You clearly haven’t received a letter in the mail for $250 because a camera saw you barely not fully stop for a red light right turn at 3am with zero traffic
A human in the loop needs to be the first line of defense, if an officer isn’t willing to be in the field to issue the ticket and show up in court to defend it then there shouldn’t be a ticket in the first place, full stop
Or the cases when you are on a motorcycle at 3am and the road sensors don't sense you so at the advise of a police officer, you carefully and safely run the red light. I think we know what's going to happen. I've come to the conclusion that most of the dystopian movies about robots and automation are just [spoilers].
Either way I moved to a very rural and remote location. One of my many hopes is that it will buy enough time for urban and suburban areas to duke it out in courts for a couple decades before I have to deal with the fallout.
I've had to do this with an electric scooter before. Sometimes the road sensors aren't tuned for very small things... probably because most cars aren't that small.
Pushing a 500 pound motorcycle through an intersection in a time there may be drunk drivers sounds extra risky to me.
I think a solution would be to first implement this AI in a tech-only city. Tech billionaires were planning on building a tech city in California. That seems like a good test-bed to fail fast and fail often. The AI need first be installed around all the billionaires homes and the system must have full transparency. Or the system accidentally leak some interesting stats including to show if anyone was made exempt. The fines won't affect them but if their personal drivers get enough moving violations and lose their license it may affect their vendors or make them late for meetings. If they are confident in AI then they would agree to the concept of shared pain. If that tech city falls through then it should be implemented in San Fransisco for five years.
That’s not the point, a surveillance state where the panopticon autonomously gives $250 tickets is the issue
Rules aren’t meant to be cold hard algorithms to blindly punish people with; we wouldn’t automate a judge with an algorithm why is it somehow different to automate a police officer with one?
It’s hardly a surveillance state to say operators of heavy machinery should do so safely: there are many, many dead pedestrians and bicyclists who were hit by someone who _thought_ the road was empty, and American traffic laws are so lenient that it’s disturbing that people think they’re overbearing.
It’s estimated that we are effectively subsidizing drivers by close to a trillion dollars annually by not requiring adequate insurance to cover the full cost to victims. Just pay your ticket and drive better before you make a mistake you’ll never recover from.
Definitely: bigger vehicles, higher speeds, and because the alternatives to driving have been starved of funding or removed the entire system is loathe to punish bad drivers because taking away someone’s license largely removes their ability to function.
> Rules aren’t meant to be cold hard algorithms to blindly punish people with; we wouldn’t automate a judge with an algorithm why is it somehow different to automate a police officer with one?
The role of enforcing certain laws can be easily fulfilled with simple algorithms as the logic required is on early grade school level. In this case it's something like: if "stoplight is red" and "car doesn't stop", then "driver gets ticket." That's all the algorithm has to do, super easy to automate. Automation allows for enforcement where it would otherwise not be cost effective, like when it's 3am and no one else is around.
The judiciary, however, has to interpret all kinds of crazy edge cases that people come up with to try and get out of tickets for rolling stops or whatever legal case, for all laws, because every now and then someone has a valid case. That's a bit harder to do with a couple lines of code and some low cost hardware.
You violated a law and received a penalty. You're not disputing that you violated said law, but are instead trying to justify it with "barely didn't stop" and "it's 3am and there is no traffic".
Isn't the point that you got punished for doing something you would have gotten away with had no one been watching?
because maybe the point is "The basic premise of democracy is that the citizens/ordinary people are trusted as the ultimate source of the law, and the law is to serve them, not them to serve the law."
Nice twist to the premise at the end, but no, the point is that the person got punished for using sound and reasonable judgement in a situation where the regulation (not law) was ill thought out.
"Sound and reasonable judgement" to save a couple seconds?
That still just seems like rationalization of bad behavior.
You're right that the basic premise of democracy is that citizens can be trusted as the source of the law, but it seems to me that this particular citizen can't actually be trusted? I mean, they're demonstrating a lack of integrity, are they not?
> That still just seems like rationalization of bad behavior.
I think the issue is that you're taking as fact that "in order to be safe, you must come to a full stop at a red light before turning right", and that not doing so is, indisputably, "bad behavior". I dispute that. I think in many situations it is just as safe to nearly-but-not-completely come to a full stop before continuing, and it's entirely fine behavior.
The law has some difficulty encoding that. (Not that it's impossible, but it's difficult, and enforcement perhaps gets weirder if you try.)
Let's take a related example: jaywalking. In many places, you can get a ticket for crossing the street somewhere where there isn't a crosswalk, or crossing against a red light or a don't-walk sign. I was taught as a child how to look both ways and only cross when and where it's safe to do so. I don't need a sign or stripes on the road to tell me that (though I do appreciate those things as hints and suggestions). Hell, in some places (Manhattan comes to mind), if you don't jaywalk, everyone around you will look at you funny and get annoyed with you.
California, recognizing this, finally eliminated most jaywalking laws a year and half ago[0]. You can only get cited here if you've failed to do what your parents told you, and you're crossing when it's not safe to do so.
Stopping fully at a red light before turning right is, IMO, similar enough. For many (most?) intersections, you're only going to be a teeny tiny fraction of a percent safer coming to a full stop. So why bother?
[0] Let's also remember that jaywalking laws exist only because car manufacturers wanted them. Walking in the street!? How absurd! Streets are only for our beautifully-produced cars! Not you grubby plebeian pedestrians. Away with you!
> I think in many situations it is just as safe to nearly-but-not-completely come to a full stop before continuing, and it's entirely fine behavior.
I'm sure the multiple people that would have hit me if I hadn't jumped out of the way because they were looking the ither way to see if cars where coming thought the same.
> Let's take a related example: jaywalking.
When walking one is not impaired in one's vision of the surroundings, and you're not operating heavy machinery. The worst you can do is get yourself killed. With a car, the most likely scenario is to kill someone else.
You're talking about someone who, from their description, slowed down to something like 0.1mph instead of absolute zero. At 3am, in an empty road. How is that bad behaviour, lack of integrity, and a sign someone can't be trusted?
Integrity is commonly defined as "doing the right thing, even if no one is watching", is it not?
I highly doubt this person would have rolled through the light if a cop were sitting at the intersection watching them, and they knew they were being observed.
To several other posters' points, the specific regulation in question exists for safety reasons. Those safety reasons don't go away just because you don't think they apply in the moment. I'm sure every person who has hit (or been hit by) another person when rolling through a right turn like that thought their judgement in the moment was reasonable, too. I'm also sure not every one of those would have been prevented by coming to a complete stop and looking at the turn, but certainly some of them would have, which is a net positive for everyone. This comes at a cost of a handful of seconds, which seems like the most trivial of inconveniences, and wholly worth paying every time.
I don't actually disagree with some level of automated enforcement, but I do disagree with your phrasing/justification of it.
I just don't believe violating the law is always wrong, always bad, or always unsafe. While I would agree that most people are bad at risk assessment, and most people are not good drivers, the law should be flexible enough to deal with cases where breaking it is absolutely fine to do.
As a perhaps weird and imperfect analogy, killing another person is illegal... except when it isn't. The law recognizes that sometimes, even if in rare cases, killing another person is justified. This is why we have different words: "homicide" is sometimes not "murder" or even "manslaughter"; sometimes it's "self-defense".
We're talking about a rolling right turn on red, not crossing the whole intersection on red. The turn is allowed but the camera took issue with how much of a stop came first.
I don't know very many drivers who wouldn't recognize that camera behavior at 3:00 in the morning as unreasonable.
Why not just come to a full stop? It's presumably dark out at 3am so you may have missed a pedestrian or a vehicle with no headlights. It only takes an extra second or two to stop and look around.
Because people don't. That's just a fact of life, and we even have silly names (like "California stop") for the all-too-common behavior of barely or not completely stopping at a stop sign before continuing on.
I'm not excusing this behavior (even though I do it myself), but it's a widespread fact of life. The world is squishy, and I don't think it's reasonable to punish everyone for not coming to a full stop every single time, even if it's 0.01% safer to do so.
It's also kinda hard to define a "full stop". Well, obviously there are some states that are very obviously a car at rest. But if you were to, say, graph my car's speed at an intersection with a stop sign, you might see a curve that flattens out to where the slope is zero. Maybe that zero-slope point is a teeny tiny fraction of a second, though. Did I come to a full stop? Yes! Can a cop actually realize I did come to a full stop? Often not. Ok, so I did stop, but did I give enough time while at a full stop in order to assess that it was safe to continue moving? Do I even need to do that after I've come to a full stop, or can I start that assessment when my speed is 3mph, and know by the time I've fully stopped that it's immediately safe to continue? I think so, yes.
It's just fuzzy. Humans are fuzzy. The law is fuzzy. Safety is not a yes/no binary, it's fuzzy. Many many people don't always come to a full stop. That's just a fact; asking why is probably pointless.
At the majority of signal-controlled intersections with city limits there's plenty of visibility even (or dare I say especially) at 3am and the scanning can happen as you approach.
(Also, the kind of rolling stop I'm talking about isn't a 5mph roll, it's a near-stop that feels like a stop to the driver but technically doesn't actually bring the tires to stationary. Odds are even you have done this kind of stop pretty regularly without realizing it, and even a cop wouldn't even notice it as incorrect unless they were actively looking for someone to ticket.)
Odds are I haven't since I'm always careful to stop twice when turning right on red. (Once before the crosswalk, and again at the far side of the crosswalk to check for cross traffic before executing the turn.)
It's what I was taught to do in driver's ed. I know of no state where turning right on a red light is compulsory so I don't see how coming to a complete stop at any point could possibly be considered illegal.
You're in the intersection at that point and blocking the crosswalk, so you're no longer behind the red light, you're in front of it. In every state I've lived in you can absolutely get pulled over for stopping in the road where there is no need and no signal.
The first stop is for the crosswalk. (I might do this even when the light is green if there is a pedestrian in the crosswalk since never hitting a pedestrian is a rule of mine.) If I see a pedestrian in or approaching the crosswalk I wait here until they are completely cleared. Then I slowly roll forward for the second stop. This is the stop I use to check for approaching motor traffic. I have better visibility now because there's no longer a lifted F150 blocking my view to the left. Assuming I do notice an approaching vehicle I'm supposed to what? Drive into it? I would love to be in court accused of failing to run a red light into active cross traffic.
Anyway, you can drive however you want. I've been driving like this for over 30 years all across the United States and I have never been pulled over, cited, rear ended, or even, as far as I can recall, honked at while pulling this particular maneuver so I think some of the risks you are imagining may be overblown.
I don't really find anything wrong with your approach (I do the double-stop sometimes too, if conditions warrant it). But coming to a complete stop (once or twice), for many intersections, for many road conditions, for many times of day, is not going to meaningfully increase anyone's level of safety (yours, another driver's, a cyclist's, a pedestrian's...) vs. a momentary pretty-much-but-not-really-stopped stop.
To use your phrasing, the risk of anything bad happening after a not-quite stop may be overblown.
Sure, I'll agree that there may be times when the "extra" caution is unwarranted by the situation at the intersection. But by doing this every time I ingrain it as an automatic habit which greatly reduces my ongoing risk of failing to use extra caution at some point where it is warranted!
Since the failure mode is an auto accident and the cost of the habit is marginal I feel comfortable promoting this behavior. I have definitely seen accidents and many near misses caused by people who failed to come to a complete stop and look around when conditions did warrant it.
Another lesson I learned in driver's ed is that traffic approaching from the left can be traveling at a speed that completely synchronizes with the A-pillar of your moving vehicle, causing it to be completely invisible to you right up until the moment it collides with your front driver's side fender. This is why I stop and move my head around while I look, to make sure I'm not missing anything. I'm just a stupid human after all.
You have a STOPPING line that is on YOUR side of the crosswalk. That is the line you stay behind during a red light, if you stop then cross the line and stop again in the eye of the law it's no different than if you hadn't stopped behind the line at all.
You are correct that it's not compulsory to turn right on a red, however, if you are going to turn right you can't just stop in the middle of the intersection you either stay back or you go.
Never while turning right on red. I was rear ended once by a fellow who was looking at his phone and did not notice me and the line of stopped cars waiting at a red light. But sometimes what can you do?
Depends on your state. In my state we can take driving actions that violate the law as long as we can prove it was safe to do at the time. Your state may not be so lenient.
That is a discussion that can be had between the offender and the police officer, also depending what you are driving (ie a motorcycle) often traffic lights may not detect you and you can be sitting there forever.
Put it this way would you feel comfortable having your phone just passively watching you and anytime you break any law that is on the books it calls the cops on you? If you can see that as over reaching you can understand why others don't want automated enforcement done to them.
> That is a discussion that can be had between the offender and the police officer
Once you've been pulled over, a police officer is unlikely to change their course of action based on anything you say to them. Especially in this case, of not coming quite to a full stop at a red light before turning right. The cop knows it was safe to do so. They just want the ticket revenue or to fill up their quota for the month. Or they're just having a bad day and want to harass someone who can't fight back. Or, if I'm being charitable, they're an incessant rule-follower who doesn't understand how reality works.
Regardless of whether he can wait 30 seconds there is no good reason to impose that cost. Its just randomly making someone's life worse for literally no gain. Time is our most precious and finite commodity and should not be wasted.
In my city (200k pop) a lot of traffic lights are turned off, or rather blinking orange during the night. The few exceptions keep operating normal for good reasons. We don't have a smart traffic control system in our city so I assume it's the bare minimum and if the light you talk about was red at 3am, then there's a good reason for it.
Hell, I've been pulled over (and given a ticket) in nearly that exact situation you describe (I think it was more like 1am for me). Reasonable human discretion didn't help me that time.
> if an officer isn’t willing to be in the field to issue the ticket and show up in court to defend it then there shouldn’t be a ticket in the first place
I'm torn on this in general. The idealist in me really really really wants to agree with your statement, but the sheer number of cars on the roads means that cops see a teeny tiny fraction of things that happen. Driving-related injuries and deaths are disgustingly high, and I expect most of them are related to speeding, and running red lights and stop signs. That is, stuff cops are supposed to be policing.
No human-powered enforcement mechanism can watch for all of those. Yes, the usual deterrent factor applies: even if you are a butthole who doesn't care about safety, you might follow the rules because of the (relatively small) possibility that there just might be a cop nearby that sees you doing something bad. But clearly it's not really working all that well; car-related injury and death statistics are still (IMO) unacceptably bad.
I feel like this is sort of unique. Like, for other illegal behaviors, you can usually reduce them through other things. Like, have a healthy economy, low unemployment, under-control inflation, and housing that's affordable enough for everyone who wants to live in a place, and you have an environment where it's rare that people feel the need to commit property crimes. But drivers who speed are gonna speed. Drivers who run red lights and stop signs are gonna run red lights and stop signs.
Maybe -- like for many things -- better enforcement isn't the answer. Better road/traffic engineering, stiffer penalties for when people do get caught doing unsafe things... I dunno, maybe that will get us there. Perhaps we'll have some sort of a transit renaissance, and so many fewer people will opt to drive, and that will naturally make things better. Or maybe self-driving will get good enough (and be used pervasively enough, or perhaps even mandated) that riding in a car will become a lot safer, on par with train or even air travel. Who knows.
Regardless, though, I think my personal level of comfort is somewhere in the middle. I certainly don't want dystopian 100% panopicon-style enforcement of every single thing, where everyone is recorded everywhere they go to make sure they aren't breaking the law. But I think a light sprinkling of automated enforcement here and there is probably not harmful privacy/freedom-wise, but can indeed be a societal good. But I don't exactly trust law enforcement to stay within the lines of their mandate when it comes to these sorts of things. And I don't trust elected officials and judges to actually do something when law enforcement gets out of control.
A human in the loop needs to be the first line of defense, if an officer isn’t willing to be in the field to issue the ticket and show up in court to defend it then there shouldn’t be a ticket in the first place, full stop