A recent investigation of ticketing in Chicago produced a dismal result:
A ProPublica analysis of millions of citations found that households in majority Black and Hispanic ZIP codes received tickets at around twice the rate of those in white areas between 2015 and 2019.
....The coronavirus pandemic widened the ticketing disparities....In 2020, ProPublica found, the ticketing rate for households in majority-Black ZIP codes jumped to more than three times that of households in majority-white areas.
Racist cops? Unconscious bias? No. These are tickets issued automatically by red-light cameras and speed cameras:
From California to Virginia, citizens groups, safety organizations, elected officials and others are pointing to cameras as a “race-neutral” alternative to potentially biased — and, for many Black men, fatal — police traffic stops. And more funding for cameras may be coming: The federal infrastructure bill passed last fall allows states to spend federal dollars on traffic cameras in work and school zones.
The obvious conclusion from this is that Black drivers speed more than white drivers and run red lights more than white drivers. But this possibility is literally not even mentioned in the entire 4,000-word article.
So what's the explanation? The authors believe it's because streets in majority Black neighborhoods tend to be wide and straight, like this:
Conversely, streets in white neighborhoods tend to be narrow and curvy, which automatically induces drivers to slow down.
Maybe so—though the authors present only the thinnest evidence for this. And of course it does nothing to explain why Black drivers run red lights at much higher rates than white drivers.
The authors also suggest the Black-white disparity has something to do with proximity to freeways, density of neighborhoods, and violent crime rates. But all of this stuff is correlated, so it's just another way of saying "low-income Black neighborhoods."
It sure is a lot of words, and a lot of tap dancing, just to avoid acknowledging the possibility that Black drivers speed more than white drivers. Especially since the authors acknowledge that speed cameras really do work to enhance safety, thus keeping actual existing Black neighborhoods safer.
But I will say this: why doesn't the city put up signs warning drivers that a speed camera is ahead? After all, they say the purpose of the cameras isn't to raise money, it's to get people to slow down. Wouldn't a warning sign be pretty effective at getting people to slow down?
On a separate note, the article also discusses the burden of "fees and fines" on the Black community. It's one thing to get a ticket if you're a middle class white person—you just grumble and pay it—but quite another if your income is low and you don't always have $100 or $200 lying around. So you put it off, and then the late fees pile up, and then you're even further in debt, etc.
My favorite technocratic approach to this is to scale fines to income. For example, a particular speeding ticket might cost you 0.2% of your income:
I wonder how hard something like this would be to implement? I wonder how many affluent folks would scream about it?
Ah, the more white/black neighborhood myths. Guess what, I live in a outer suburb. It ain't all white.
Outdated modes of thinking.
Ahh, the racist now denies that the population is unevenly spread around. What a weird position to take.
The ignorant idiot still can't realize segregation has slowly been dying for 60 years. What a dumb poster. But try to forget it.
Still tiresome, I see.
Then the speeders would slow down only at the speed cameras?
For what it is worth, the nav system on my phone warns about the cameras…
That’s still a positive. Forcing any car to slow down any time puts pedestrians and cyclists in greater safety.
That assumes the driver does not speed even more elsewhere to compensate.
Why do blacks need extra signage to remind them of traffic laws?
Edit to above: If you (or Kevin) mean putting signs around ALL cameras, that would be fine. I interpreted (maybe incorrectly) that the warning signs would just be around cameras in black neighborhoods.
You're right. You interpreted Kevin incorrectly.
"But I will say this: why doesn't the city put up signs warning drivers that a speed camera is ahead? After all, they say the purpose of the cameras isn't to raise money, it's to get people to slow down. Wouldn't a warning sign be pretty effective at getting people to slow down?"
This is often required by state law. In DC and Maryland, signs are required to be posted as you enter the photo enforcement zone. It's pretty standard, although perhaps not ubiquitous.
The point about the streets is absolutely correct - during de jure redlining and the periods that are referred to as urban disinvestment (or white flight) and urban renewal (often gentrification), black neighborhoods were gutted and divided by wide, straight roads and stroads exactly like the one that is pictured.
To me, the obvious answer is "because they put more speed cameras in black neighborhoods than in white ones", not that black drivers necessarily speed more (all else equal, such as amount of time spent driving on roads with design speeds far higher than the speed limit).
Also, I can't stress this enough because you're underestimating the impact of design features on speeding: roads like the one above absolutely will lead to lots of speeding, and they are absolutely more prevalent in black/poor neighborhoods than in white/affluent ones. This was a deliberate choice by boneheaded/racist/flat-out-fucking-stupid urban planners (of the Robert Moses ilk) and their allied politicians and corporations. And it shows up in things from speeding tickets to crime rates to home values to lead poisoning and so on.
This is getting kinda old.
The road set me up? As Kevin more diplomatically put it, that reasoning seems thin.
What?
You've never driven on a four- or six-lane, divided roadway with a 35 mph speed limit?
When I do, I find my speed creeping inexorably toward 50; the only reasons it doesn't creep higher are traffic and traffic lights.
What is the data for Atlanta? We don't have straight streets, wide or narrow. All our streets were laid out by a drunk on a donkey and meander here, there and everywhere. I've never lived anywhere else that has so many places where a street hits an intersection, you go 1000 feet up the intersecting street, and then you can continue on with your original street.
We don't have speed cameras but we do have red light cameras. Is there a black/white difference? My impression is that there is, but impressions aren't data. If there is, then that explanation won't work.
Because it’s verboten to suggest any race does anything worse unless the race is white.
Cue the tiny violin.
I assume the threshold to trigger the ticketing is the same in all areas?
Eh. Could be a combination of things that result in more black drivers speeding. Like, just for one small example, more blacks who are low-income end up speeding before the low-cost day care closes more often than the affluent couple with a nanny. Not the best example but you all probably know what I mean. There are a million other small examples but cut more along the income divide than the racial divide, but just enough that it looks racial. Maybe.
So the hell what? If a black runs a red light, collides with your car and kills your wife or kid, are you going to say it's ok because they needed to get to daycare on time? How ridiculous. Everyone has problems and hardships to face. Life isn't easy. But we're still required to be responsible citizens and follow the law.
I tend to agree that it's probably more of an income thing, at least in the case of Illinois. Although I'm not rich, I live in what's probably the richest suburb in Illinois. I've gotten about three of those camera tickets, and none are from where I live. All are from relatively poor areas, and these areas are fairly white. Also, I only see these cameras in less affluent areas, never in the rich ones. Guess it's easier to shake down poorer folks.
The article makes several arguments to explain the disparity in ticket rates, but those are easy to toss aside when you really want to blame the culture boogeyman.
I'm curious how the culture warriors explain the even wider disparity in 2020....obviously black culture must have become even blacker that year. Oh and Hispanics too, but lets try to keep the focus on black culture amiright?
Goodness.
The burden is on you to offer an alternative explanation. What is it? Is it completely inconceivable to you that the difference could be culture driven? You think people residing in mostly black neighborhoods act and make all decisions exactly like people in white neighborhoods do? You really don't think living in black neighborhoods and going to black schools versus living in white neighborhoods and going to white schools couldn't possible have any influence on how we live our lives? Really? Or are you just feigning naiveté for the sake of political correctness?
Uh, I would scream about it. How ridiculous. There's no excuse for blacks to be any less cognizant of the laws than whites. But it would also be another nail democrat's coffin in the next election.
Oddly enough though, it’s white people who more often get off criminal charges because “I wasn’t cognizant of the law.” Blacks and Latinos don’t often get to claim that “I didn’t understand that carrying more than 1 gram over this limit was harsher penalties” or “I didn’t understand that not reporting income to the IRS was a crime” or whatever. But white people often do this and amazingly get their criminal charges lowered or dropped.
Cn you please cite your sources.
I can support the sliding fine in theory, but: In my state, the statutory fine limit for misdemeanors is $1000. The fine limit for gross misdemeanors is $3000.
Back in the day when I used to live in Boulder, I remember two instances of photo speed traps.
The first was one they set up on an overpass to the highway 100 yards past where the airport road, 65 mph, merged onto the highway, 55 mph. You couldn't see the cop on the overpass with the radar gun and camera, there were no warning signs, and they set this up the day before Thanksgiving. They just sat there all day clicking photos of folks coming from the airport road onto the highway. It was purely a revenue move, and had nothing to do with safety.
The second was a major intersection near the entrance to the University. It was the busiest intersection in town, with a variety of cars, buses, pedestrians, and bikes passing through it. And folks would run red lights, try to beat the cross walk light changing, all the time. (This would include the buses -- they foolishly had the pick ups before the red light, so on more than one occasion I'd have a bus speed past me to avoid a changing yellow.) And I remember thinking that it was only a matter of time before someone got killed -- I had seen a fair number of near misses in a short amount of time living there. Then they put up photo enforcement. They made the cameras big and obvious. They had signs up in all directions that the photo enforcement was there. And after that, the intersection got much, much better. People actually obeyed the lights and cross signals. Scary near misses stopped happening. Did the photo enforcement pay for themselves in terms of traffic tickets? Probably not. Did they pay for themselves in terms of saved time and expenses in reduced accidents? Almost definitely.
I was also there during the Jon Benet Ramsey years, and after that, it seemed that a lot more "hidden" photo traps started showing up in places like the airport example above. The latter example of a bad intersection made better by a big, obvious, well-marked set up was more the exception.
Call me cynical, but I'm dubious about claims that these photo stops aren't predominantly set up as revenue enhancers, rather than as legitimate safety measures.
If the study is limited to the city of Chicago, all the neighborhoods (white, Latino and black) have a vast majority of straight streets. Chicago is famous for its grid, and curvilinear streets are not at all common anywhere inside the city limits. I’m not saying that whiter areas don’t have any curvilinear streets, but I seriously cannot think of any inside Chicago city limits, except the ones inside parks scattered throughout neighborhoods of all ethnicities/races.
The sliding scale for traffic fines already exists in Sweden. So it is possible. It just would never happen here because Americans by and large feel like people with money actually should be freer to commit crimes with impunity.
I think its more the case that the legislators who would have to pass such a measure would catch holy hell from their millionaire/billionaire donors for it. Remember, we have the best government money can buy.
About "The obvious conclusion from this is that Black drivers speed more than white drivers and run red lights more than white drivers." Really? Why isn't the obvious conclusion that some Black drivers in those ZIP codes speed more, etc. than some Black and non-black drivers in those ZIP codes?
Income-indexed fines are the law in Finland. Quote from 2005:
A director of the Finnish telecommunications giant, Nokia, has received what is believed to be the most expensive speeding ticket ever.
Anssi Vanjoki, 44, has been ordered to pay a fine of 116,000 euros ($103,600) after being caught breaking the speed limit on his Harley Davidson motorbike in the capital, Helsinki, in October last year.
In Finland, traffic fines are proportionate to the latest available data on an offender's income.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/1759791.stm
And in 2010:
One Swedish motorist could be facing a gargantuan speeding fine — up to $962,000 — after he was caught driving 180 mph along a Swiss motorway.
Police seized the Swede's driver's license and 570-horsepower black Mercedes-Benz after he was released from police custody, The Local, a website that covers Swedish news, reported. He could face a penalty of up to 1 million Swiss francs — or $962,000 — depending on his income level, The Local reported.
https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna38660951
It's also worth pointing out that some of the most important studies about racially disproportionate policing use, as evidence, the higher rates of traffic stops for black drivers than white drivers. If, as Kevin suspects, there are cultural differences in the rates of commission of traffic infractions, those studies would likely need to revise their numbers (if not their conclusions).
And one other thing: everyone who has driven elsewhere in the world knows that driving habits vary by country, and sometimes by region. (This may also be true within the United States; I've often heard visitors to New York City remark on the differences between New York drivers and drivers from their hometown.) Why, then, such objection to believing that driving habits vary by community?