Dan McLaughlin got caught recently by a speed camera and then, a few days later, received a citation in the mail. Normally, that would just be one of those things:
What is obnoxious, however, is that the pretext for this particular ticket is “speeding in a school zone” even though it was based on a camera observation at 10 a.m. on the Sunday morning of a three-day weekend. A machine using an empty school as a justification for a ticket no decent police officer would write is a fine emblem of Hochul’s New York.
And it is the result of a specific decision made by the governor when she signed a bill last June to allow school-zone cameras to operate 24/7, entirely without regard to whether the school is open or occupied by humans.
Finally, left and right can come together. I've never gotten a ticket like this, but I do drive by our local elementary school regularly. It has a big sign that says the school zone speed limit is 25 mph "when children are present." But most people seem unaware of that qualifier and creep along regardless of whether any children are within a thousand yards.
I know, I know: boo hoo. I'm not going to get any sympathy for having to slow down for a couple hundred yards once or twice a day.
Nonetheless, this definitely makes my top thousand list of annoying things. So there.
Kevin and I have this in common--it's in my top thousand also. ...probably not top 500, but I'm not sure.
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The complexity of legislation and ordnances is the Secret Sauce. What, we should return to bland society? Maybe AI could figure this one out. Or maybe people should stop supervising from behind desks.
Anyway, until we require leaders to lead and make decisions that are difficult (looking at you DOJ, SCOTUS, etc) and not necessarily in their benefit, hell, we have to find these people in the first place, this will be the mediocre kind of decision we'll get.*
It's a giant shit sandwich and we're all going to have to take a bite.
*This can also come in the inverse flavor.
Hey, I was pulled over and ticketed for "passing in a school zone" even though I was driving at 15mph (speed limit was 25), and I merely changed lanes. The officer asked if I knew what I had done wrong, and I had no idea. He was staked out in front of the high school for several days, and I think he caught large numbers of drivers that week...
One of our local school zone signs says speed limit 20mph when flashing. Needless to say the light is flashing all the time even when school is not in session, in the middle of the night, and all summer long. This is on a highway with a 45mph limit so essentially the police can sit there and write tickets whenever they are bored, though they are never there in the morning when actual school children are around.
"Injustice is great until it affects me" is the eternal theme of right wingers.
Poor Dan McLaughlin... I've never heard of him, but clearly he'll never get that $300k/year "job" at the Manhattan Institute "researching" the connection between rock-bottom upper bracket tax rates and low crime rates...
In other words, how can he not know that the first rule of GOP politics these days is: the children must always be protected!
Sorry, Dan, Glen Youngkin did not return your call...
I know I'm being a bit obscure. Let me help by being more specific.
Dan, pull your piece and replace it with a piece saying you decided to test whether NY's finest are really on the ball. You filled your trunk with pro-trans and pro-reparations literature, then decided to speed in a school zone to see if the police searched your car to determine if you were one of those liberal degenerates there to influence the kids. But they only gave you a ticket and let you go! Checkmate! The libs are obviously using the police to get kids to be pro-trans and pro-reparations! Plus they are soft on crime!
Now, that will get your call answered by Mr. Youngkin...
You're welcome!
"When children are present" is too vague. The sign should clearly state the times when the lower limit is in effect: something like "M-F 6:00 am to 6:00 pm, except school holidays"
Most of these signs that I have seen have a flashing red light that flashes when the lower limit is in effect.
Kids can sometimes be present on the weekends (sports practices? detention? exam taking?) and of course schools are out during the summer, as Alice Cooper reminded us.
So "when children are present" is the best rule. You just need cops to be honest about it and not write tickets when there are no children present.
I still say that is too vague. If you don't see any children (they're all inside at the moment) does that mean you can drive the normal limit? What about cameras?
No, I think they need to specify the times and/or use the flashing lights.
If you don't see any children, children are not present.
Or it's a school for ninjas. You got a problem with child ninjas? /s
yes, children are well known for their ability to regulate their bodies and to follow directions.
its definitely best to maintain your speed in a school zone unless you can see children present. on school grounds. during school hours.
I have almost never seen "children present" when the yellow light for the school zone is flashing. I still slow down and look for them, of course.
It's annoying and somewhat nonsensical, but if it pissed off McLaughlin and caused him some financial misfortune, seems worth it in the end.
Camera-enforced speed zones are a huge flag that a school is inappropriately sited next to a high-speed road or vice versa. The flag is both a warning flag and a surrender flag.
Or it's a red flag that the local municipality has decided to use speed cameras as a major source of revenue. I bet this is the case in New York. It's a horrible practice and there should be laws in place to prevent speed cameras in shady placements or at times when not needed, they should not be used as a gotcha game, they should be limited to simple rational enforcement of speed limits that match the rational safe speed of the road in question.
I live in NY State, and unless they haved updated the traffic signs, the school zone speed limits are effective only on school days for specific times (like through 6 PM). While the speed camera folks may have sent him a ticket, a photo of the traffic sign should be enough to get him out of paying the ticket.
I don't know who Dan McLaughlin is, and I will certainly not pony up any money to get through the National Review's paywall, but his boy for Governer, Lee Zelden, is an election denier and forced birther. He is also a Trump supporting MAGA asshole.
McLaughlin proudly waves his privilege card by reminding us that no officer would dare give him a ticket in this situation.
Others, who don't have their card, might find sad humor in that statement.
Welcome to someone else's shoes!
I'm guessing that this McLaughlin jasper didn't realize that in all probability having these cameras operate 24/7 is a cost-cutting measure.
I would think that it would be a simple matter to program the cameras to only operate on weekdays during school hours. I think this is a simple money grab.
Which is simpler: A 'smart' light, or a light that stays on all the time? For that matter, which came first, the lettering on the sign or the behaviour of the cameras? And finally, are you factoring possible law suits into your costs?
Before the legislation was signed into law, the cameras did not operate 24x7. Suggesting they were already “smart.”
Ah, the patented rick_jones way of admitting that 'smart' lights are more expensive than the ones that stay on all the time. You're a big man, rick_jones.
…and I'm sure the police just started doing this when Hochul became governor. BTW, remember how incensed McLaughlin was about how this kind of policing was part of what led to all the Ferguson protests?
I find this post super refreshing. As a transplant to California, it's obvious that native Californians' default setting on the road is "Vroom vroom road means I go fast, freeway means I go EXTRA fast." I just got into it with some Californian friends a few weeks ago who were incredulous that people are foolish enough to...slow down to 40 on the freeway during our recent driving rainstorms, instead of going 65 like you're supposed to on every freeway always! So I was expecting this post to be complaining about maniacs driving too aggressively in school zones.
But nope! It's just Kevin who's mad about the one time he doesn't get to go vroom vroom fast because other people are being extra cautious about tickets and/or maiming kids leaving after-school soccer practice.
Yep.
Also, if you find yourself annoyed that you have to slow down to a speed slower than you feel like you should be going to go the speed limit, then the road is not designed correctly (or the speed limit is too low). In almost every case, the speed limit is set because people don't want speeding, but the road is also usually very overbuilt. Changing the design to match the speed limit doesn't have to be expensive, but people don't like that either.
So what ends up happening is we get roads that are too big for the speed limit where people feel free/privileged to speed with impunity, until there are cameras, and then everyone complains about everything.
I agree. I just visited my sister-in-law in San Diego and everyone speeds all the time. Two other bad driving in Claifornia observations, orange lights mean go faster more than anywhere else I've seen and the speed limits for suburban streets is higher than I'm used to. Many places on Canada and the UK (the last two places I've lived) have lowered the speed limit on secondary streets to 20 mph (50kpm). The school zone speed limit is the same and they haven't change the signs so you get signs to slow to 50 when you're already in a 50 zone. I guess the fines go up in the school zones.
"kpm" = kilometers per minute? If that's a typo for "kph," you've still done the conversion wrong.
Not all school zone rules are like California's. In Ohio, our school zone signs read "Speed Limit 20 during restricted hours." "Restricted hours" are generally 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. on weekdays, but they aren't always listed on the sign, so people feel it's better to be safe than sorry.
In Austin they allow a compnay based in NM to send fines to cars they get off the bus cams. Questionable and not enforceable unless written by a police officer. They state this is a CIVIL issue in the deceptive letter. In other words it's BS and anyone that bothers to check doesn't pay it. They make the letter look very AISD official
I got a parking ticket in the mail for parking in a place I had never been at a time I couldn’t have been there. I paid it and it has irked me when it is brought to mind ever since. Fighting it would have been more costly than the fine. A few years later I read that the town that sent me the ticket used a company like the one you mentioned and found out that it was just randomly sending out tickets.
I live in Indianapolis and school zone speed limits go unenforced. And stopped school buses letting children off? OK to pass them as well.
About a year ago we had a 7 year old mowed down and killed in a school zone. That triggered enforcement for a couple weeks.
Also. Pretty much all traffic laws go unenforced. Speeding, running red lights….
COUNTERPOINT
Here in Tucson, we had red light cameras. Both my wife and I were busted by them.
The voters got rid of them. Since then, driving has gotten WAY more dangerous. People just blow through intersections at 55mpg in a 35 zone way after red. It is scary.
counter-counter point....
Chicago setup red light cameras. Then shortened the time of the yellow light to catch more people.
It's ok now, they "fixed" it.....and that's why funding gov't. with fines is a bad idea.
NYC’er here - we have very specific laws. And no sympathy for Dan - you only get a speeding ticket for going 11 mph or more over the speed limit. In NYC, the typical speed limit is 25mph, reduced to 20 or 15 in school zones. And since the ticket is issued by a camera and not NYPD personnel, the ticket is assigned to the owner of the vehicle with no points on anyone’s license. And the cost? An extravagant $50! So Dan, STFU and slow down.
let me preface by saying i try not to blow through school zones. I take kids' safety seriously. here in florida, they post signs with set times when the lower speed limit is in effect that correspond with times kids are coming to or leaving school. at the main entrance to the school the sign has flashing lights so if you see it all lit up, you know to slow down. on side streets, however, there may or may not be flashing lights, just a sign telling you the times, which you may or may not see. on top of that, i don't wear a watch, so I have to go scrambling for my phone to find out the time.
In NY I believe it is a local thing. On LI most of the school zone cameras say “when school is in session”. My guess it’s a local decision as to whether they run them all night. My local schools do not seem to. At one point they had cameras on every school and then traffic ground to halt in some of the busier districts. They bailed on those.
You guys do all know that stuff like this has a greater impact on poor people, right? Sure, readers of Kevin Drum can all afford a random $50 ticket but a lot of people really can't afford a ticket like this. This sound like a municipality trying to use tickets to raise revenue and that is the sort of thing I wish left and right could work together to put a stop to.
35 comments in this thread as of 9:22 EST (6:22PST) and not one so far has come up with the simple solution that won’t quite totally eliminate the problem, but will certainly go a long way to reducing it:
SLOW DOWN, SPARKY!
I'd like to see a road-legal electric vehicle that maxes out at 40 mph (ideally, 30 mph would be better) and goes maybe 100 miles between recharges. Why not? You're not moving any faster than that most places in Chicago anyway, at least, not when you're not on the highway. And why not? We always rent a beast anyway when we roadtrip; my partner likes to ride high and have a lot of room aroud her.
Where I live, a local ordinance defines all school zones as playground zones (it makes sense; kids play on the school grounds even when school is not in session) which means the speed limits are in effect from a half-hour before sunrise to a half-hour after sunset every day.
Maybe drivers just need to be taught to drive at speeds slower than they want to drive without “going nuts or becoming homeless” per your last post.
If it’s good enough for the nation’s schoolchildren to learn to suffer mundane tedious tasks without complaining or losing their shit, maybe it’s also good enough for the nation’s drivers to learn to suffer school zones enforced 24/7/365 without complaining or losing their shit.
"Bobby, a big part of being a grownup is doing things you don't want to do."
Cue a reprise of the big debate on how this constitutes "slavery"!!
Nearly every kid does not read the dates or times posted on speed limit signs.
To think those facilities will not be used by kids at other times is to not think at all.