Misc. Ramblings

Fellow Daynoter Phil Hough has a good post on traffic cameras in the UK. Namely, that traffic cameras tend to be situated such that much revenue is generated but safety is, at best, a secondary consideration. That is, the cameras are not placed in areas where there have been the most collisions/deaths, rather they are placed where it will generate the most money.

It is possible to look at this situation from various perspectives. From a budget point of view, it is important to some people to show that you are running government like a business. Hence, you must show a profit (or at least no deficit). The problem in this situation is that the goal is, or at least should be, to reduce collisions/deaths, not make money. In fact, it may be impossible to make money if you only place the cameras where deaths have occurred because, thank God, the numbers have been decreasing over the years (pdf file). In fact, the only statistic that has been increasing have been alcohol related deaths (we'll come back to that later).

From a political point of view, getting elected is job one. One way of doing this is to show that you are doing things. What you are doing may not solve a problem, indeed, you may actually create worse ones. But the bad results won't be known for awhile and the act of doing something is seen now. Indeed, you can create a 30-second political spot showing you are a man/woman of action and no one could point to anything negative. So, when your constituents come to you and ask, nay demand that you do something about the carnage on the carriageway, you can install a traffic cam, along with the attendant hoopla (knowing full well that it will be ineffective in lowering crashes because most are caused by people who drink while under the influence of alcohol).

From a power perspective, this is a marvelous example of using adverse consequences (paying a large fine and/or higher insurance rates) to change behavior. It is Big Brother looking over your shoulder and recording your actions. But it only works if you are thinking about the consequences because if you are under the influence alcohol, you probably are no longer thinking.

In the end, using traffic cameras to control speed tries to treat an irrelevant but easy to detect symptom (speeding). But does nothing to cure the disease - driving under the influence, because it isn't speed that is causing the crashes. Rather, it's people who drink and drive. Figure out how to stop that and you make the highways safer for everyone. Thanks to Phil for the timely seasonal post.