gallon too high (could that be greed?) – not forgetting that it takes more crude oil to make a gallon of diesel than gasoline.
* the loose wire on the ’05 Prius made the self-levelling headlamps “go to default” – raising them. This was precipatous for me since it allowed me to see & miss a deer on the way back from Grand Rapids at 10pm!
Alright, I am so sick of this crap, if we want to solve this red light problem once and for all just install gates at every intersection just like at rail road crossings, if you blow the light you will damage your car. However, the police could not gain revenue from the cameras, I wonder how many lights have shortened yellow cycles to increase the chances of violation.