• healthetank@lemmy.ca
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    1 month ago

    I hope you’re joking? Traffic counters (the two little black wires that you often drive over) can track vehicle speeds. Even if they didn’t do that, the traffic cameras could still track average speeds without needing to issue fines.

    • muusemuuse@sh.itjust.works
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      1 month ago

      A traffic counter cannot differentiate one driver from another so it can register the same driver multiple times. What looks like a percentage increase could be the same speeders you had before registering multiple times.

      Traffic cameras getting a rough estimate of speed is plausible, but if they can differentiate vehicles accurately enough not to register the same driver multiple times, wouldn’t that be a speed camera which would have been illegal to use here?

      • healthetank@lemmy.ca
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        1 month ago

        Correct, they cannot differentiate between drivers, and neither can the speed cameras still in use for speed tracking.

        But the point that pedestrians and kids going to school where these cameras were will care about is numbers of speeders, not if its Joe vs Brenda who’s doing the speeding. If before there was much less speeding and now there’s more, those kids are at a higher risk.

        Even if Joe took a different route, one away from high-risk areas like school zones, and didn’t change his habits, who gives a fuck?? There is lower risk for accidents in the areas where kids are being dropped off or walking through. I advocated for additional safety zones around other high-profile zones too - high volume trail crossings, libraries, major parks, waterfront zones, etc. Protect the biggest risk areas from speeding and people might get used to driving slower

          • healthetank@lemmy.ca
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            1 month ago

            The percent of high end speeders? Yes, the y axis is the percentage of drivers at or above 15km/hr above the speed limit. Each dot represents one of their monitoring locations.

            A traffic counter cannot differentiate one driver from another so it can register the same driver multiple times. What looks like a percentage increase could be the same speeders you had before registering multiple times.

            Again, this raw data is aggregated meaning they’re not tracking it by license plate number. This is flat, X vehicles went through, here is the average speed. That doesn’t change from 2020 to now, meaning the ONLY stat we actually care about in real life (how fast are the cars moving on the road in front of a school) went down as cameras were installed, and are now going back up after cameras were removed.

            I’m not sure what I’m missing or what you’re trying to imply.

            • muusemuuse@sh.itjust.works
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              1 month ago

              You are making my point. X number of vehicles. There’s no differentiation so it can see the same vehicle multiple times. Someone’s speeding one can repeat the action and be counted as multiple speeders rather than multiple incidents of the same speeder.

              • healthetank@lemmy.ca
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                1 month ago

                Which is the point - one persons speeding 5 times through the area or 5 different speeders doesn’t matter to the pedestrians or the kids. Its still the same danger, and it’s still the same increase were seeing.

                I’m still not sure what your point is - the traffic cameras reduce the behaviour, regardless of why or the who. Now that they’re gone, the behaviour we care about is getting worse again.

                • muusemuuse@sh.itjust.works
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                  1 month ago

                  It does matter that the data presented is misleading. “Percent of speeders” is the claimed metric. It’s is not what’s being presented here.

                  If you want to screw people over by being deliberately misleading, maybe an organization like MADD would be more appropriate for you.