Our city government has been getting excoriated over the Google Fiber controversy, and I wouldn't be surprised to see a clean sweep of the City Council. It's a shame the Mayor's not up for reelection until 2017... 2 years is a very long time in local politics, and I'd bet a lot of the heat will have died down by then.
Realizing lately that I don't really trust or respect basically any of the moderators here. So, good luck with life, friends! Hit me up on Twitter @DesertLeviathan
Our city government has been getting excoriated over the Google Fiber controversy, and I wouldn't be surprised to see a clean sweep of the City Council. It's a shame the Mayor's not up for reelection until 2017... 2 years is a very long time in local politics, and I'd bet a lot of the heat will have died down by then.
Wait what's controversial about getting google fiber?
I voted to ban red light cameras because they cause more accidents than they prevent because people drive skeevy as fuck around them here.
I am curious about this.
How do they drive around them?
Red Light and Speeding cameras are extremely ubiquitous where I'm from and moving to another country has really illustrated to me how well behaved drivers were there.
I voted to ban red light cameras because they cause more accidents than they prevent because people drive skeevy as fuck around them here.
I am curious about this.
How do they drive around them?
Red Light and Speeding cameras are extremely ubiquitous where I'm from and moving to another country has really illustrated to me how well behaved drivers were there.
a trick i saw a lot where things where taking pictures of your licence plate was just cover that shit up. mud, snow, removing it, who cares, you can do what you want now!
I voted to ban red light cameras because they cause more accidents than they prevent because people drive skeevy as fuck around them here.
I am curious about this.
How do they drive around them?
Red Light and Speeding cameras are extremely ubiquitous where I'm from and moving to another country has really illustrated to me how well behaved drivers were there.
a trick i saw a lot where things where taking pictures of your licence plate was just cover that shit up. mud, snow, removing it, who cares, you can do what you want now!
that is a "trick" that should work for like an afternoon before you get pulled over for not having a legible license plate.
I voted to ban red light cameras because they cause more accidents than they prevent because people drive skeevy as fuck around them here.
I am curious about this.
How do they drive around them?
Red Light and Speeding cameras are extremely ubiquitous where I'm from and moving to another country has really illustrated to me how well behaved drivers were there.
a trick i saw a lot where things where taking pictures of your licence plate was just cover that shit up. mud, snow, removing it, who cares, you can do what you want now!
that is a "trick" that should work for like an afternoon before you get pulled over for not having a legible license plate.
Sure in places where they have enough Patrol cars.
Here in toledo those plastic plate covers meant to obscure your plates are really common and there are often barely enough police to respond to injury accidents much less pull people over for traffic laws.
The problem I've seen with red light cameras is they've frequently been programmed to be way too sensitive on purpose, meaning multiple violations, multiple tickets, more revenue flowing in. And good luck challenging it in court, burden of proof is on you.
How does one even find out that there's a thing coming up to vote on?
Read or watch local news.
Be even slightly involved in your community.
Your local League of Women voters. Ours produces a newsletter each election that breaks down each ballot proposition, and has short interviews with each candidate.
The problem I've seen with red light cameras is they've frequently been programmed to be way too sensitive on purpose, meaning multiple violations, multiple tickets, more revenue flowing in. And good luck challenging it in court, burden of proof is on you.
That is actually not true, given the whole innocent until proven guilty thing. It's incredibly easy to challenge automated ticketing systems.
Our city government has been getting excoriated over the Google Fiber controversy, and I wouldn't be surprised to see a clean sweep of the City Council. It's a shame the Mayor's not up for reelection until 2017... 2 years is a very long time in local politics, and I'd bet a lot of the heat will have died down by then.
Wait what's controversial about getting google fiber?
Haha, where to start.
The old iProvo network was sold to Google for a token payment of $1. When Google obtained the network, they did not also obtain the enormous heap of debt the city had incurred building it. Other companies had made bids on the network in the $18-24 Million range, which wouldn't have covered the debt entirely, but would have cleared the biggest chunk of it. I know this because I work for one of them, and used to work for a different one of them. This was all done very quickly, without any residents finding out the city was even talking to Google until the sale had been completed, and no opportunity for anyone to raise concerns.
The city's big hope was to raise revenue from the theoretical influx of businesses. What they didn't count on was that Utah County has a Libertarian streak miles wide - Google hasn't even tried to disguise how much their trial at being an ISP is really about further Data Mining experiments, and a lot of local businesses refuse to even investigate their service. And for companies further afield, the ones who cared that much about fiber internet already moved here years ago, when the city still owned the network. There weren't that many of them, and I have no idea why the mayor imagined there would be a second such surge at all, much less a larger one. Instead of a rush of new businesses, growth has slowed to a trickle, the slowest it's been in decades.
And then on the residential internet side of things, about 40% of the residences in the city were wired up with the network before, including most of the apartment complexes around BYU. And reviews since the takeover have been catastrophic. The company that used to operate the network (my current employer) wasn't popular, but we never incited the kind of aggressive, sustained vitriol that Google is earning. Company loyalties aside, I signed up for Google Fiber as soon as they switched things over from my company's control... and backed out two months later to sign a contract with fucking Comcast, because that was the demonstrably superior option. Having spent four years prior to the takeover working in the guts of that same network, I can't even imagine what they're doing with it to cause it to perform so poorly now.
tl;dr - the sale was handled in kind of an underhanded way, the huge heap of debt left over after the sale is still being passed along to the taxpayers, we're seeing none of the new business growth that was promised, the Google people cheerfully brag about how easy this makes it to spy on subscribers, and the disappointingly sporadic actual service makes sure the subject stays fresh in everyone's mind.
Desert Leviathan on
Realizing lately that I don't really trust or respect basically any of the moderators here. So, good luck with life, friends! Hit me up on Twitter @DesertLeviathan
I voted to ban red light cameras because they cause more accidents than they prevent because people drive skeevy as fuck around them here.
I am curious about this.
How do they drive around them?
Red Light and Speeding cameras are extremely ubiquitous where I'm from and moving to another country has really illustrated to me how well behaved drivers were there.
We have a really notorious one here at River Road and Oracle. The speed limit is 45 coming from both directions and it's a 9 lane North/South, 6 lane West/East thoroughfare, so the intersection itself is huge. If you hit a yellow light within 20 yards of the intersection, you'll hit the middle of the intersection red, which sometimes gets you a ticket and sometimes doesn't. Going 45 doesn't give a lot of cars enough time to safely stop from that distance, so people slow the fuck down. Nothing is more dangerous than people slowing down in the middle of a fairly fast-paced road, and this has actually caused quite a few accidents at this particular intersection. Without the cameras, people would go 45, cross through the intersection and be done with it. They may have to increase the time the light is yellow (by a second, maybe) to compensate, but it would make the intersection safer, in general.
Also the company that runs the red light and speed cameras in many US cities is not the government, and they take a majority of the money collected from the tickets they produce. They are, almost universally, a super shitty deal for taxpayers.
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#pipeCocky Stride, Musky odoursPope of Chili TownRegistered Userregular
Also the company that runs the red light and speed cameras in many US cities is not the government, and they take a majority of the money collected from the tickets they produce.
well that's a serious problem.
but to say nothing is more dangerous than slowing down in an intersection
I'd say running a red light is more dangerous, but that's just me.
A red light camera is supposed to only trip from movement at the stop line, and only be activated AFTER the light is red, which is to say it will only trip if you cross the stop line after the light is fully red. If this is not the case, it is miscalibrated and any challenge would reveal that.
There were a bunch of studies showing that the rate of cars getting t-boned went down but the rate of rear-endings went up a bunch. Similar accident rates, but lower cost and safer accidents.
My main problem with red light cameras is with calibration issues. How does the city prove that equipment that's been sitting outside for months or longer is actually functioning properly day to day? It also feels like another way to squeeze money out of people. It would absolutely lead to further exasperating the issues of fines on the poor as they wont have the same means to challenge their red light tickets, or the means to pay them off.
Also the company that runs the red light and speed cameras in many US cities is not the government, and they take a majority of the money collected from the tickets they produce.
well that's a serious problem.
but to say nothing is more dangerous than slowing down in an intersection
I'd say running a red light is more dangerous, but that's just me.
A red light camera is supposed to only trip from movement at the stop line, and only be activated AFTER the light is red, which is to say it will only trip if you cross the stop line after the light is fully red. If this is not the case, it is miscalibrated and any challenge would reveal that.
Yeah the ones in town have flashed on people that cross the crosswalk on a yellow.
Also yeah running the red light is dangerous if it's been red for any amount of time, but running a red light half a second after it turns red? Not as bad, since people don't typically jump the green light. I'm not condoning it as okay, I just think the cameras operate in absolutes and have no circumstantial awareness.
I once got a ticket for being stuck in an intersection 4 cars behind a bus at a red light, because the fucking idiots put bus stops 20 feet from the corner on the far side of the intersection. I had to take a half day off work to contest the fucking thing and there was even another car behind me that I assume also had to. I'd imagine it happens fairly often, there. Had that been a cop and not a camera, it wouldn't have been an issue.
Also the company that runs the red light and speed cameras in many US cities is not the government, and they take a majority of the money collected from the tickets they produce.
well that's a serious problem.
but to say nothing is more dangerous than slowing down in an intersection
I'd say running a red light is more dangerous, but that's just me.
A red light camera is supposed to only trip from movement at the stop line, and only be activated AFTER the light is red, which is to say it will only trip if you cross the stop line after the light is fully red. If this is not the case, it is miscalibrated and any challenge would reveal that.
Here in W.A. there are warning lights installed prior to intersections where vehicles may have trouble stopping on an amber light. They start flashing amber before the traffic light turns, they're all set back a certain distance and their timing is calculated according to the speed limit so that if you're going the speed limit and you drive past them just in time to see them start flashing, if you brake reasonably you will pull up to the stop line just as the traffic lights change to red.
Because getting t-boned at 40 mph is WAY more dangerous than getting rear-ended at 25.
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#pipeCocky Stride, Musky odoursPope of Chili TownRegistered Userregular
There were a bunch of studies showing that the rate of cars getting t-boned went down but the rate of rear-endings went up a bunch. Similar accident rates, but lower cost and safer accidents.
My main problem with red light cameras is with calibration issues. How does the city prove that equipment that's been sitting outside for months or longer is actually functioning properly day to day? It also feels like another way to squeeze money out of people. It would absolutely lead to further exasperating the issues of fines on the poor as they wont have the same means to challenge their red light tickets, or the means to pay them off.
Like I said, where I'm from, they're so ubiquitous that you basically have to expect them. People drive safer because if they don't they'll be ticketed REAL soon.
I've been driving in Canada for three years and I don't think I've ever seen a speed camera or radar trap on a highway. It is 100% normal for the bulk of traffic to be going 10-20km over the speed limit.
Back home in Australia it would be unusual to drive for a day without seeing a speed camera and it is unusual to see anyone driving more than 5km over the limit.
Also people use their indicators and know how to navigate a roundabout and know how to park on the street without taking up two spaces and I never knew how good I had it
Also the company that runs the red light and speed cameras in many US cities is not the government, and they take a majority of the money collected from the tickets they produce.
well that's a serious problem.
but to say nothing is more dangerous than slowing down in an intersection
I'd say running a red light is more dangerous, but that's just me.
A red light camera is supposed to only trip from movement at the stop line, and only be activated AFTER the light is red, which is to say it will only trip if you cross the stop line after the light is fully red. If this is not the case, it is miscalibrated and any challenge would reveal that.
Here in W.A. there are warning lights installed prior to intersections where vehicles may have trouble stopping on an amber light. They start flashing amber before the traffic light turns, they're all set back a certain distance and their timing is calculated according to the speed limit so that if you're going the speed limit and you drive past them just in time to see them start flashing, if you brake reasonably you will pull up to the stop line just as the traffic lights change to red.
Because getting t-boned at 40 mph is WAY more dangerous than getting rear-ended at 25.
I really, really wish we at least had those here. We've got nothing. And if it's raining, haha get fucked there's almost no way you can stop in time, because we sometimes go so long between rains that there's as much oil on the road as water.
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Shortytouching the meatIntergalactic Cool CourtRegistered Userregular
Also the company that runs the red light and speed cameras in many US cities is not the government, and they take a majority of the money collected from the tickets they produce.
well that's a serious problem.
but to say nothing is more dangerous than slowing down in an intersection
I'd say running a red light is more dangerous, but that's just me.
A red light camera is supposed to only trip from movement at the stop line, and only be activated AFTER the light is red, which is to say it will only trip if you cross the stop line after the light is fully red. If this is not the case, it is miscalibrated and any challenge would reveal that.
Here in W.A. there are warning lights installed prior to intersections where vehicles may have trouble stopping on an amber light. They start flashing amber before the traffic light turns, they're all set back a certain distance and their timing is calculated according to the speed limit so that if you're going the speed limit and you drive past them just in time to see them start flashing, if you brake reasonably you will pull up to the stop line just as the traffic lights change to red.
Because getting t-boned at 40 mph is WAY more dangerous than getting rear-ended at 25.
Weird. Here in Ohio you have to use the crosswalk light for this basically.
Also alot of lights with cameras are tuned to to trap you in a red light.
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FencingsaxIt is difficult to get a man to understand, when his salary depends upon his not understandingGNU Terry PratchettRegistered Userregular
It's been awhile since I didn't have a machine at my precinct.
but yeah mostly some boring school district stuff and some tax stuff (some of it "can we spend the money we collected on taxes because seriously marijuana made us a buttload of money but tabor prevents us from using all of it because we guessed too low on how much money it'd be")
I wish that someway, somehow, that I could save every one of us
I voted to ban red light cameras because they cause more accidents than they prevent because people drive skeevy as fuck around them here.
yeah I believe that
so true story
I have turned into a fucking idiot because I got a "red light violation" ticket a month or so back from one of those. I'm talking I slam on the fucking brakes when the light turns yellow now. This is a habit I reallly need to break, because it's definitely going to get me into an accident if I don't.
Honestly, it's a little scary how much it changed my behavior even though it was such a tiny fine and doesn't add any points, and it definitely did not change things in a good way.
(I think that particular light has a shortened yellow compared to most of non-monitored lights, too, which is how I got caught by it....)
End on
I wish that someway, somehow, that I could save every one of us
Posts
Need to reprint your ballot?
https://kingcounty.everyonecounts.com/page/281/543
hey satan...: thinkgeek amazon My post |
Yay.
I checked the LA County Registrar's webpage and I don't think there is anything else to vote for. No sticker for me
Steam Me
...
......
FINE, not really, but it would be super hilarious to see him broadcast his show from inside a Canadian jail.
Due to unforeseen budget shortfalls Kansas will not be holding any further elections.
Wait what's controversial about getting google fiber?
We rank 50th in per student spending in the nation. Do you want to keep us at that level, or would you like us to spend less?
Well, I mean, you're already in last place so...
I am curious about this.
How do they drive around them?
Red Light and Speeding cameras are extremely ubiquitous where I'm from and moving to another country has really illustrated to me how well behaved drivers were there.
Need some stuff designed or printed? I can help with that.
BF3 Battlelog | Twitter | World of Warships | World of Tanks | Wishlist
a trick i saw a lot where things where taking pictures of your licence plate was just cover that shit up. mud, snow, removing it, who cares, you can do what you want now!
Read or watch local news.
Be even slightly involved in your community.
that is a "trick" that should work for like an afternoon before you get pulled over for not having a legible license plate.
Need some stuff designed or printed? I can help with that.
But I gotta go vote...
my polling place is an elementary school near by though so at least it isn't hard to get too.
Sure in places where they have enough Patrol cars.
Here in toledo those plastic plate covers meant to obscure your plates are really common and there are often barely enough police to respond to injury accidents much less pull people over for traffic laws.
Your local League of Women voters. Ours produces a newsletter each election that breaks down each ballot proposition, and has short interviews with each candidate.
That is actually not true, given the whole innocent until proven guilty thing. It's incredibly easy to challenge automated ticketing systems.
Need some stuff designed or printed? I can help with that.
hey satan...: thinkgeek amazon My post |
Haha, where to start.
The city's big hope was to raise revenue from the theoretical influx of businesses. What they didn't count on was that Utah County has a Libertarian streak miles wide - Google hasn't even tried to disguise how much their trial at being an ISP is really about further Data Mining experiments, and a lot of local businesses refuse to even investigate their service. And for companies further afield, the ones who cared that much about fiber internet already moved here years ago, when the city still owned the network. There weren't that many of them, and I have no idea why the mayor imagined there would be a second such surge at all, much less a larger one. Instead of a rush of new businesses, growth has slowed to a trickle, the slowest it's been in decades.
And then on the residential internet side of things, about 40% of the residences in the city were wired up with the network before, including most of the apartment complexes around BYU. And reviews since the takeover have been catastrophic. The company that used to operate the network (my current employer) wasn't popular, but we never incited the kind of aggressive, sustained vitriol that Google is earning. Company loyalties aside, I signed up for Google Fiber as soon as they switched things over from my company's control... and backed out two months later to sign a contract with fucking Comcast, because that was the demonstrably superior option. Having spent four years prior to the takeover working in the guts of that same network, I can't even imagine what they're doing with it to cause it to perform so poorly now.
tl;dr - the sale was handled in kind of an underhanded way, the huge heap of debt left over after the sale is still being passed along to the taxpayers, we're seeing none of the new business growth that was promised, the Google people cheerfully brag about how easy this makes it to spy on subscribers, and the disappointingly sporadic actual service makes sure the subject stays fresh in everyone's mind.
We have a really notorious one here at River Road and Oracle. The speed limit is 45 coming from both directions and it's a 9 lane North/South, 6 lane West/East thoroughfare, so the intersection itself is huge. If you hit a yellow light within 20 yards of the intersection, you'll hit the middle of the intersection red, which sometimes gets you a ticket and sometimes doesn't. Going 45 doesn't give a lot of cars enough time to safely stop from that distance, so people slow the fuck down. Nothing is more dangerous than people slowing down in the middle of a fairly fast-paced road, and this has actually caused quite a few accidents at this particular intersection. Without the cameras, people would go 45, cross through the intersection and be done with it. They may have to increase the time the light is yellow (by a second, maybe) to compensate, but it would make the intersection safer, in general.
Also the company that runs the red light and speed cameras in many US cities is not the government, and they take a majority of the money collected from the tickets they produce. They are, almost universally, a super shitty deal for taxpayers.
well that's a serious problem.
but to say nothing is more dangerous than slowing down in an intersection
I'd say running a red light is more dangerous, but that's just me.
A red light camera is supposed to only trip from movement at the stop line, and only be activated AFTER the light is red, which is to say it will only trip if you cross the stop line after the light is fully red. If this is not the case, it is miscalibrated and any challenge would reveal that.
Need some stuff designed or printed? I can help with that.
No on two yes on threeeeeeeee
My main problem with red light cameras is with calibration issues. How does the city prove that equipment that's been sitting outside for months or longer is actually functioning properly day to day? It also feels like another way to squeeze money out of people. It would absolutely lead to further exasperating the issues of fines on the poor as they wont have the same means to challenge their red light tickets, or the means to pay them off.
Yeah the ones in town have flashed on people that cross the crosswalk on a yellow.
Also yeah running the red light is dangerous if it's been red for any amount of time, but running a red light half a second after it turns red? Not as bad, since people don't typically jump the green light. I'm not condoning it as okay, I just think the cameras operate in absolutes and have no circumstantial awareness.
I once got a ticket for being stuck in an intersection 4 cars behind a bus at a red light, because the fucking idiots put bus stops 20 feet from the corner on the far side of the intersection. I had to take a half day off work to contest the fucking thing and there was even another car behind me that I assume also had to. I'd imagine it happens fairly often, there. Had that been a cop and not a camera, it wouldn't have been an issue.
Here in W.A. there are warning lights installed prior to intersections where vehicles may have trouble stopping on an amber light. They start flashing amber before the traffic light turns, they're all set back a certain distance and their timing is calculated according to the speed limit so that if you're going the speed limit and you drive past them just in time to see them start flashing, if you brake reasonably you will pull up to the stop line just as the traffic lights change to red.
Because getting t-boned at 40 mph is WAY more dangerous than getting rear-ended at 25.
Like I said, where I'm from, they're so ubiquitous that you basically have to expect them. People drive safer because if they don't they'll be ticketed REAL soon.
I've been driving in Canada for three years and I don't think I've ever seen a speed camera or radar trap on a highway. It is 100% normal for the bulk of traffic to be going 10-20km over the speed limit.
Back home in Australia it would be unusual to drive for a day without seeing a speed camera and it is unusual to see anyone driving more than 5km over the limit.
Also people use their indicators and know how to navigate a roundabout and know how to park on the street without taking up two spaces and I never knew how good I had it
Need some stuff designed or printed? I can help with that.
*local newspapers of both major and indie varieties usually have a lot of local coverage running up to an election
*libraries will usually have information on upcoming elections as well
Yeah, Arizona's public education system has been in the gutter for as long as I can remember.
It's ludicrous.
I really, really wish we at least had those here. We've got nothing. And if it's raining, haha get fucked there's almost no way you can stop in time, because we sometimes go so long between rains that there's as much oil on the road as water.
siiiiiick
apparently they still think I live at my old address
Weird. Here in Ohio you have to use the crosswalk light for this basically.
Also alot of lights with cameras are tuned to to trap you in a red light.
but yeah mostly some boring school district stuff and some tax stuff (some of it "can we spend the money we collected on taxes because seriously marijuana made us a buttload of money but tabor prevents us from using all of it because we guessed too low on how much money it'd be")
yeah I believe that
so true story
I have turned into a fucking idiot because I got a "red light violation" ticket a month or so back from one of those. I'm talking I slam on the fucking brakes when the light turns yellow now. This is a habit I reallly need to break, because it's definitely going to get me into an accident if I don't.
Honestly, it's a little scary how much it changed my behavior even though it was such a tiny fine and doesn't add any points, and it definitely did not change things in a good way.
(I think that particular light has a shortened yellow compared to most of non-monitored lights, too, which is how I got caught by it....)
The same one's up again this go-around, so here's to making a tiny difference, hopefully
Mostly it was just "Hey wanna fund some schools and roads?" and my answer was "Yes please that would be nice"