Looks like you're going to need night vision gear for those after dark grand prix entries. :)

I'm thinking of buying a "Hot wheels" radar gun myself to see if I can catch folks on my street...

http://www.hotwheels.com/coolstuff/radargun.aspx

Yep... think I missed your point. Sorry.

Yes, you are misunderstanding something. There is a vast difference between exercising one's right to travel vs. posing a threat to others' safety.

(and saying the gubmint has no right to restrict our actions to do whatever we want on public highways)

No one ever said that on that other thread. Those are your words; words that capture your misunderstanding of the salient point being made. We would expect our government to set the rules for conduct on our public roadways. What they cannot do is determine if any individual citizen can travel upon them. They cannot determine when any individual citizen can travel upon them.

So yes, by all means enforce traffic laws where it is reasonable to do so. Neighborhoods are obviously on the top of that list. If the authorities will not do it for you, there is absolutley nothing stopping a concerned citizen from doing it himself. I applaud those efforts. Enforcement of our laws is not the sole province of law enforcement. Citizens have every right to enforce them as well. That's another right that our government would just as soon pretend we do not have, but that is a whole 'nother can of worms.

I think much of the problem here is that authorities only enforce speed laws where it is most likely to increase revenue, not where it would save lives. I never see a radar cop on my road...with driveways intersecting. Boy oh boy do I hear my V-1 go off when I'm on a 55 limit straight stretch without intersecting driveways or secondary roads.

On an interstate? The detector sounds most often where traffic is light, the road is straight, and conditions for exceeding the limit are ideal.

Follow the money...sad but true. Public safety has little to do with traffic law enforcement.

Kudos to our guy for becoming a squeaky wheel...and indirectly, pointing this out. He may be saving a child's life.

I visited a guy in San Antonio, TX several years ago. He drove over 120 MHP in a residential zone, just to display his cars capability. I guess thats ok in TX. No cops allowed in private residential zones.

Huh? What are you talking about?

Jeff,

I apologize if I misunderstood your point. That other thread had seemed to morph from one discussing drunk driving (where I was arguing from the perspective of public safety) to one where people started claiming that the gov't has no right to regulate our passage on public thoroughfares. It wasn't a matter of just regulating when a person travels, but also where and how (and if I'm not paraphrasing you, then I know I'm certainly paraphrasing someone else's comments). Setting limits on how much one can be inebriated yet still remain legal to drive seems like an application of governmental regulation on our right to drive/free passage, does it not? At least, that's the leap of connection I took from the original topic to the one into which it changed. Overall, the issue of public safety seemed to get lost along the way. Or, at least, that's the way it seemed to me. The expression of personal rights appeared to supercede the concept of public safety. Perhaps not what you (and others) fully intended, but that's the way some of the arguments came across, IMO.

I am talking about speeding in residential areas. The subject of this thread.

I can't resist stirring the pot here.

Ok, remember a couple months back there was a thread about the red light cameras? You, know, you run a red light, a camera snaps a photo and you get a ticket in the mail.

As I recall just about everyone was against those. Now everyone is cheering Jake on.

What's the difference?

P.S. I have no problem with red light cameras and no problem with what Jake is doing either...like I said, just wondering.

Good point, Dad. I suppose the difference is that in one case, it's speeding in a residential zone, while in the other it's primarily a commercial area. Are the degrees of danger different? Does it matter? Or is speeding speeding? (Or running a red light)

One difference I do see, though, is that in one case (NFN's) there's actually a cop physically handing out a ticket for an offense for which he/she has caught someone. You're allowed to contest the ticket in court, too. In the other situation (red-light/photo radar), there's no cop actually catching you in the act at the time you're committing said violation. Just someone (potentially not even a cop) looking at pictures after the fact. And there's no real due process afterwards, either.

Jake is not professing these folks guilty in a court of law without any hope of providing for their innocence.

His radar gun has no legal ramifications of any consequence really, he may influence a few cops to show up and he may influence a few folks to slow down.

In a red light camera situation you are guilty until proven innocent, you are told specifically that you have no defense and you must submit to the fine which goes against every tenet of our judicial system. I think that is a lot of folks beef with our traffic court system is that you are presumed guilty if you receive a ticket.

I got a red light camera ticket in San Francisco a couple of years ago and had I lived up there I would have at least tried to fight it but because I had just been visiting I did not. Even in the letter I got, which was originally addressed to my wife who had to 'rat me out', it was stated that we had no defense and had to pay the fine.

Traffic infractions should not be handled any differently than any other criminal matter.

Now, one thing that gets me really bad is that traffic is not fairly policed. They do traffic stops to catch unlicensed drivers, drunks etc but if a cop sees a speeder he is apparently under no obligation to enforce the law. I see it all the time on the highway where EVERYBODY (Including myself) Speeds. It is too the point where it is unsafe NOT to speed but if the speed limits were fairly enforced I think they would be more likely to be observed. I think it's stupid when I see a pack of cars doing 80 in a 65 and a cop is right in there. He should be pulling SOMEONE over to set an example since he can't pull everyone over at once. If not then reset the speed limit because 80 is apparently okay.

I've gotten too many speeding tickets where the circumstances were so ridiculous because it is so common but any defense I might proclaim is wasted breath in traffic court. Without due process there can be no justice.

Rick,

Big problem with the red light camera situation was that it was there solely as a money maker. The cities were shortening the time between the green and red light coming on, sometimes as much as cutting it by 50% over lights with no camera.

A driver would be at the intersection with a green, it would click yellow and he had to make a decision to do a panic stop or continue through the light. Under the old "non stop light standard timing" this driver would have been legal, safe and right to continue. With the yellow light being shorted at the lights with camera's they now were "flashed" and their photos taken solely to make money.

Scottsdale AZ is one of the towns that was caught doing this. Thousands of drivers lost money, points and paid extra for insurance for around two years before someone started checking the timing. Lots of egg on everyone's faces and all was refunded. This type of BS is where most of us had heartburn with the red light cameras, not a legit situation where someone is really running a red light.

That one did kind of take a weird turn off topic, didn't it? I probably didn't explain what I was trying to get at very well at all. Public safety is undoubtedly intertwined with our absolute right to use our roadways - or not. Certainly if some one demonstrates they are a hazard to the rest of us, we must take away or severely diminish that right for that individual. A good parallel is firearms ownership; we don't want some one that has used one to commit a crime to exercise his "right" to go get another one.

Exactly. The radar boys set up where they are most likely to find customers. As an example, I just came over our Cascade range via Highway 2. I saw a couple of cops with radar (gawd I love my V1) on my trip. Where were they? One at the end of the long downhill run from Stevens Pass, at the end of a passing lane. Straight as an arrow, nary a cross street, home, business, driveway, anything adjoining or crossing the highway. I'm sure he was popping guys that exceeded ten over, in the interest of "public safety". The other was similarly placed just past the end of a passing zone in the middle of bum fuch nowhere. And we cannot get the city cops to patrol our 'hood, with little kids playing in the road, dogs chasing them around, and all the other potential targets for an out-of-control car. Very frustrating.

I got stopped on tues at about 7:30 pm here in houston by texas department of public safety. these guys are notorious for running the speed traps described above. he got me for 74 in a 60. there was not another car in sight on a road that is straight, flat and intersected by other roads at 2 to 3 mile intervals. after i signed the ticket i told him that i did not feel that the public was endangered by my actions and it was too bad that he was not stationed near the neighorborhood where a 9 yr old was killed 6 months earlier. he was pissed and began to bow up. i thought better of any other breath wasting statements, thanked him and we parted ways.

Good point Rick, I suggest there is no difference. Red light cameras, stop sign cameras, radar, or video. IMO it is all the exact same thing.

you break the law, you risk punishment. If they get better at catching you then your risk of getting caught goes up. That doesn't sit well with some people. They want to get away with it, not get caught.
Now the funny business with shortening the duration of the yellow lights aint cool but that other than that, red light cameras are a good idea.

I can't put up the numbers right now but I bet it is safe to say that many more people are killed every year by people running red lights than by people speeding through a residential zone. Both are bad but running red lights are worse.

on a side note, My wife and daughter were in a bad wreck about 5 or 6 years ago when some ditzy b!tch ran right through a red light and t-boned them. Then she tried to lie and deny everything, saying my wife ran the red and hit her.
Unfortunately for the lying POS low-life pond scum b!tch a couple of witnesses stepped up. I made several phone calls to influential people and with their help finally convinced the DA to press charges against her for filing a false police report and a couple of other small offenses and her insurance company had to pay to replace my wife's vehicle. Then her insurance company cancelled her and sued her to recoup some of the costs as they claimed she violated the terms of the insurance policy somehow, I'm not sure of all the details or how that came out.
She did spend a few nights in jail and had to pay a $2000 fine and got put on probation.

Like a co-worker of mine likes to say, "don't fuch me, I fuch back".


Edit;
I've received two speeding tickets in my life, one 4 years ago and the other was in 1986. I paid them both with no argument. both were on a freeway and ironically, both were for driving 65 mph.

funny how some folks get "singled out" for tickets while others can drive a million miles without a ticket.

Exactly...the place to get away with driving crazy on public roads is where people are most likely to get hurt. But then, what to expect from our authorities other than twisted logic?

Jake, what are the results of your work? How are things going these days?

LOL, IIRC there was also a thread against stop sign cameras. I threw in my usual, "if you follow the rules you don't have to worry about getting caught, if you break the law you should get caught" or something along those lines. of course i got flamed by some.

It is the exact same thing here. Some folks think that it is up to them which laws the should have to follow and which they should not.
It ain't.

Do I drive faster than the speed limit on the freeway? sure I do. Sometimes on surface streets too, but not by much, I try to stay within 5 mph. I typically keep up with the flow of traffic which is often higher than the posted maximum and therefore breaking the law.
But, ..... if I get a ticket I pay it and don't complain, unlike some who know they break the law but are trying to figure a way to weasel out of it, "if I lie about this will I get out of this ticket?" Bah.

It has nothing to do with revenue. It has to do with breaking the law or not.
Is it OK to run a red light? No.
Is it OK to run a stop sign? no.
is it OK to drive fast in a residential neighborhood? No.
If you do it and get caught, should you get a ticket and have to pay it? Yes.

I think the other big complaints about stoplight cameras is that they don't always show who was driving, and because they are automated.

The big difference, imo, is that Jake is not sending people tickets. Jake is bringing a situation to light that would otherwise be overlooked. And unlike most traffic cops and ticket cameras, Jake is concerned with safety - not revenue.