Google Maps Adding Photo Radar Warnings For Drivers In Canada (huffingtonpost.ca) 84
Google Maps is warning drivers in Canada as they approach some photo radar camera locations. "The feature, which is currently being rolled out by Google, allows users to see speed limits, speed cameras and mobile speed cameras on the map before they leave," reports HuffPost Canada. "It also gives a verbal warning -- an automated voice saying 'speed camera ahead' -- when drivers are near a fixed speed camera." From the report: Police in Calgary say the feature is useful to them. "The biggest thing we love ... is we place those (cameras) by collision statistics," said Sgt. Joerg Gottschling of the Calgary Police Service traffic section. "If we do a new site, if we are going to install a new camera, the next site is always selected by the next highest crash site. "Our intersection locations are all determined where we are trying to eliminate collisions."
Gottschling said they've had up to a 50 per cent reduction in collisions in some areas where those cameras are stationed. With Google Maps, he noted, all drivers approaching the fixed camera intersection get the warning. "That camera is only facing one way," said Gottschling. "Let's say it's only facing northbound, but you can approach southbound or eastbound ... you are still going to get Google telling you caution. "So you're going to go slowly and cautiously through there which, lo and behold, is actually what we want." Google said in an email that there will also be an ability for android users to report mobile speed cameras and stationary cameras.
Gottschling said they've had up to a 50 per cent reduction in collisions in some areas where those cameras are stationed. With Google Maps, he noted, all drivers approaching the fixed camera intersection get the warning. "That camera is only facing one way," said Gottschling. "Let's say it's only facing northbound, but you can approach southbound or eastbound ... you are still going to get Google telling you caution. "So you're going to go slowly and cautiously through there which, lo and behold, is actually what we want." Google said in an email that there will also be an ability for android users to report mobile speed cameras and stationary cameras.
Re:Traffic cameras to reduce number of collisions? (Score:4, Insightful)
Literally came here to say, "I can't wait for the usual cynics to come out of the bushes and moan about how the police must be lying that they actually want to reduce collisions because We All Know it's about the money" -- and lo and behold you were already here.
Re: Traffic cameras to reduce number of collisions (Score:4, Interesting)
Literally not a single one of the stories provided on that page provides any evidence that cities shortened the lights after installing the cameras. On the contrary, most of them are along the lines of this excerpt:
"Dallas likewise installed the cameras at locations with existing short yellow times. A total of twenty-one camera intersections in Dallas had yellow times below TxDOTâ(TM)s bare minimum recommended amount."
It seems much more likely that - as the police officer in this story suggested - cameras are installed in response to danger. If the people responsible for setting up the lights are incompetent (as several of the stories on your linked page suggest) then some intersections will have shorter lights. Those intersections will be much more likely to have a disproportionate number of accidents. Therefore they will be more likely to receive cameras.
Of course it's stupid to just slap a camera on an intersection without first looking at why so many accidents occur at that location ... but stupidity is common, so why are you assuming malice?
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Photo radar under review in Alberta due to widespread misuse [www.cbc.ca]
Municipalities go after engineer for speaking up about unsafe amber lights used to maximize red light camera revenue [www.cbc.ca]
Senior successfully challenges red light camera ticket after demonstrating it doesn't meet ITE guidelines [www.cbc.ca]
Re: Traffic cameras to reduce number of collision (Score:2)
Your first link talks about photo radar and is completely irrelevant to the discussion.
Your second and third link talk about making amber lights longer than 4 seconds on high-speed roads, and do not even remotely suggest that the light duration has been lowered after bringing in cameras.
Nice "citations".
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Re:Traffic cameras to reduce number of collisions? (Score:4, Insightful)
Entirely depends on your jurisdiction, and in many places the local police do not get the income from cameras, so those jurisdictions tend to use them as they should be used.
Not every country does it like the US, where traffic police are seen as a revenue source by their management.
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Entirely depends on your jurisdiction, and in many places the local police do not get the income from cameras, so those jurisdictions tend to use them as they should be used.
Since the number of tickets written can be used as a metric for police productivity sans any monetary reward, your assumption is unwarranted. It buys the police points with non-violators since the police are "doing something" about a safety problem. It buys points with the local jurisdiction that does get the money. And it buys points with their supervisors who see documented proof that they are "doing something".
It is interesting to note the obvious lie: "With Google Maps, he noted, all drivers approachin
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Or they could just install fake cameras. This greatly reduces the cost of the camera, eliminates the need for wiring, and there is much less maintenance required.
I have six cameras around the perimeter of my house. Only one is real. It is the one that isn't easily visible.
Re: Traffic cameras to reduce number of collisions (Score:2)
When Australia first got speed cameras this is exactly what they did. They would move the camera from box to box, so most boxes were empty. That was until the cameras started paying for themselves of course,
You're thinking of red light cameras. (Score:1)
Always thought the main purpose of traffic cameras is "money grab".
You're thinking about ticket-generating red light runner cameras in (at least) the United States.
The companies (and cities that install them) used to tout them as reducing accidents by reducing red light running. In fact, they increased accidents. People tend to jam on the brakes when they see a yellow light in a camera monitored intersection, resulting in rear-end collisions.
The drivers' behavior was reasonable, as the companies tended to
Re: You're thinking of red light cameras. (Score:1)
You should be ready for the car ahead to jam on the brakes, especially at intersections, in case there is someone or something in the road. So if the cameras are revealing that people are dangerously tailgating with insufficient attention why do you think the solution is to remove the cameras?
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All i can say, is that i hope that it is because canadian police departments are better funded.
Thing is, that most police sit in the same spots all the time. There is only so many spots in the city to sit at. Its never about surprise. Most people quickly learn where to speed and where not to. And yes i do find they place speed traps in the city at high collision locations most times if i think about it, which of course makes sense. Almost always at a light at the end of a long straightaway.
If you ar
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Generally ticket revenues (except parking tickets and such covered by city by-laws) go into the Provinces general funds rather straight to the cops. This may vary in different Provinces.
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That's never happened before, weird.
Calgary cops are AOK (Score:5, Insightful)
It seems they are interested in reducing collisions not in increasing revenue.
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Yeah, but they're also full of shit.
"So you're going to go slowly and cautiously through there which, lo and behold, is actually what we want."
Nope, what I'm going to be doing is looking at my speedometer instead of the road because that's what they've trained me to do. They've also trained some idiots to break on green lights. So while I'm distracted by my speedo, there's a good chance someone ahead of me is breaking for no reason.
Which is why the red light /speed/ cameras see an almost universal i
Re: Calgary cops are AOK (Score:5, Insightful)
Nope, what I'm going to be doing is looking at my speedometer instead of the road because that's what they've trained me to do.
If you are incapable of monitoring your speedometer and the road at the same time, you shouldn't be on the road in the first place. Go take a drivers ed course so they can teach you how to properly scan dash, road, and mirrors.
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I tend to leave enough room between myself and the car in front that I've never actually hit anyone that brakes unexpectedly, or anyone else in 30ish years, but there's plenty of evidence that red-light cameras increase rear end accidents, so not everyone is leaving enough room.
Chicago: http://time.com/3643077/red-li... [time.com]
Houston: https://www.scientificamerican... [scientificamerican.com]
There's plenty of people that clearly shouldn't be allowed on the road, and my point is that you can't solve their lack of skill with cameras and abs
Re: Calgary cops are AOK (Score:2)
I never suggested that you could; I merely pointed out that you need remedial training.
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No, I really don't, but thanks for your input.
You're confusing what you perceive as reality with actual reality and could probably use some training on exactly how much split focus and multitasking you're actually capable of; for most humans it's SFA..
Re: Calgary cops are AOK (Score:2)
Has that excuse ever worked for you? "Sorry officer, I'm human, and we suck at multitasking ...."
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If you have a reasonable insurance system, then it appears you can. A few minor incidents like that and they won't be able to afford to drive.
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You mean only the rich will be able to afford to drive.
Tickets should also be based on income like in Finland, X hours or days of wages for speeding etc. That would make the punishment more equal. Here a speeding ticket can be over $300, 3 days wages for a minimum wage worker who is probably living on the edge and a couple of hours or less for some who can afford it anyways.
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Only the rich would be able to drive *carelessly*. In a good insurance system most people would be economically incentivized not to do stupid things like tailgate. Admittedly, people who are too rich would be able to engage in riskier behaviour regardless of the monetary hit. It's a flaw in any economic incentive system.
Income-based tickets are a great idea.
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Nope, what I'm going to be doing is looking at my speedometer instead of the road because that's what they've trained me to do. They've also trained some idiots to break on green lights. So while I'm distracted by my speedo, there's a good chance someone ahead of me is breaking for no reason.
I've never seen anyone brake at a green light at red light camera intersections, but I do see them stop earlier in the yellow, which sometimes causes problems when the car behind them had no intention of stopping, so needs to slam on the brakes to stop before he hits the guy that stopped when the light turned yellow.
It's not a problem for most drivers since if there's room for the car in front of you to stop on the yellow, there's more than enough room for the cars behind them to stop. But apparently some d
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Lucky you, I've seen people 10kph under the limit brake on every stretch of road imaginable.
It's possibly just the zealous speed enforcement around here (they WILL ticket you for 1MPH over the limit) but the percentage of nervous/hesitant drivers is really high.
When you combine driving significantly slower than the person closing in on you behind with the massively reduced braking distance of a car doing 50kph vs 60kph, it's really easy for them to cause an accident.
https://www.qld.gov.au/transpo... [qld.gov.au]
Estimate
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Can't you dispute a speeding ticket on the basis that the camera, radar gun etc is likely not calibrated that accurately? Here, when they had cameras, they were set to ticket at 10 kph over the limit.
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Now and again, I'll have someone in front of me brake on a green light even without cameras. Always a bit unexpected and forces me to brake harder then usual and be thankful I'm not a tailgater.
There's some bad drivers out there. I live in a rural area and I'd swear some people just stop in the middle of the road to look at a tree.
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I'm more worried about the other drivers lack of skill and "taking on" the mantle of what I see happen every day for illustrative purposes, but thanks for playing.
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It's more of an edict that came down in Calgary or across Alberta (not sure who issued it) - the use of photo radar equipment must be shown to be for safety reasons and not just for revenue reasons. If this is not obeyed, the cameras will be removed forcefully.
So every installation must prove that it's created positive change (less accidents, etc). Otherwise the camera will be removed.
WAZE, owned by Google, already does that. (Score:2, Interesting)
What's the big deal? Waze already gives those warnings in the USA; is it the "in Canada" part that''s special?
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Waze already does it in Canada too. As does the built-in GPS in my car. I think it's the "Google" part that's new.
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Google Maps is the more conservative app, Waze is where they test features like this out. The fact that it is going mainstream is significant.
Having said that, many car manufacturers have been including it for years too. Both my Leafs had it going back six years now.
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What I've never understand is why - after all these years - Google Maps and Waze still have not merged their databases and routing systems. It's frustrating, because Google Maps is much better for searching and routing, whereas Waze is much better for warning about police/speed traps, and for sudden rerouting to avoid congestion. It's annoying to have to use both apps.
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Because Google. They'll keep around multiple solutions for the same thing and then flip a coin to kill one of them off.
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Google is maintained by disinterested people in another country. Waze is maintained by local editors who know what's going on in their town. Tell me which is better.
And FYI, Waze uses both Google as well as its own internal database for searches. I don't see how having less data makes Goog
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Cool story. Why not tell us all the other countries where {insert software not being talked about} does this?
Korea GPS has had this for ages (Score:1)
In Korea, speed cameras are spaced out and clearly marked in advance. The intent is partly to catch speeders but mostly to annoy you into slowing down since they're spaced out around every 5-7km
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In Korea, speed cameras are spaced out and clearly marked in advance. The intent is partly to catch speeders but mostly to annoy you into slowing down since they're spaced out around every 5-7km
It also encourages literacy by taxing people that can't read the signs.
show the accident data? (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe Google should just cut out the middleman and show the accident data directly so drivers know which intersections are the most dangerous.
Re: show the accident data? (Score:3, Funny)
"Slow down, dear, other users have only rated this corner three stars!"
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Instead of cameras the police could determine where the danger spots are and create a database, that Google and everyone else could use to show warnings. Many cars already have a speed camera database in the sat nav anyway, wouldn't take much to add accident black spots to that.
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What makes you think that drivers react to accidents rather an a financial motivation?
FUCK YA CANADA... (Score:3)
DUI Check Stops next.. (Score:2)
Teslas, Drunk as Fuck Mode... (Score:4, Funny)
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Difference between US and Canada (Score:2)
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Completely unreliable. (Score:3)