Canada

Hey you are right. A cop would have a stronger, more immediate affect. For the 8 hours they are sitting there. And while they aren't out of their car giving a ticket/letting their buddy or a hot chick off with a warning.

Cameras work. They are there 24/7. They don't discriminate.

Are they a replacement for an officer driving the streets? Nope. How come there wasn't an officer at that construction site or nearby to catch that 10x offender? Is it because it's incredibly difficult and resource intensive to do so?

I got a ticket when they changed the speed limit on a road I traveled daily twice in under a year and then added a camera. So speed change was 60-40, and I got a letter in the mail and a ticket for going 50. I was just going with traffic. I knew there was a new camera but every day day after day, you just start driving with traffic.

Well after that ticket, I stopped being lazy and started actually driving. And over the next month or so I could see who had gotten a ticket and who hadn't yet. And slowly traffic shifted down to the point where I was going with the flow of traffic again, enough people had either got a ticket or had got used to driving behind someone who had that everyone chilled out and started observing the limit.

That's how these cameras work. A cop could be parked there for years and not have that affect, and also a cop couldn't park there and wouldn't have anywhere to pull someone over without creating major traffic problems.

In my city there was a photo radar set up at a construction site that issued 10 tickets to the same vehicle over a period of 2 weeks all before the driver recieved the first ticket in the mail. How does that improve road safety (assuming that actually the intent of photo radar)?

So, one unique example where it took 2 weeks to have an effect is enough to say that they don't work? While there are studies available through a simple word search that show the opposite? I'm confused here, but perhaps I misunderstood that 2nd paragraph.

Fair - I agree it should be a faster fine to ticketing timeframe. Personally, I think they should do the one month "warning" tickets mailed out to everyone who speeds, when they first install the camera, followed by fines. Give drivers a chance to change their behaviour before being hit by fines.

But a cop isn't pulling over every single driver doing 50 in a 40 zone. A ticket camera is hitting all of them. I'd argue that's far more fair.

How does that improve road safety

Presumably, after paying all 10 tickets, this person will never speed there again. Slightly different because it was a temporary speed limit, but hopefully this person will just remember their 10 tickets and never speed in a construction zone again.

Cameras work by existing. They don't immediately fix the issue, but after everyone's received their initial set of tickets, speeding should be way down from the "regular" drivers in the area. Manned police traps only work as long as someone is there. If there's a cop there every Monday, people speed on Tuesday-Friday. If there's a cop there very infrequently, people speed frequently and just put up with a ticket every once in a while. But what happens most of the time is that there's just never a cop there, and people speed all the time.

The effects aren't instant but over a longer period of time cameras have proven to slow down traffic leading up to the camera and after the camera, many streets still see a drop in average speed after the camera is removed. The main benefit is the cost of operating the cameras is quite a bit cheaper than paying a cop to do it.

My area operated 6 cameras for 1 year for a cost of about 323k. Given those cameras took no days off, took no coffee breaks, and has no downtime while writing a ticket, i doubt they could have covered the same area and timeframe with 10x the cost running officers and their cars.

The camera can also watch its road 24/7 as long as it is deployed. The camera cant be racist, can't rip up a ticket due to bribes or cleavage, and can't give special treatment to their buddies. Most places won't let you dispute the camera ticket whereas many speeding tickets sent to court see fines reduced and also clog up court house time, often taking the cop off duty to recall the events.

The cameras are not perfect but traffic fatalities/injuries and the attitude towards speeding in this province is so out of control I'll take a not perfect solution over no solution.

Speed cameras are really good at stopping speeding in their direct area, whether or not someone speeding likes them. Their downfall is they usually are installed by private companies who manage them, and the contracts are paid for by tickets. Since the cameras do such a good job stopping the speeding, the city stops getting ticket money and starts having to pay the companies out of pocket. We've been using police to do traffic stops for longer and it hasn't really worked the same way. (And cops cost waaaaaaay more).

One study from New York

But a quick search found many studies from all over the world.

I bet that person speeding through the construction zone learned a valuable lesson about risking their and other people's lives for 30 seconds faster arrival times. Also I cant imagine being so distracted while driving that I would miss a traffic camera and the signs that almost always proceed it ten times. Plus the flow of traffic would likely be slowing as more observant drivers saw the camera, which you'd have to ignore and presumably pass aggressively whilst shouting angrily about other people being bad drivers.

Shoot, not to beat this point too much (too late), but it's also a construction zone which typically has tons of speed signs plastered everywhere.. maybe they deserved the 10 tickets in two weeks and they're just mad because if we relied on cops they would have gotten away with it.