Friday, September 13, 2013

Greed Cameras Costing Speeders?

Speed cameras are just another way for the city to generate money - OR - Is there a real safety issue when it comes to the ignorance of drivers that have the need to speed?  How about both.

No speeding, regardless if you're an Autobot!
I was raised literally at Wrigley Field, and for all of my adult life, I have worked in downtown Chicago, so getting across a busy street, ain't no thing for me.

I live off a busy Chicago main street, which for years, I have witnessed seeing elderly ladies having trouble trying to cross.  I would help them across the street myself, but I doubt that they want a strange middle-aged man leading them into traffic, while on his bike.  Even though, the pedestrians are on the same side as a biker here, I just don't think that Bicycling Crossing Guards For The Elderly is a good program.

Crossing the street has an enough challenges, without the addition of reckless speeders.
I do not think that most drivers are even aware of the Illinois right of way at crosswalks law...
"When traffic control signals are not in place or not in operation the driver of a vehicle shall stop and yield the right-of-way to a pedestrian crossing the roadway within a crosswalk when the pedestrian is upon the half of the roadway upon which the vehicle is traveling, or when the pedestrian is approaching so closely from the opposite half of the roadway as to be in danger."

This applies to EVERY crosswalk in the state, not just the ones where this sign is placed.
So, if you are speeding, how can you be prepared to stop at EVERY crosswalk, when there are people presently trying to cross?

Speed cameras can help curb accidents.  This may tilt the balance towards the law, that separates the difference from getting away with speeding and getting caught.  This may be as fair as how hunters now have a gun that locks onto it's pry, like a heat seeking guided missile.  Except, unlike the unsportsman's rifle, the speed cameras are there to save lives.

It is not as if speeders can cheat the system by getting a smartphone app that warns them for these cameras nor can they look them up online, so I understand how this is not fair at all...



How can you be against these cameras, unless you are, indeed, speeding.

So, I am siding with the city for once. There are too many reckless drivers that speed by my place, so I have no problem with them ticketing these drivers. Don't speed and you won't get a ticket.

Cameras all over Chicago?  What is the worst that could happen?


Oh, that.  Well, we have successfully delayed that dystopian world from happening for almost 30 years now...It is not like there are privacy issues...anyways, who are we worried about?  Us or them?  (Facebook or NSA)
"It was terribly dangerous to let your thoughts wander when you were in any public place or within range of a telescreen. The smallest thing could give you away. A nervous tic, an unconscious look of anxiety, a habit of muttering to yourself--anything that carried with it the suggestion of abnormality, of having something to hide. In any case, to wear an improper expression on your face...; was itself a punishable offense. There was even a word for it in Newspeak: facecrime..."
- George Orwell, 1984, Book 1, Chapter 5

Just don't smile while speeding, the cameras will add on an additional fine.

 Tony Lossano, Broadcast Producer (TV & Radio, Chicago), amateur bicyclist, a fantastic dog walker, and has never been married to Alyssa Milano.

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