[NOTE: Nothing is this posting is intended to encourage motorists to drive above the speed limit or run red-lights. We believe all traffic laws should be obeyed. Overturned, perhaps, but obeyed till they are.]
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Nov 5, 2009
RoboCop vs Man
While the traffic cameras that generate tickets for alleged red-light running grow across Alabama, another kind that create speeding tickets are the next wave of auto-cop machines. And some communities are revolting against them. It's Man vs Machine...and man is winning, according to a story in The Washington Post.
For decades, drivers and police have played a cat and mouse game with speeding...the police would buy an advanced radar system, and manufacturers would crank out detectors able to foil the new technology. Now the cameras have been enlisted in the speed war, and the people in two cities have said enough is enough. They've introduced and won approval for legislation outlawing the machines! That couldn't happen here in Alabama, because despite the state motto, we have no power of referendum or initiative for residents to use to defend their rights. Alabamians have to wait for a State Legislator to get ticketed, get angry, and file a bill against them. There are arguments for and against giving acknowledging the power of people to introduce their own legislation, but this is one area where is somehow just feels right.
[NOTE: Nothing is this posting is intended to encourage motorists to drive above the speed limit or run red-lights. We believe all traffic laws should be obeyed. Overturned, perhaps, but obeyed till they are.]
[NOTE: Nothing is this posting is intended to encourage motorists to drive above the speed limit or run red-lights. We believe all traffic laws should be obeyed. Overturned, perhaps, but obeyed till they are.]
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Some years ago, I'd done some research on traffic cameras, aka "red light cameras," and found significant constitutional problems with them.
ReplyDeleteI supplied my research to our legislative delegation, whom, after reading the findings - pro and con - also found similarly.
Know one of the biggest non-constitutional problems with them?
Significant increases in rear-end collisions at intersections.
Yep.
Never would've figured it, would ya'?
But more succinctly Tim, is the issue which you raise, albeit obliquely... the necessity of constitutional reform to our state's constitution - the lengthiest and most convoluted of ALL constitutions of any government the world over!
Yep.
THE most convoluted.
(That means, we CAN'T "thank God for Mississippi" on this one.)