Time for yet another "Mass Shooting" thread

Discussion in 'Politics & Current Events' started by argentine soccer fan, Jan 11, 2015.

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  1. russ

    russ Member+

    Feb 26, 1999
    Canton,NY
    Club:
    Liverpool FC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    They had to make up the money spent buying guns back.
     
  2. soccernutter

    soccernutter Moderator
    Staff Member

    Tottenham Hotspur
    Aug 22, 2001
    Near the mountains.
    Club:
    Tottenham Hotspur FC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Is it signed "no right turn on red"?
     
  3. Timon19

    Timon19 Member+

    Jun 2, 2007
    Akron, OH
    Red light cameras are awful on safety grounds. Speed limits in the US are stupid and almost always far below where they actually have a safety in impact. In any case, the real problem on highways is speed differential, not raw speed.
     
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  4. JohnR

    JohnR Member+

    Jun 23, 2000
    Chicago, IL
    Sure. It's not that much of a trap.
     
  5. minerva

    minerva Member+

    Apr 20, 2009
    Denver, CO
    Club:
    Liverpool FC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    do you know how many accidents are perhaps prevented because people don't run red lights for fear of a ticket?
     
  6. taosjohn

    taosjohn Member+

    Dec 23, 2004
    taos,nm
    I would guess very, very few.

    People run red lights at three a.m. on empty streets mostly, I would guess, and most tickets are issued from cameras or overlooks on such events. There was a light in central Connecticut that was famous in the late '70s for just that-- the guy was writing two or three people a night...

    I could be wrong, but...
     
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  7. minerva

    minerva Member+

    Apr 20, 2009
    Denver, CO
    Club:
    Liverpool FC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    I see a lot of people running red lights on left turns (long after the turn signal turned red). annoys the hell out of me.
     
  8. dapip

    dapip Member+

    Sep 5, 2003
    South Florida
    Club:
    Millonarios Bogota
    Nat'l Team:
    Colombia
    @American Brummie, minerva wants to learn about probabilistic scenarios for things that don't happen.

    While I live in drivers' hell, and I see a lot of people running red lights on a daily basis, it is also my experience that bad drivers are not discouraged by fines. Off course on this I only have anecdotal evidence and I would not know where to look for scientific studies, but when my acquaintances get tickets, most of them opt to pay a lawyer and fight it, or maybe take the online course to remove points from their licenses. Next day they will drive the exact same way they did before getting the ticket.

    PS. Found some papers on the issue (that seem to support the pro-fine thesis), but they are not broken down by type of ticket:

    http://web.missouri.edu/~leedn/Tickets_DLee.pdf

    https://ideas.repec.org/p/umc/wpaper/1119.html

    http://journalistsresource.org/stud...motor-vehicle-crashes-click-it-or-ticket-laws
     
  9. minerva

    minerva Member+

    Apr 20, 2009
    Denver, CO
    Club:
    Liverpool FC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    I don't think a lot of red lights are run because the driver is a "bad driver" - i.e. doesn't know how to drive properly.
    I think most red lights are run by people who are in a hurry to get to a destination and believe that their time is more valuable than the time of the people waiting for them to clear the intersection. in my opinion, it's pure selfishness. it's like people who pull into an intersection fully knowing that they won't be able to clear the intersection before the light for the crossing traffic turns green. of course they end up snarling traffic and creates delays for other people, but do they care about that? of course not.
     
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  10. Umar

    Umar Member+

    Sep 13, 2005
    One step ahead
    Club:
    Real Madrid
    Nat'l Team:
    Palestine
    The evidence shows that punitive methods are less effective than other approaches such as humanised signage and other forms of "nudging". I saw an article on this a while back but can't find it now, but a google search dredged this up and its pretty similar:
    http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20140417-road-designs-that-trick-our-minds
     
  11. minerva

    minerva Member+

    Apr 20, 2009
    Denver, CO
    Club:
    Liverpool FC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    maybe we can make red lights into a sad face emoticon. :( or maybe an angry faced one :mad: or maybe a tongue out one :p
     
  12. Umar

    Umar Member+

    Sep 13, 2005
    One step ahead
    Club:
    Real Madrid
    Nat'l Team:
    Palestine
    On a serious note, if I'm in a rush and speeding slightly and see a camera, I slow down for the camera and speed back up again if the road is clear. If I see a sign that says "School" or "Welcome to X - please drive slowly" I slow down for a longer period until the school or village is long behind me.
     
  13. soccernutter

    soccernutter Moderator
    Staff Member

    Tottenham Hotspur
    Aug 22, 2001
    Near the mountains.
    Club:
    Tottenham Hotspur FC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    If you want to be cynical about it...

    How often do you go through that intersection? When I was living in Tucson, there was a traffic camera installed at a fairly wide open intersection, lots of good visuals, looked like a revenue generator pure and simple. Then I saw a report about which intersections had the most accidents (and fatal accidents). That was one of the top (I think it was a top 10 list, might have been a top 5 list). It was well signed, and one day I thought I'd beat it, but didn't. Took the annoying the traffic school. But a month after that class, I saw a car do exactly what I had, and hit a car pulling out of the gas station on the opposite corner. Lots of people had complained about the camera, but after seeing that, and getting caught myself, I understood the safety intent of the camera.

    What was interesting to note is that while it was run by a private company, and TPD got something like $10 or $15 per ticket (on a $125 ticket), the private company was responsible for all expenses of the camera, but the TPD held the video feed, and if the ticket level dropped below the profit-making level for the company, they could not take funds away from TPD.
     
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  14. The Jitty Slitter

    The Jitty Slitter Moderator
    Staff Member

    Bayern München
    Germany
    Jul 23, 2004
    Fascist Hellscape
    Club:
    FC Sankt Pauli
    Nat'l Team:
    Belgium
    This is one of those cases where I feel "education" is vastly inferior to an engineered solution which causes the vehicles to travel at optimum speeds

    Humans are bad drivers.
     
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  15. luftmensch

    luftmensch Member+

    .
    United States
    May 4, 2006
    Petaluma
    Club:
    Los Angeles Galaxy
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    A charitable take on the subject, but I think basic resentment on the part of police is more likely; they don't want people interfering with their revenue generation.
     
  16. luftmensch

    luftmensch Member+

    .
    United States
    May 4, 2006
    Petaluma
    Club:
    Los Angeles Galaxy
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    That along with inattentive drivers and my guess is you're covering the sources of most accidents. If the police really wanted to improve public safety they'd be driving around looking for people on their cell phones (easy to identify as they continually speed up, slow way down, drift over the line...) instead of hiding behind a bush pointing their radar gun.
     
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  17. russ

    russ Member+

    Feb 26, 1999
    Canton,NY
    Club:
    Liverpool FC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Some of the biggest speed merchants around here are cops.
     
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  18. minerva

    minerva Member+

    Apr 20, 2009
    Denver, CO
    Club:
    Liverpool FC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    yeah, but I don't know how that would work for your run-of-the-mill red light.
    just this morning this is what I saw. the light had just turned red. the car in the center lane came to a stop. the semi truck behind him whipped into the right lane (how he was able to check his blind spot on such short notice I have no idea) and ran the red light. I mean it had already been red for at least 5 seconds before he even hit the light, let alone his trailer clearing the intersection.
     
  19. minerva

    minerva Member+

    Apr 20, 2009
    Denver, CO
    Club:
    Liverpool FC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Study Finds Running Red Lights is a Major Source of Fatal Accidents
    According to the Federal Highway Association (FHWA), about 2.3 million intersection crashes occur in the United States each year, resulting in over 7,700 deaths. About 10 percent of these deaths, or 768 of them in 2008, occur when a driver intentionally or negligently runs a red light. Deaths nationwide in red-light-running accidents have decreased since 2008, but for most of the past decade have held steady at rates between 900 and 1,000 deaths per year. http://www.hardwickpendergast.com/s...lights-major-source-fatal-accidents/#more-223
     
  20. soccernutter

    soccernutter Moderator
    Staff Member

    Tottenham Hotspur
    Aug 22, 2001
    Near the mountains.
    Club:
    Tottenham Hotspur FC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Along with drivers using their cell phones while driving.
     
  21. minerva

    minerva Member+

    Apr 20, 2009
    Denver, CO
    Club:
    Liverpool FC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    my experience is that people on the phone tend to slow way down.
     
  22. soccernutter

    soccernutter Moderator
    Staff Member

    Tottenham Hotspur
    Aug 22, 2001
    Near the mountains.
    Club:
    Tottenham Hotspur FC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    I don't like data. It says that I behave wrongly and I know I do the right thing.
     
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  23. soccernutter

    soccernutter Moderator
    Staff Member

    Tottenham Hotspur
    Aug 22, 2001
    Near the mountains.
    Club:
    Tottenham Hotspur FC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    My experience is that people on their cell phone tend not to turn on their blue and red lights when speeding and running red lights.
     
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  24. usscouse

    usscouse BigSoccer Supporter

    May 3, 2002
    Orygun coast
    As the man said. Cameras , speed traps have nothing to do with safety. They just generate an amazing amount of revenue.

    In a Rockford Files episode the was this school bus parked with red lights flashing ...........................:rolleyes:
     
  25. American Brummie

    Jun 19, 2009
    There Be Dragons Here
    Club:
    Birmingham City FC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    The number one predictor of automobile deaths is easy access to cars :p

    That said, the solution is trains. As Jitty said, humans are bad drivers.

    And yet we all think we are good drivers.

    Makes one wonder...
     
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