Sidecar Flip
Living Legend
With warmer weather (and dryer I hope) fast approaching all you Rocket Captains might take note of this:
Quit e few municipalities are installing stoplight cameras. How they work is if you run a red light, a camera takes a picture of your license plate and then the law enforcement branch sends you a ticket. In Toledo, Ohio, that ticket is $100.00. There are no points on your license, just pay the ticket.
That's all well and good and running a red light should be punished by a ticket but there is a rub. These municipalities are shortening the duration of the yellow (caution) light to increase revenues.
Dwindling revenues for cities across the country has them looking for new and creative ways to get in the publics pocket. The stoplight camera is unmanned so no extra wages are incurred. It's a robot doing it's intended job.
All of us, at one time or another been caught with our "pants down" with a yellow light and gotten under or almost under the stoplight and it turned red. Now, you get a ticket with a stoplight camera. Sucks to be you. A week or two later, after you have forgotten you cut the light, you get an envelope in the mail with the rear picture of your vehicle and plate number and a bill from johnny law. Nice way to do business. Very impersonal and very effective.
Interestingly, the cameras are leased. The owner of the cameras gets a fee based on each ticket issued so the more tickets, the more money for the camera owner and the more money for the community.
There is a deterrent, if you will. There are a number of companies that market a prismatic plastic plate the fits over the license plate (bikes included) that renders the image of the numbers unreadable at any angle but straight on. Most all cameras are either curb mounted or overhead so the plastic cover obscures the numbers to the camera. Do a Goggle search for them.
I'm in no way condoning cutting lights. That is a safety issue, but we have all, at one time or another did it. I like the deterrent as the cure.
Quit e few municipalities are installing stoplight cameras. How they work is if you run a red light, a camera takes a picture of your license plate and then the law enforcement branch sends you a ticket. In Toledo, Ohio, that ticket is $100.00. There are no points on your license, just pay the ticket.
That's all well and good and running a red light should be punished by a ticket but there is a rub. These municipalities are shortening the duration of the yellow (caution) light to increase revenues.
Dwindling revenues for cities across the country has them looking for new and creative ways to get in the publics pocket. The stoplight camera is unmanned so no extra wages are incurred. It's a robot doing it's intended job.
All of us, at one time or another been caught with our "pants down" with a yellow light and gotten under or almost under the stoplight and it turned red. Now, you get a ticket with a stoplight camera. Sucks to be you. A week or two later, after you have forgotten you cut the light, you get an envelope in the mail with the rear picture of your vehicle and plate number and a bill from johnny law. Nice way to do business. Very impersonal and very effective.
Interestingly, the cameras are leased. The owner of the cameras gets a fee based on each ticket issued so the more tickets, the more money for the camera owner and the more money for the community.
There is a deterrent, if you will. There are a number of companies that market a prismatic plastic plate the fits over the license plate (bikes included) that renders the image of the numbers unreadable at any angle but straight on. Most all cameras are either curb mounted or overhead so the plastic cover obscures the numbers to the camera. Do a Goggle search for them.
I'm in no way condoning cutting lights. That is a safety issue, but we have all, at one time or another did it. I like the deterrent as the cure.
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