"Thar's Gold in Them Thar Speedin' Cam'ras!"

Image Credit: -Tripp-

Mayor Rahm Emanuel is putting on a full court press in Springfield to pass legislation allowing speeding cameras to cover nearly half of the city. Yesterday Emanuel took to the media to frame his lobbying for the cameras as a safety issue.

Emanuel made his argument yesterday in front of a giant wall of video monitors at the city's 911 center displaying live feeds from red light cameras. That's what we call "controlling the message."

"While we're speaking, Diamond Robinson, who was hit by a car near a school … they're actually having her funeral," Emanuel said. "That is a reminder of what we're talking about today and the full price and consequences of what we're talking about today."

If it seems as though the mayor is going out of his way to emphasize this is a safety issue, it's because our friends at The Expired Meter, along with CBS 2, reported yesterday the revenue from speeding cameras could eclipse that of the red light cameras already in place.

The Chicago Department of Transportation conducted three studies since 2006. The most recent, from April 1 to May 31 of this year, documented the number of cars that sped through seven approaches at intersections with red light cameras. Here's what they found.

"The study monitored the speed of vehicles only during weekdays from 6 AM to 11 AM and then from noon until 4 PM. During the nine hours per day over the course of 43 days, cameras recorded 1,418,797 vehicles passing through the seven approaches.
"While the city’s report said nearly 26% of all vehicles were exceeding the speed limit, under the proposed law tickets would only be issued if the driver exceeds 5 mph, which drops that percentage to 9% or 131,034 vehicles.

"In other words, if speed cameras were enforcing during this two month period, 131,034 drivers would have been issued tickets totaling $13.1 million in fines."

Here's another aspect of the speeding camera legislation: if passed by the Illinois House, it would allow speed camera enforcement from 6 a.m. - 10 p.m. five school days a week, instead of the current nine hours. Safety zones around park districts would be monitored an hour before a park opens and an hour after it closes. At $100 a ticket, that would be a boon to the city's coffers.

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By Chuck Sudo in News on November 8, 2011 9:30 AM 0 Comments

Comments [rss]

Joseph

Safety and revenue? It's a golden combination. This is excellent on all levels.

Brian Issleb

My grandfather, a cop for 30 years, always told me the safest way to drive is to just go with the flow of traffic and don't worry about the speedometer. I guess that's out the window.

ChicagoD

Your grandfather would have biffed you in the back of the head for that post. If the flow of traffic = the speed limit: SAFETY!

BlueFairlane

Unless the flow of traffic is moving with the speedometer.

Navin_Johnson

If cops would actually ticket people once in a while maybe drivers wouldn't feel like they can drive 50mph down residential streets with impunity.

kieller

5 MPH over seems a little too low. There must be a reason officers don't ticket cars very often going under 10 over the speed limit. My guess is the accuracy of the guns leads to lost cases in court.

ChicagoD

But, how would they continue to be a huge revenue generator? Why wouldn't people change their behavior? I don't really care about this one way or another. Frankly, if we all agree that we want a 30 mph limit, why not force even the assholes among us to drive 30 or below?

twocee

Well, why not make the assholes obey all the other rules of the road too? Like, not making a left hand turn out of the middle lane (which is not a turn lane)? Like not driving in the bus lane, going straight through the intersection, and cutting everyone off inches away from your bumper -- and almost hitting the parked car in front of you, because you want to get 6 inches further in traffic? Like not blowing through stop lights on Fullerton at Rockwell...which is a crosswalk to a grade school (oh wait, the city cops do that on their way to the Dunkin Donuts every morning)? Like not passing people ON ELSTON by going into the opposing lane of traffic -- hint people, the speed limit isn't 50 on Elston and despite the lack of lines, it's illegal to pass on that street. Like not pulling out into the middle of the road and blocking 2 lanes of traffic because you want to make a left hand turn and you can't be bothered to actually wait until it's clear? Like not riding your motorcycle BETWEEN the lanes on the Kennedy in a traffic jam in full view of a Chicago city cop (who did nothing about it)?

I do care about this because not only is it a blatant revenue grab, it ignores the far more egregious and dangerous behavior exhibited by Chicago drivers every single solitary day of the week. Rahm wants to make the city safer and actually enforce traffic laws? You know, the traffic laws that the entire rest of the country seem to be able to handle? By all means, I'm 100% behind that. How about, when a city cop sees someone drag racing down Western, he pulls them over? How about actually handing out tickets to the cabbies downtown who blow through intersections against the walk sign (and almost hit me)? It's not like they don't get stuck in traffic half a block down -- the traffic management person could WALK there and give him a ticket. There's a novel concept.

No, instead we're going to put MORE cameras up in this city because the other solutions require someone to actually do their frickin' jobs.

/end rant

BlueFairlane

Oh, the old "Why enforce this rule if you don't enforce that rule?" argument.

Here's the thing. Technology exists to make the enforcement of this particular rule easy and cost-effective. Maybe when technology does the same with the other rules, they'll enforce them, too. But then, I suspect forcing people to drive more slowly will in itself have an effect on those other behaviors. You can't tell me that when a motorbike blasts down Fullerton, for instance, that he isn't speeding.

ChicagoD

OK. Let's enforce all of those. I don't give a shit if it costs people a lot of money to behave like animals. I'm not sure why anyone would. As for the "we already have people to do these jobs" argument . . . well, apparently not enough.