[chrisshroba]

This always astounds me about cities who have a reputation for people breaking certain traffic laws. In St. Louis, people run red lights for 5+ seconds after it turns red, and no one seems to care to solve it, but if they'd just station police at some worst-offender lights for a couple months to write tickets, people would catch on pretty quickly that it's not worth the risk. I have similar thoughts on people using their phones at red lights and people running stop signs.

[Aurornis]

It’s amazing how effective even a slight amount of random law enforcement can be.

Several of the hiking trails I frequent allow dogs but only on leash. Over time the number of dogs running around off leash grows until it’s nearly every dog you see.

When the city starts putting someone at the trailhead at random times to write tickets for people coming down the trail with off-leash dogs suddenly most dogs are back on leash again. Then they stop enforcing it and the number of off-leash dogs starts growing.

[pradn]

Random sampling over time is substantially as effective as having someone enforce the law 100% of the time. It's something like how randomized algorithms can be faster than their purely-deterministic counterparts, or how sampling a population is quite effective at finding population statistics.

[Breza]

I completely agree. Here in DC, we have sporadic enforcement of things like fare evasion, reckless moped driving, unlicensed food trucks, and speeding on the shoulder of the highway. It definitely helps somewhat.

[rahkiin]

In europe we use traffic cameras for this. Going through red light? A bill is in your mailbox automatically. No need for a whole police station.

[0_____0]

In Massachusetts, USA, red light cameras were illegal until very recently, due to a 70s era law specifying that a live policeman had to issue a citation for something like that. From well before traffic cameras were common.

[lysace]

Sweden: Their locations are public. There is even an official API.

They are mostly located in sane places.

Apps like Waze consume this API and warn drivers if they’re at risk of getting caught. It’s the deterrence/slowdown at known risky spots they’re after, not the fine, I guess.

I heard that apps warning drivers this way are illegal in Germany?

[pverheggen]

We have them in the US too, but it varies widely by jurisdiction because they're regulated at the state level and policed at the local level.

Oh and it's not a bill, it goes through the legal system so people have the right to argue it in court if they want.

[prettyblocks]

NYC is ramping up on this as well.

[williamcotton]

https://www.nyc.gov/site/finance/vehicles/red-light-camera-v...

[throw-qqqqq]

Here in my country they removed the cameras in the second largest city after a trial period. It took too much effort to filter out police colleagues running a red (in police or civilian vehicles).

[mothballed]

In most the USA, or at least Arizona, you have to serve someone. Just dropping something in a mail box doesn't mean dick. The very people that invented the traffic cameras up in Scottsdale were caught dodging the process servers from triggers from their own camera.

Another words, you have to spend hundreds of dollars chasing someone down, by the time you add that on to how easy it is to jam up the ticket in court by demanding an actual human being accuse you, it's not the easy win some may think. You're basically looking at $500+ to try and prosecute someone for a $300 ticket.

[bsder]

The problem with traffic cameras in the US was that they became outsourced revenue enhancement rather than public safety.

The cameras would get installed at busy intersections with lots of minor infractions to collect fines on rather than unsafe intersections that had lots of bad accidents. And then, when the revenue was insufficient, they would dial down the yellow light time.

Consequently, and rightly, Americans now immediately revolt against traffic cameras whenever they appear.

(San Diego was one particularly egregious example. They installed the cameras on the busy freeway interchange lights when the super dangerous intersection that produced all the T-bone accidents was literally one traffic light up the hill. This infuriated everybody.)

[oceanplexian]

Try driving anywhere in the world that's not Western Europe or The USA and you'll quickly see how advanced even our worst cities are when it comes to traffic.

Last time I was in China drivers simply go through four way intersections at top speed from all directions simultaneously. If you are a pedestrian I hope you're good at frogger because there is a 0% chance anyone will stop for you. I really wonder how self driving cars work because they must program some kind of insane software that ignores all laws or it wouldn't even be remotely workable.

[koreth1]

When I was living in China I got used to crossing large streets one lane at a time. Pedestrians stand on the lane markers with cars whizzing by on either side while they wait for a gap big enough to cross the next lane. It's not great for safety, to put it mildly, but the drivers expect it and it's the only way to get across the road in some places. I was freaked out by it but eventually it became habit.

Then I came back to the US and forgot to switch back to US-style street crossing behavior at first. No physical harm done, but I was very embarrassed when people slammed on their brakes at the sight of me in the middle of the road.

[tehjoker]

It is kinda funny watching people complain here after visiting almost anywhere in Asia. Can't speak for Japan or Korea though.

[orbisvicis]

Wait, so all the sibling comments are actually proposing bringing NYC traffic to a gridlock?

[potato3732842]

What the actual rules are matter far less than that traffic is predictable. Like in Boston it's typical for a few cars to get into the intersection to take a left, traffic goes around them in both directions and only on the change to red to they go. Not technically legal but normal. 4-way stops where nobody stops and everyone times their roll unless there's a reason to. Also not technically legal but normal. Nobody with an opinion worth caring about complains about these things. Blowing lights many seconds after they've changed is still wild IMO.

[jakogut]

People are risking their lives and the lives of others, and a fine is supposed to be the thing that finally gets them to comply?

[Aurornis]

This is what the points system is for.

Any individual infraction might only be a small fine, but it adds points to your license. Collect enough points and you risk license suspension.

I’ve known a couple people who got close to having enough points for license suspension. They drove perfectly for years.

[Permit]

Yes.

If they run a red light today there is some small chance they will injure/kill someone.

If they run a red light with a camera, there is a 100% chance they will receive a ticket.

The key factor is not the magnitude of the penalty (i.e. whether someone dies or they receive a fine) but the chance that they will encounter the penalty.

[setgree]

You've got me: I believe that people respond to financial incentives. I don't think this is a radical position.

[Dylan16807]

Phone while stopped at a red light is explicitly legal here. I don't think it's been a problem?

[polynomial]

New startup idea just dropped.

[liasejrt]

I think (or at least I hope) St Louis is primarily focused on reducing their sky-high murder rates. But who knows.