EDIT: since apparently a bunch of people woke up with the wrong foot this morning or forgot to check the group they’re in:

This is a joke. Do not steal or vandalize speed enforcement cameras (or anything else for that matter). That’s against the law and you will likely get arrested.

If you’re addicted to crack or any other drugs, please seek professional help.

          • Emerald@lemmy.world
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            I should make a website that shows crack prices across the usa on a map. I could open it up to submissions and build a dataset of what people charge for crack. Then get a perfect business plan. Corner the crack market. Oh wow I know what im gonna do with the rest of my life!

            • Death_Equity@lemmy.world
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              10 months ago

              Crack is cheap unless you are in the nice suburbs. Not much variation in price otherwise.

              Your competition would not take kindly to your business. See inner city violence.

              • Schadrach@lemmy.sdf.org
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                10 months ago

                Even ignoring the likelihood of being murdered, illegal drug arbitrage is going to be low margin for the amount of risk involved. Most of the profit is with the manufacturers and distributors.

                • Death_Equity@lemmy.world
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                  You can only get cocaine from the South American cartels. No local production with vertical integration is impossible. You can only cut into street level as a producer and direct customer interface is the only viable business model. That competition would be a direct with likewise retailers. Yes, buying from the producers of raw material and locally producing the finished good has a considerable profit margin, but your direct competition is established brands that have no problem capping a fool stepping on their block. Distancing yourself from the customer-facing business only decreases profit margin and risk, but unavoidable turnover would mandate a more direct customer interface in order to maximize profit margins by absorbing considerable risk.

      • Emerald@lemmy.world
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        10 months ago

        But that doesn’t mean that you’d get the full $20 if you take it to a scrapyard. Still pretty good though. A relative of mine searches dumpsters for metal stuff and gets good money selling it to scrapyards. They have a job and good money. I think they just do it as a sidehustle and for fun

      • Asidonhopo@lemmy.world
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        10 months ago

        Wait I can buy 5 lbs of copper for 20 dollars? Making ingots sounds like a blast. Or coinage!

        Edit: this is high quality copper, right?

  • Kalkaline @lemmy.zip
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    That doesn’t sound quite right, but I’m sure there’s some platinum in there to make up for anything short of 5 lbs.

    • jaschen@lemmynsfw.com
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      10 months ago

      Someone actually stole a bunch of cameras but couldn’t offload it and ended up getting caught when he tried to sell it on craigslist. Lol. Apparently the camera units are proprietary in the office shelf.

  • Gotta enforce speed limits.

    And these things don’t shoot you if you look at them wrong – or are black.

    Edit: "No, you can’t just stick a camera worth a couple of thousand [local currency] next to the road, that takes photographic evidence of infractions. You gotta rip out the entire surface, redesign the sides and introduce a few sharp curves by demolishing a few blocks of buildings here and there. In the mean time speed is only enforced by violent cops who feel like you were speeding.

    It’s the only logical way."

    • Kecessa@sh.itjust.works
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      10 months ago

      And they fucking work!

      https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/annoying-thing-speed-cameras-ottawa-they-work-1.6786951

      https://driving.ca/column/lorraine/speed-cameras-work

      I can’t believe that people don’t want to see them installed in every school zones at least, if there’s one place where you don’t want people speeding it’s there!

      “It’s a road design issue!” Yeah? What’s cheaper and can be done quicker, changing the road design or installing speed cameras?

      • krellor@kbin.social
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        10 months ago

        Where I live they are mostly used in school zones and residential areas, and they only trigger when going 12+ miles over the limit. Seems pretty reasonable.

      • Mario_Dies.wav@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        10 months ago

        Yeah people not respecting speed zones around schools is a real problem. I can’t believe how people drive, and I’ve always got some Dodge Ram or Ford F150 riding my ass because I’m driving the proper speed.

        Even if there was no posted speed limit, there are children everywhere and children are unpredictable.

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          10 months ago

          Rule of thumb: if you feel like you need a huge trophy truck to feel protected on the roads, chances are you drive like an asshole.

    • MisterFrog@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      I mean, I agree people hating speed cameras is nonsense, just drive the speed limit! However, traffic calming is legit and makes the road a much safer place for pedestrians, and usually it’s by narrowing the road, not widening it.

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      Im not a fan of them because they have been known to cause accidents in the past from people trying to slow down and not get ticketed. That and it only slows people down in that specific area. You slow down, drive past it, then just speed back up.

      I think Europe uses a better system, where you post two cameras on either end of the road you want to regulate the speed of. You take pictures of the license plates and time how long they were in the road for, then divide the distance by time to determine average speed. If that speed is above the legal limit, you look up the plate and they get a ticket in the mail. It’s lower tech because it doesn’t need LiDar, it’s harder to ‘cheat’, and it can be pretty cheap for regulating long stretches of road without exits.

      • While the system you describe does exist a lot in Europe the single cameras are much lower tech. They don’t have to read the license plate (twice!) correctly – they just take a picture. And while the mobile ones (non-descript grey van with blacked out rear windows parked at the side of the road) do use LIDAR, the static ones use just induction coils that are put into the road surface about 2m apart, rivht where the camera is looking. In Germany they’ll often put these coils in both directions of the road and just randomly turn the camera around, though newer ones just work in both directions all the time.

      • Kecessa@sh.itjust.works
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        10 months ago

        “They have been known to cause accidents”

        No source of that (obviously because it’s bullshit), but there’s sources that show they reduce the number of people speeding this making the roads safer for non driver users by reducing the number of accidents.

        • _NoName_@lemmy.ml
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          10 months ago

          Good call. I’ve taken those accusations for granted for a while. I’ve now edited the original comment.

    • grue@lemmy.world
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      They also can’t testify in court, depriving accused speeders of their constitutional right to due process.

      But back to your first claim: “gotta enforce speed limits:” No, we do not. Speeding is a symptom of a street that was designed wrong to begin with. The correct solution is to fix the design, not install a speed camera as some sort of big brother band-aid.

      Edit: why do y’all apparently hate the idea of improving street design? As a former traffic engineer, I’m telling you that that’s the only way to truly fix the problem of speeding. I don’t get why that’s controversial.

      • tryptaminev 🇵🇸 🇺🇦 🇪🇺@feddit.de
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        Sorry, but that is a gross misinterpretation. Drivers are not victims of an intrinsic speed devil that they cannot escape. They still choose to violate the speed limit in most cases.

        What was done in these countries is to acknowledge, that physical design is more effective as enforcement, than the cop with a speed-meter.

        Still the explicit intent is to enforce speed-limits, knowing that people would violate them if they could, but they can’t because they would wreck their car. Still those people choose to violate and are responsible for their actions.

      • Iron Lynx@lemmy.world
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        10 months ago

        street that was designed wrong

        Not Just Bikes? *checks link* yep, Not Just Bikes.

        Yeah, speeding is a symptom of poor infrastructure design. It means one of a few possibilities:

        • You don’t care and get speeding tickets
        • You do care and piss off everyone else on the road
        • grue@lemmy.world
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          10 months ago

          You do care and piss off everyone else on the road

          Or worse, incite a bunch of extra passing maneuvers, making the road less safe.

            • grue@lemmy.world
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              No. Although they often go hand-in-hand, it is possible to either piss people off without them doing anything in response or to incite people to feel the need to pass you without them getting mad about it.

      • Kecessa@sh.itjust.works
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        Sorry but it’s a black and white thing in this case, r either you’re under the speed limit and not breaking the law or you’re over the speed limit and breaking the law.

        Also, tons of people object to speed camera tickets and win, the only difference is that there’s no officer there when the event happened to tell them “Say that to the judge if you’re not happy.”, the end result is the same.

        • afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world
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          Bullshit. You are allowed to cross examine your accuser which you can’t do for a camera. It is not the same. Random tech should not be judging humans for crimes.

        • Voyajer@lemmy.world
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          We also need to keep in mind the mechanism it is using to detect speed. If it uses radar it will need regular calibration. Handheld units for example are supposed to be spot checked before and after each shift with tuning forks and sent back to the manufacturer to be recalibrated every 6 months or so.

          Lidar and optical flow most likely have different requirements, but I am not as familiar with them.

          • PopMyCop@iusearchlinux.fyi
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            10 months ago

            Lidar is supposed to be checked like radar. You have a standardized distance and you check that the machine is exactly matching.

        • IHasAHat@startrek.website
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          10 months ago

          What would you prefer? That some people drive slightly over the speed limit? Or a spot where people suddenly slam on the brakes to avoid getting a ticket, endangering those who might be behind them with their sudden change of speed?

          Because the latter is what these devices tend to do.

          • Kecessa@sh.itjust.works
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            10 months ago

            Show me evidences that they increase accidents please, I’ve provided two sources showing they work, surely you can provide one that they cause accidents.

          • Kecessa@sh.itjust.works
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            10 months ago

            “unreasonably low”

            Eh… What? Car drivers can get fucked in this case, they don’t have a right to travel quickly, it’s a privilege.

            “Unreasonably high”

            Then a police officer there won’t change a thing and the road design won’t change.

            • Rodeo@lemmy.ca
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              10 months ago

              if it’s too low, good, drivers shouldn’t go fast. If it’s too high, fine, drivers can go fast.

              Eh … What?

              • Kecessa@sh.itjust.works
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                10 months ago

                Never said it was fine, I said the issue lies elsewhere and the solutions we’re currently taking about aren’t the ones that will solve it.

                If the speed limit is too high it’s an administrative decision, they won’t change the road design because they decided to have a high speed limit, a speed camera or a police officer won’t charge people who are driving fast unless they’re going over the speed limit that’s already too high.

                • Rodeo@lemmy.ca
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                  So you consider the law to be the definition of safety?

                  My question was intended to get you think about the fact that laws (and speed limits) are made by people, with all their flaws and biases, and they don’t always do a good job.

      • krellor@kbin.social
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        10 months ago

        I’m sure it varies by area.

        Where I live they install speed cameras in residential areas, school zones, and bus routes. They also only trigger when you are going 12 or more over the limit, and the highest speed limit I’ve seen with one these was 45mph, 35mph during school times. They also have an officer review and sign the citation, it is a flat fee, and no points. If needed, the officer who reviews will testify in court.

        If someone is going 12+ over on school zones, school bus routes, and residential neighborhoods, then they deserve their fine.

      • Zagorath@aussie.zone
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        10 months ago

        I’m a big fan of NJB (shout out to !notjustbikes@feddit.nl), but I’m not going to argue against speed cameras. That’s ridiculous. Yes, if I have to choose one or the other I’ll take the better road design. But even with good road design, some people will choose to be dicks because they can, or they see it as a challenge or some shit. And speed cameras can be implemented right now, whereas better road design waits (even in the Netherlands!) until that street is next due for repaving.

      • ViscloReader@lemmy.world
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        10 months ago

        I don’t find improving road safety through intelligent engineering controversial, I think blaming the street design instead of the idiot deciding to speed through it is controversial. In the end it is the driver who accelerated, not the road engineer.

        In fact I actually like how much attention has been brought over the past years to road design. I’ve always been scared of cars.

      • TranscendentalEmpire@lemm.ee
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        10 months ago

        why do y’all apparently hate the idea of improving street design? As a former traffic engineer,

        I think people are intuitively understanding that it’s not really a possibility in a country as large as America. There are only 139,000 km of public roads in the Netherlands, compared to 6,743,151 km of roads in America. We also have different types of traffic compared to the Netherlands, more large vehicles and people without access to public transportation for daily commutes. Compounding all this with the fact that the federal government has no control of how most of these roads are built… It’s understandable why people don’t see this as realistic option.

        • grue@lemmy.world
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          I think people are intuitively understanding that it’s not really a possibility in a country as large as America.

          Their cynical intuition is wrong, though, and the “large country” argument in particular falls apart at the slightest scrutiny. So what if we have more roads? We have commensurately more traffic engineers, too! There is no excuse not to design properly.

          Anyway, NJB has an entire video debunking that, so I’m just going to cite it instead of wasting my time arguing the point myself.

          We also have different types of traffic compared to the Netherlands, more large vehicles and people without access to public transportation for daily commutes.

          Vehicle size is irrelevant. Lack of access to public transportation is indeed a problem; however, in general “we shouldn’t fix problem A because we also have problem B” is not a valid argument. It just means you should fix problems A and B.

          Compounding all this with the fact that the federal government has no control of how most of these roads are built…

          Sigh… look, you’re not wrong to argue that that’s a popular perception; however, that’s much more a consequence of the shitty state of civics education than it is an accurate description of reality. There’s a bunch of different ways the Federal government exerts control, including things like taxation and funding (including for state- and local-maintained roads in a lot of cases, not just U.S. Highways) and collaboration between the FHWA (government) and AASHTO (industry) on design standards. It’s more complicated than just a unitary central government dictating things, but rest assured, roads are designed in a relatively standardized way nationwide.

          • TranscendentalEmpire@lemm.ee
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            Their cynical intuition is wrong, though, and the “large country” argument in particular falls apart at the slightest scrutiny. So what if we have more roads? We have commensurately more traffic engineers, too! There is no excuse not to design properly.

            I think we’re having a problem determining the difference of what is possible and what should be possible. Your argument is ignoring the most important aspect of any public project. There isn’t enough political will in this country to pass universal healthcare, something that would end up saving the country billions of dollars. In what world do you think American politicians are going to replace 4 million miles of working roads?

            Anyway, NJB has an entire video debunking that, so I’m just going to cite it instead of wasting my time arguing the point myself.

            I don’t have the time ATM to watch this, I’ll give it a try after work. However, I doubt they’re going to be able to explain how they would get through the gridlock of our current government.

            Vehicle size is irrelevant. Lack of access to public transportation is indeed a problem; however, in general “we shouldn’t fix problem A because we also have problem B” is not a valid argument. It just means you should fix problems A and B.

            Traffic congestion won’t improve unless we improve public transportation. It doesn’t matter how well you build the roads, unless there is an alternative to driving there will be too many people on the roads. My argument is if we have to solve problem B before we work on problem A, there is no real reason to address problem A.

            look, you’re not wrong to argue that that’s a popular perception; however, that’s much more a consequence of the shitty state of civics education than it is an accurate description of reality.

            I think we’re just just getting into sematics now. Yes there is somewhat of a standardization of roads, but that does not mean they have the power to unilaterally create a new standard in which they could enforce with the power of the purse.

            Your argument is ignoring the magnitude of funding and state and federal cooperation that would be required to revamp the entire transportation network of a huge country. Even if you could get a bill passed through our current Congress, how much money would it take, how much time?

            Do I think we should be designing walkable cities with ample public transportation, of course. Do I think any politician in America would actually care about that…? No.

            • daltotron@lemmy.world
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              There isn’t enough political will in this country to pass universal healthcare, something that would end up saving the country billions of dollars. In what world do you think American politicians are going to replace 4 million miles of working roads?

              We do have the political will in this country for universal healthcare, or, at least, most people, a majority, think it would be a good idea. it’s just I guess up to how you define “political will”, because we can have a majority that think we should have it, and then still not be able to get it even with popular support because the american government just straight up sucks and has bad voting systems and gerrymandering and even at the local level most of them are awful and are victims of circumstance of the presiding state and federal government. So that’s just kinda. I dunno. It sucks.

              I always find it very strange how this shit comes up, though, right, basically as nihilism. I don’t think that guy’s point was to try and convince you to like, go out an canvas for better road conditions, his point was just to convince you that your arguments and causes were wrong and that you should be thinking about road design differently, mostly in that it’s a deliberate decision, and a bad decision. If you look at NJB, the guy who made that video, he’s an omega doomer that doesn’t really think progress will be made towards good urbanism within like, two generations, so he moved to amsterdam to escape it, basically. He’s also a doomer.

              The point wasn’t to convince anyone to be an activist for anything, because that’s a pretty rare person that’s gonna be able to do that, the point is just that, the next time it comes around that the city has to do road maintenance, and they have a couple different options for proposals on how they might improve things, or if they will improve things, or if they’ll just leave things to rot, you can vote to make them better and it will take like 5 minutes cause someone talked about this shit previously.

              Which, was the other point I was gonna make. We’ve just had a big new infrastructure bill passed and new passenger rail funding, and new amtrak proposals, and even though it’s not enough we’re seeing progress on that front. And more than that, at the local level, things don’t happen all at once with federal funding projects. They happen by degrees. You change the local standards, zoning regulations, so on, you know, shit you can precisely do because most politicians don’t give a shit about it, or shouldn’t right, if they turn it into a political issue where they’re like “we’re fighting the war on cars” with that mayor of toronto, gerard ford? it kind of becomes a mess. But if you can get it done, then over the next 20 years, things slowly shift in the right direction, as things have to be maintained by the city, and they decide hey maybe we’ll redo some of this in a different way that makes more sense and will legitimately feel better to drive even if suburbanites have been so propagandized to hate everything but a 6 lane totally car centric road.

              I also would maybe contest the point about people driving in lieu of anything else, you know, I mean, this is sort of always the problem with urbanist solutions, right, is this chicken or the egg problem. Sometimes it’s easier to get big funding, even venture capital funding, for new development along a newly federally or state funded rail project, right, and that’s obviously a good thing, and then sometimes it’s easier to just change your regulations and then slowly make it so people can actually take their bike some place, right. I mean, you just kind of have to do both at once, whenever they become available as options, whenever prevailing conditions allow, and it takes a while. Hopefully you don’t get shafted with a useless kind of commuter park and ride rail line, but I suppose that’s better than nothing, and you know, hopefully some sort of development could come in and help fill some of the surrounding development with walkable shit so people have actual destinations at the suburban end of that, but then, you know, that requires you change the zoning regulations around that end of the track. I dunno. If you make the neighborhoods more walkable and have more destinations you might actually want to go to, more intracity places to go to, then public transit usually gets better, and if people have good public transit then that’s good for making walkable places because then you can kind of have the ability to expand people’s horizons and let them go places without having to own a car. I dunno, chicken or the egg, but also you just kind of do them both because there’s not really a dichotomy between them, is what I would assume that guy to be getting at.

              • TranscendentalEmpire@lemm.ee
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                We do have the political will in this country for universal healthcare, or, at least, most people, a majority, think it would be a good idea. it’s just I guess up to how you define “political will”, because we can have a majority that think we should have it, and then still not be able to get it even with popular support because the american government just straight up sucks and has bad voting systems and gerrymandering and even at the local level most of them are awful and are victims of circumstance of the presiding state and federal government. So that’s just kinda. I dunno. It sucks.

                When I referenced political will I mean the politicians.

                always find it very strange how this shit comes up, though, right, basically as nihilism. I don’t think that guy’s point was to try and convince you to like, go out an canvas for better road conditions, his point was just to convince you that your arguments and causes were wrong and that you should be thinking about road design differently, mostly in that it’s a deliberate decision, and a bad decision. If you look at NJB, the guy who made that video, he’s an omega doomer that doesn’t really think progress will be made towards good urbanism within like, two generations

                My entire point is explaining the diff between what should be and what can be. Yes, we have the tech and the ability, but that doesn’t really matter if it never gets put to law.

                His original statement questioned why people weren’t agreeing with his idea, I simply explained why it was an unrealistic goal.

                Which, was the other point I was gonna make. We’ve just had a big new infrastructure bill passed and new passenger rail funding, and new amtrak proposals, and even though it’s not enough we’re seeing progress on that front.

                I think you have a problem realizing the difference between 550 billion and 7.7 trillion. We have a lot of infrastructure that needs to be addressed, pretty much all of it makesore sense to do than spending trillions of dollars on roads.

                Again, I understand roads should be better, but I also understand it’s not really a politically viable option.

                • daltotron@lemmy.world
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                  10 months ago

                  I simply explained why it was an unrealistic goal.

                  See, so this is kind of my problem, right. You’ve said that it’s an unrealistic goal because it’s not politically viable at the federal level, which, you know, other comment, right, I don’t necessarily think that the majority of roads that people interface with on a daily basis have to be dealt with at the federal level, or have to deal with federal budget. I think the feds really only have to deal with like, amtrak and highways, and, again, not as much progress as there should be, right, but, progress on that front. More than we’ve had in the past 50 or 60 years, at least, which is a start.

                  But all that aside, right, like, this is a problem, a pretty major one at that, looking at death statistics, and even looking at projected problems like climate change, and the negative effect that this has on that. Not even necessarily just on the emissions of cars, which people plan to deal with via electric (booooo), but in terms of the cost of human development in such a fucked up way. Like ecological destabilization, and flooding from runoff, heat islands, shit like that, which, you know, climate change exacerbates. So we can agree, it’s a problem, in general, that we need to deal with. Why is this, what the fuck are we talking about, you know? Like, what is the tradeoff here? What else would you rather spend fake money on? Why can’t we just have healthcare and roads instead of having neither? Why is there this dichotomy, here? Like you’re agreeing with the premise of the argument here but the disagreement is that it’s like, not something you think we should spend political capital on, or just. Not something you think will get done? Like, why not? I dunno it is just kind of boggling my mind that you are agreeing with the core issue here, but you’re disagreeing on the premise that nothing will happen about it.

        • Iron Lynx@lemmy.world
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          10 months ago

          Ah yes, “tHe UsA iS tOo BiG, wE cAnT sOlVe ThIs”

          Yes you can fix this. The Dutch bicycle culture was started by municipal votes, where resolutions passed municipal governments with margins of single votes. If American politicians can pull their heads out of their asses and even only pass a resolution that:

          • Disseminates empirical research on road safety to all traffic engineers,
          • Prioritises safety for all users on roads and streets, with priority given to those without armour (i.e. a car), and maybe
          • Penalised engineers and politicians who choose to fail to design for safety

          Then in the next thirty odd years, I think that the worst offenders can be rebuilt.

          Do note that few things are as good at destroying themselves in regular, correct use as car infrastructure.

          • TranscendentalEmpire@lemm.ee
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            10 months ago

            If American politicians can pull their heads out of their asses and even only pass a resolution that:

            This is my entire point… It is unrealistic to believe that American politicians would do something for the good of the people. Especially when a large portion of Americans themselves rarely vote for their own self interest.

            What would be the cost of redesigning and paving 4.19 million miles of road? Well let’s do some real conservative napkin math. Let’s choose the cheapest type of road, a rural minor arterial on flat ground. The reconstruction for this single lane would be 915,000 per mile, per lane. Assuming every road is just rural and two lanes the cost would be around 7.7 trillion dollars. Roughly a third of America’s GDP.

            That’s the absolute minimum according to The most recent estimate for road reconstruction and while using the least expensive options available.

            No politician is ever going to ask for 7.7 trillion dollars for infrastructure.

            • daltotron@lemmy.world
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              10 months ago

              yeah see that’s what I was talking about. you don’t have to ask for 7.7 trillion dollars all at once, because we already spend a pretty ludicrous amount on road maintenance already. you just redesign the road the next time the maintenance schedule comes around, which works out to be like. what you were already gonna spend, + the cost of paint you were already gonna use, + maybe some bollards, - the projected amount you would save by making it so people can take more trips by bikes and walking. which decreases car usage, which decreases the frequency with which you have to do road maintenance and upkeep, because cars weigh a lot and wear down the roads way more than any other use of roads.

              • TranscendentalEmpire@lemm.ee
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                10 months ago

                yeah see that’s what I was talking about. you don’t have to ask for 7.7 trillion dollars all at once, because we already spend a pretty ludicrous amount on road maintenance already.

                That’s how every congressional budget is configured… When they run scare tactics about universal healthcare going to cost trillions of dollars they don’t mean all at once. When they pass something like an infrastructure bill they also have to explain how to pay for it and for how long.

                you just redesign the road the next time the maintenance schedule comes around, which works out to be like. what you were already gonna spend, + the cost of paint you were already gonna use, + maybe some bollards, -

                That’s not how roads work… The maintenance schedule is just fixing the top layer of paving. The bulk of the cost is in reshaping land and pouring the concrete foundations. If all you’re doing is repaving the top layer it’s not going to make any significant changes.

                • daltotron@lemmy.world
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                  10 months ago

                  If all you’re doing is repaving the top layer it’s not going to make any significant changes.

                  more than you might think, again, even just with paint. a road diet can take a four lane road down to two lanes, and can add bike lanes and a turn lane, which cuts down on traffic accidents from lane changes, and potentially road speed. you can do a lot with on street parking, and then you can increase the width of bike lanes and increase their traffic separation even more, if you really want to encroach on the space cars are taking up. you can focus larger projects on given intersections, you can increase the size of curbs, once foot traffic increases, and it becomes easier to justify. I don’t have solutions for like a six lane fully stroaded out shithole, outside of maybe trying to make it into a boulevard with planters and trees and pedestrian islands in the middle, because the crossings are too long. you can also do that shit they did with covid and just cut off a street for a weekend and then see whatever the increase in foot traffic ends up being, and then present the results of that trial, which is a good way to get the idea across and raise support in the community.

                  if none of those, combined with changing zoning laws to allow more mixed-use development, and more built up development, if none of that strikes you as “significant changes”, then I don’t really know what to tell you. it takes a while to accomplish, and at this point in most places in america is a multi-generation effort, but I dunno, that’s just kind of the way it is. if you’re really cynical, I guess there’s caltrops? like I dunno, what’s your alternative here?

            • Iron Lynx@lemmy.world
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              10 months ago

              Shit like this is why I think the only thing that will save America is a complete purge of state and federal government, and a very clear and specific explanation why the US governments have been forcibly emptied and rebooted.

              It should be governments’ jobs to act for the betterment of their subjects. The fact the US doesn’t, and happily marches the troops into places where they do “too well” if you’d ask them and read between the lines of their answers, is a crime against humanity.

              • TranscendentalEmpire@lemm.ee
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                10 months ago

                I think we’re about 40-50 years too late for that option unfortunately. I think the whole world is going to be a little too busy addressing our rapidly deteriorating climate to do anything meaningfully good anytime soon.

  • Chickenstalker@lemmy.world
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    10 months ago

    Guys, guys. Hear me out. What if (tokes) yeah…what if like if we like yeah. Oh? Sorry. What if we train pigeons to shit on traffic camera lens. It could be done. The military had trained pigeons to guide bombs against warships. Let’s train and breed pigeons to do this and release them in the wild.

  • AutistoMephisto@lemmy.world
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    10 months ago

    This one is in a school zone. People really shouldn’t be speeding through them unless they’re a “fuck them kids” kinda person, and if you are you’re a piece of shit.

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        10 months ago

        Yeah, but how many people are seeing this post thinking “obviously it’s a shitpost, but also based?”

        I for one was until someone said it was a school zone

    • Iron Lynx@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      Even better solution though: (re-) build the street at a school zone so that no driver more sane than the most insane Florida Man would not fathom driving any faster than 20 km/h, no speed cameras required.

      • Kecessa@sh.itjust.works
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        10 months ago

        “Take this road that’s in good condition and spend public money rebuilding it over months instead of installing a camera today to push drivers to be responsible.”

        • Iron Lynx@lemmy.world
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          10 months ago

          Essentially, yes.

          Besides, speed cameras, especially in NA, enforce by punishment. Punishment that some people are unable to afford, because for some reason they coddle billionaires while letting a fifth of their citizens rot in the gutter.

          Meanwhile, a traffic calmed school zone enforces proactively. Are you sure you’d like to risk scratching your brand new $50k truck’s pristine paintjob? A properly traffic calmed street will force drivers to face that question, and in many cases, they’ll answer the question with “no”, and slow down. Mission accomplished.

          • Kecessa@sh.itjust.works
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            10 months ago

            Punishment that your don’t need to pay if your just respect the legal speed. We’re not talking about someone stealing food because they can’t afford to eat, we’re talking about someone driving a car and being unable to get their foot off the gas pedal for a bit. Your reaction to that is “People shouldn’t take their responsibility to respect the law, it’s the state that should spend money to make it so they don’t want to drive like morons!” while ignoring the fact that speed cameras are proven to be effective at keeping people under the sites limit and cost way less than just rebuilding roads. Add to that the fact that your solution means years or even decades of people driving too fast for safety while roads are getting rebuilt based on their speed limit and there’s nothing to enforce the speed limit in the meantime because “speed cameras aren’t the solution”.

            If you’re unable to slow down just because the road is wide enough that you feel safe driving fast then you’ve got no business owning a car.

            • Iron Lynx@lemmy.world
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              10 months ago

              Counterpoint:

              How often do you think most people watch their speed gauges?
              You and I might do so regularly, but you sure as hell cannot say that for sure about every other person on the road.

              Furthermore, how obvious is the speed limit?
              I can tell you with certainty that, outside of a few, mostly European, places, this may be unclear. North American traffic engineers happily design roads with speed limits anywhere between 40 and 80 km/h, with no changes to the cross-sectional geometry of the (st-) road.

              Systemic speeding because of misguided road design is more common than you’d like to admit.

              • Kecessa@sh.itjust.works
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                10 months ago

                The speed limit needs to be indicated in order to be valid so that’s a completely ridiculous point you’re trying to make.

                If people don’t pay attention to their driving they need to be penalized for it because no matter the road design, they’ll commit infractions and no matter the road design, speed limits need to be enforced otherwise they become suggestions.

                See another of my comments with sources proving that speed cameras do reduce speeding by a wide margin, proving that drivers pay enough attention to their speed that when they fear they might be penalized for speeding, they slow down.

                • Iron Lynx@lemmy.world
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                  10 months ago

                  And putting up signs and cameras literally only does so much to convince people to slow down on wide, straight roads. How likely is the average driver in your area to speed? I can assure you, half of the road users are worse than that.

                  If we’re going to start pointing to other discussions, make it as easy to find your point as you can. Case in point, what I’m talking about.

  • smeg@feddit.uk
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    10 months ago

    What’s a “photo enforcement camera”? Speed camera? CCTV? Detects you then just drops on your head?

    • chicken@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      10 months ago

      They take your picture and then you get a mostly automated letter with the picture saying you have to pay a fine, but mostly you can ignore them. I lived near an intersection with one, every time the left turn light turned red (which happened way faster than normal) the picture flash went off for the last three or so people going through the intersection, presumably all of them getting tickets. I assume they are also recording the license plate numbers of everyone going through the intersection regardless of perceived violations.

      • LemmyKnowsBest@lemmy.world
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        10 months ago

        Why do you think those letters in the mail can be ignored? They are tied to your license plate and that is serious business. If you don’t pay traffic fines, the fines go up and up and Then they involve the criminal justice system and you have to show up in court and it’s all just very ugly. Oh yeah they can suspend your driver’s license over it too, There’s no way to get out of paying traffic citations.

        • Death_Equity@lemmy.world
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          10 months ago

          I know in Arizona, but possibly other states too, you have to be served for the violation. So people just ignore them without consequences until they get caught for something else more serious.

        • chicken@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          10 months ago

          Why do you think those letters in the mail can be ignored?

          I forget the exact reason, I researched it at the time and don’t remember well now, but the other comments are probably right. Anyway I know they can be ignored because I ignored them and nothing ever happened. Was more than a decade ago so I think I’m good. They were clearly sending them out to a large portion of everyone going through the intersection for no good reason, it was basically just a grift, so it would have been ridiculous to actually enforce all of them with police and courts.

        • PopMyCop@iusearchlinux.fyi
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          10 months ago

          It will depend on where you are. My area has a law that almost word for word says, “This law cannot be used to deny X,” where X is renewal of a driver’s license, withholding of any services, etc. It also can’t be sent to collections or be a mandatory fine from the state. The company is basically fucked.

    • MacN'Cheezus@lemmy.todayOP
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      10 months ago

      Speed traps or stop light cameras, generally.

      CCTV is considered surveillance, not enforcement.

    • Viking_Hippie@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      It’s Comer Elementary School. Named after what at least half of the biological parents did in order to produce the students.

  • BilboBargains@lemmy.world
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    10 months ago

    Using vehicle velocity as risk assessment method is fucking dumb. Might as well put that copper to better use.

    • Zagorath@aussie.zone
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      10 months ago

      No it’s not. Speed is a very significant element of road safety. At lower speeds, you can stop in a much shorter distance, and if you hit someone their chance of death or serious injury goes way down. Braking distance is proportional to the square of velocity, and reaction distance is directly proportional. If hit at 50 km/h, a pedestrian has a 90% chance of death. At 30 km/h, they have a 90% chance of survival.

      At lower speeds, you’re also far more likely to notice something that might require you to stop or slow. Your cone of vision at 60 km/h is 40°. At 80 it’s 30°, and at 100 km/h it’s 20°. A different source I found says under 50 km/h it’s 104° and at 65 it’s 70°. Whatever the specifics, lower speeds are much safer.

      This isn’t to say that speed cameras are the best or should be the only method used to ensure road safety. Narrowing roads, adding furniture by the roadside, and increasing the complexity of the route, are all good ways to reinforce a lower speed limit by reducing how safe drivers feel driving at high speed. But speed cameras are a useful supplement to that, for those drivers determined to be irresponsible.

      • BilboBargains@lemmy.world
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        10 months ago

        Why is high speed highway driving safer per km if vehicle velocity is a ‘very significant element of road safety’?

        The problem, as ever, is retards driving fast on slow roads and slow on fast roads. The camera doesn’t discriminate, it triggers no matter the context. It will trigger the same way for a racing driver with lightening fast reflexes in perfect conditions as it will for tired grandma with cold treacle reaction time driving on snow.

        Don’t believe their lies.

        • Kecessa@sh.itjust.works
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          10 months ago

          Because highways don’t have stop signs or lights or people in slower means of transportation sharing the road with cars.

          When accidents happen on highways they tend to involve more cars and to be more destructive too because of the speeds involved.

    • friendlymessage@feddit.de
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      10 months ago

      Both risk of collision as well as risk of injury / death if a collision occurs correlate heavily with speed, there’s literally no better factor than speed to consider. Of course, it’s not the only factor, that’s why we have safety and license requirements for vehicles and drivers as well.