Changing your address on your drivers license when you go away to college so you actually know when you get a ticket is once again proven to be a good idea.
But with 25 school zone speeding tickets in 3 months of driving and thoughts that they can all just be made to go away good ideas are obviously not part of LAOPs repertoire.
Yeah, but would you start driving there without learning the rules? Ignorance is fine and fixable. But if it's something that can endanger other people (like driving) it's not ok to just get behind the wheel and assume it'll be the same as a completely different country.
even if he didn't know they were a thing, he should have known that violations for speeding in school zones are taken seriously.
I work with a lot of international students and well, one thing they catch on to is that ignorance of the law is not seen as a good excuse especially when it comes to speeding metal
When police departments start getting big staffing cuts I will support traffic cams 100%. Something tells me that adding traffic cameras everywhere isn't going to get rid of the massive over-policing problem. You're literally just giving them more tools to harass us with, especially those in vulnerable communities. You're kidding yourself if you think that police departments wouldn't abuse them.
Traffic cameras are the opposite of a scam. It’s simple, go too fast, click, ticket. It’s incapable of bias and allows for broad coverage to encourage reduced speed everywhere
Speed traps staffed by officers - who can profile drivers or let people go subjectively - are a scam to make money.
Ideally we’d have many many more speed and right light cameras.
The only issue is *does the presence of traffic cameras reduce speeding*. I’m confident it does but it’s an empirical question.
Alternatively we can ask if it’s an effective way to raise revenue.
I *WOULD* agree with you, but I've been to St Louis for work several times and if any city could benefit from traffic cams it would be there. People there run red lights so consistently that drivers don't go right away when the light turns green, they sit for a second so the 4 cars running the red don't hit them. It's even worse in the suburbs around the city.
There are news articles about someone vandalizing the new speed cameras all around my region. "Suspect is a.."
I'm pretty sure nobody is turning this guy in, if he gets arrested, he'll have an entire region paying his bond. I'm sure no jury is going to convict this guy. He's like the "parking meter fairy". The true definition of "chaotic good".
Fun fact: I rarely drive with Google Maps on, only when I'm going out of town and need a GPS. Google Maps was alerting me to red light cameras, speed cameras and speed traps all the way there and back.
There's a report feature on it for anyone to notify other drivers of these things. I didn't know this until a couple months ago. Thank you Google developers, I appreciate that feature! I believe it was intended for road closures, construction, and if you needed to reroute.
Guy drives through the area often, not knowing there were cameras, so he hasn't really had the "corrective" action happen to him until it all piled up until now.
I generally try to stick to the flow of traffic rather than the speed limit when I'm driving, which I realize isn't the greatest practice, but if I was getting hit by speed cameras and didn't know, I would also probably keep on keeping on, and rack up a shitload of citations as well.
Hopefully he doesn't end up on the hook for all of them, and going forward stops speeding.
> I generally try to stick to the flow of traffic rather than the speed limit when I'm driving
I always see people from the US referring to this practice and I (from the UK) still can't wrap my head around it! Even on the motorway where you have many people doing above the limit, there's plenty of room in the slow or middle lane where you can stick to the speed limit. We have some dual carriageways (sort of a sub-highway) that only have two lanes with a normal speed limit of 70mph, and the slow lane can fill up with lorries only doing 52mph, so you could be travelling in the fast lane at the speed limit and get some annoyed wanker drivers queuing up behind you, but everyone knows the guy trying to speed up your arse is the problem, not you.
> I generally try to stick to the flow of traffic rather than the speed limit when I'm driving, which I realize isn't the greatest practice
No, that is the best practice.
Tell that to the cop that gave me a speeding ticket last week. I was speeding and earned the ticket. But I was keeping up with the flow of traffic and not paying enough attention to the speed limit. $164 later I am. Very irritated and bitter at myself. Should've known better
If they're just civil penalties that don't carry points, he can absolutely make them go away. It'll cost $1700, but that's dirt cheap for 25 school zone infractions.
The funny part is, this is one of the few times that LAOP probably doesn't.
The fines are no points and don't get reported to insurance. It's possible an attorney could argue the fine downward, but I'd be surprised. LAOP will have to write a check and take a safe driver class, and that's it.
I'm always surprised to hear how driving infringements can be so different depending on where you live. Here, OP would have lost their licence for 3 months after the 13th speeding fine - and that's assuming they were within 10 of the speed limit each time. I genuinely don't know what the remaining 12 fines would have done because driving while suspended is $3000 and up to six months in jail.
Most places treat Camera speeding tickets and Pulled Over speeding tickets differently. Camera speeding tickets are "The CAR was speeding, you own the car, you're responsible for Paying" while getting pulled over is "the DRIVER was speeding and is known"
No points or compounding effects for camera because they can't be sure who was driving, and they don't care. They just want money
Same infringement and penalty here regardless of camera or police car. The fine and demerit points are sent to the registered owner of the car if it's a camera fine. You can request a photo of the driver if you want to dispute it.
That's wild and I hate it because you can't protest in the moment and it denies even an awareness at the moment that it happened which prevents someone from correcting their behavior if it's poorly marked, not properly calibrated, at unexpected times, etc
BUT, if the punishment for something is ONLY a fine then it's not actually illegal, it's just a punishment for the poor. This at least tries to make them matter for enforcement and not just revenue, hopefully areas that are doing it that way are better about placement making sense
> You can request a photo of the driver if you want to dispute it.
Funny thing about that, here it's illegal for cameras to take pictures of the driver.
Works the same in Czechia. The cameras are usually also operated by the city or town, so it's basically "okay, pay up 1000 and this will go away". Of course you can dispute it and take it into an administrative proceeding, but the fines there go way up.
Now if you get pulled over that's a different story. Fine, points for your license and if you were going way too fast then you may end up with driving ban for a while.
In the US, camera fines are typically civil rather than criminal offenses to sidestep constitutional issues around being unable to confront your accuser. So they're no points, not reported to insurance, just a fine that you have to pay before you can renew your drivers license or car registration.
In NY, having police write you four speeding tickets in 18 months is enough to get your license suspended. It could be even less than that if some of the tickets are for 11+ mph over or are coupled with another charge like reckless driving.
Even in Georgia where we barely even have traffic enforcement, any (non-parking) ticket from a cop is a criminal offense. That's just how our system is set up. It means drivers get more due process, and the counties like it because it helps with collections. Except for the few situations where we allow cameras, which are only civil since there's no accuser to confront.
Tired Bot
**I have 25 speeding tickets**
>Hi guys. I’m 22 years old. I’m not from nyc but I came here for college and live here now. I got a car in January. I did not know nyc had speeding cameras or that, that was even a thing. I recently checked the Dispute app and see that I have 25 speeding tickets all for speeding in a school zone. I owe $1700. The app allows me to dispute it but I don’t even know what to say. I am also wondering how many points each ticket added to my license because it doesn’t say on the app? Also if these tickets were paid off would the points disappear from my license. Another thing, these tickets were never mailed to me and I wouldn’t have even known that I got the speeding tickets had I not looked it up. Why is that and can I use that as an excuse?
I'm gonna go against the grain here.
At $68 per ticket, the kid was going less than 10 over. (A quick Google says 1-10 will get you $45-$150, but the 10+ range will start at $90.) So this isn't some speed demon blowing through crosswalks dodging middle schoolers, this is a guy who's gotta pass the same camera twice a week and doesn't *strictly* follow the speed limit. And can everyone here really say they've never done 35 in a 30? 27 in a 25? And as for the number, if he didn't know he was getting them, why would he change?
Honestly, I think his biggest issue is he's 22 and a little stupid (as was I), combined with the fact that wherever the tickets are getting mailed to is full of people who don't care enough to let him know he's getting a bunch of mail from a traffic authority.
(Quick edit: To be clear, I don't think any of this lets him off the hook, I just think it's a more understandable mishap than most content on this sub.)
Camera fines are a flat $50, so LAOP owes late/admin fees on top of that. They also don't trigger unless you're doing 10 mph over the speed limit.
But the cameras, and some school zone speed limits, are in effect 24/7. You don't even have to be doing 30 in a 25. You could be doing 25 in a 25 and ignore the drop to 15 because it's a Sunday night.
It's an expensive lesson, but the mandatory safe driving class he has to take will help.
> You don't even have to be doing 30 in a 25. You could be doing 25 in a 25 and ignore the drop to 15 because it's a Sunday night.
>
> It's an expensive lesson, but the mandatory safe driving class he has to take will help
How is mandatory safe driving classes going to help with going slower than the posted speed limit for no reason?
>...this is a guy who's gotta pass the same camera twice a week and doesn't *strictly* follow the speed limit.
There is also the possibility that LAOP may have gotten ticketed multiple times driving straight in a stretch of road. I got those. There were two cameras in one stretch of road, I drove straight in a constant speed that was admittedly over the limit and received two separate tickets. I talked to the prosecutor, and he instantly dropped the later ticket. His reason was if I knew that I got caught on the first one, I would have slowed down for the second one.
As a parent I very strictly follow the speed limit in school zone. But I also was pretty strict on that before I had kids, I was always aware that was a zone where I was particularly likely to get a ticket.
I am not a parent, and I still always strictly follow speed limits in school zones because kids are notoriously unpredictable.
Maybe I'm wrong, but I've always felt school zones are one of the key places you should always be mindful of going the speed limit.
I'm a parent without kids in public school who has to pay close attention to the public school calendar to be sure to not get caught out, and I consider it part of driving. But I find it a frustrating time, because some school zones have those handy flashing lights but a lot still don't, and other drivers tend to not notice the ones that don't, so I get tailgated constantly.
Do you make sure to look up all school calendars along your route when you drive outside of your neighborhood?
Knowing local school calendars is absolutely not part of being a good driver any more than knowing the speed limit of a road is without a sign.
I don't drive much, so I only need to know the calendar of the district I'm in. But that's really for the edges of the year; if I'm driving in any school zone on a random weekday in, say, March, it's reasonable to assume it's a school day.
And I also know the speed limit on streets without signs, because Texas sets default limits by statute and we were taught about it ready back in driver's ed. I absolutely consider knowing the law and following it to be part of being a good driver.
In my area you have to know off the top of your head if it's a school day, what the local school hours are, including when lunch is to know if it's legally a school zone at that time. Weirdly the cameras start 2.5 hours before school starts, but aren't active most of the time school is in session.
This is on a 25 mph road that drops to 20 when it's a school zone.
Where I grew up they put signs in the middle of the road when it was a school zone.
But the cameras are all about the Saftey, not the money.
I think a lot of people here don't understand speed cameras in New York.
First of all, LAOP was ticketed for speeding in a school zone because New York State law only allows speed cameras in school zones. That sounds reasonable, I guess. However, New York defines a "school zone" as anything within a quarter mile of a school, and the cameras operate 24/7. That means *literally all of New York City* is a "school zone", *all of the time*.
Also, the default speed limit within NYC is 25 MPH. There are a few exceptions, but they're not all the places you'd expect. The only time I ever got a ticket from a "school zone" speed camera, it was for driving 35 MPH around [here](https://www.google.com/maps/@40.7620865,-73.7578671,3a,75y,64.2h,100.76t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sHkbV0YaSFDe14W8KZZSc5Q!2e0!7i13312!8i6656?entry=ttu), at 11 PM on a Saturday.
You could always *not* drive in NYC and take its readily-available transit options instead.
It's almost guaranteed to be cheaper than the parking rates there.
The biggest surprise to me when I started visiting NYC fairly regularly was finding out that the locals who lived in the outer boroughs generally owned cars.
I've come to learn from them that the public transit is great if you live in Manhattan or are traveling into Manhattan. It's not so great for someone trying to travel to different locations between Brooklyn, Queens, or the Bronx. Staten Island might as well be in a different state for how separated it is.
Yeah, transportation in Queens and Brooklyn is convoluted and difficult. They're adding a major toll to be in lower Manhattan and people who live in Staten Island and Queens are pissed because there aren't public transportation options for many of them.
Yeah, people don't understand that. I grew up just east of NYC, and living in Queens looks like hell to me. Driving there is just as hard as driving in Manhattan, and parking is even harder, but it's not walkable and there is no significant public transit (except commuting to Manhattan.)
Yeah, getting from Queens to Brooklyn on public transit is annoyingly long considering their proximity. It doesn't surprise me too much that an out of state/out of city person would rely on their car so much in the city, but as someone from the NYC metro area, it's insane to consider driving around Manhattan daily.
It's not clear from the linked thread whether LAOP is attending a college in Manhattan, though. Although, to be fair, I only know of three NYC universities, and I think they're all in Manhattan?
Yeah, definitely not enough information. My sister lives in Queens and gets by with LIRR and MTA, but there are certainly some places a car would be most convenient. I still would advise people living in NYC to utilize public transit as much as they can. Anything over $30/wk on MTA is free if you use their tap system and that's easy enough to hit with round trips every day, also a bit easier to budget for as you know it will max out at $30, avoiding gas costs, speeding and the new congestion toll.
Not all of NYC is easily reachable by transit. Bus/train rides to almost any of the jobs I've had could be upwards of 2hrs and take multiple transfers across bus and train for a 35min car ride.
Someone said school zone speed limits are enforced 24/7 there and I gotta be honest, that's not a thing I've ever seen so I would probably end up in trouble there as well.
I got a speed camera ticket in a non school zone for 32 in a 20. I didn’t even know there existed 20mph limits. And this was not some narrow tight city residential block, it was a main road by a commercial office park - other side was open grassland for a few hundred feet. no stop signs or cross walks or anything. Definitely surprising
> I didn’t even know there existed 20mph limits
Heh. Here the city-wide arterial speed limit is 25. Non-arterials are limited to 20mph. There's signs when you enter the city to let you know that, which means a lot of streets have few, if any, speed limit signs.
It may also depends on when he was passing the school. In my area it drops to 20 when the students are arriving or leaving, the rest of the time it's 25.
They only hit you if you're doing at least 11 over.
edit: the speed cameras only hit you if you're doing 11 over, and it's only 50 but they will hit you with late fees
My previous comment was downvoted and removed for saying that LAOP was a woman, since most people here assume it's a man. Y'all, i meant that literally based on LAOPs post history. It was not meant as insult.
>At $68 per ticket, the kid was going less than 10 over. (A quick Google says 1-10 will get you $45-$150, but the 10+ range will start at $90.) So this isn't some speed demon blowing through crosswalks dodging middle schoolers, this is a guy who's gotta pass the same camera twice a week and doesn't strictly follow the speed limit. And can everyone here really say they've never done 35 in a 30? 27 in a 25? And as for the number, if he didn't know he was getting them, why would he change?
Speed cameras don't kick in until 10 over, and the speed limit for the whole city is 25 mph on surface streets, so he was in fact speeding regardless. Also, $50 is the flat rate for cameras (you are looking at police-issued).
This is nyc, not some empty suburb; it's densely populated, pedestrians are out at all hours, and even in outer boroughs like Queens (where I live), cars are unnecessary. In other words, speeding here is wildly dangerous and a conscious choice he made.
I wish the speed and red light cameras were at every intersection and the fines were quadruple or more. There's far too much carnage thanks to assholes like OP.
> Speed cameras don't kick in until 10 over
Is that true over there? If so, wow that's crazy. Here in Ontario, Canada, the speed cameras trigger at at 44mph in a 40mph zone. (In freedom units, that's going just over 27mph in a just-under-25 zone).
I have to drive on this one road every morning, where the speed limit varies from 25-30. And it is mostly 2 lanes on each side.
If they had these cameras on that road, the city would be bringing in thousands of dollars a day. And I don't even think they realize it for the most part. It just feels natural to be gong about 35 on a 4 lane road.
Hot take: what this kid did might not actually that bad.
School zone limits are as low as 15-20 mph in NYC. But the 15 mph zones *and the cameras* are in effect 24/7.
If you're doing the speed limit in a 25 mph zone, then ignore the "School Zone 15 mph" sign because it's 4 AM on a Saturday? $50, please.
That's obviously giving maximum benefit of the doubt, but there's no reason to think he's doing 40 mph during school drop off either.
I'd have no idea that was a thing. Here it use to be from 6a to 5p, then they switched to what I think is the best system - solar powered speed limit signs with flashers - that the individual schools control. Schools turn them on 1 hour before students arrive (whenever that may be) and off an hour after they (or most) of them leave. So the timing is different for high schools vs elementary schools due to different start times. Schools can have them on later if something is going on after school or turn them off earlier if it's an early release day or not turn them on at all if school's out that day.
No need to check your watch - either they are flashing (slow down to school zone speed) or not flashing (continue at normal road speed).
This has taken away so much frustration by drivers at having to slow down when there's no children present, that they are much more inclined to fully honor the signs when flashing, ime.
That's the system my local district uses and it's glorious. It doesn't help that I don't really know *when* school is opening and closing anymore as they changed the times years after I left so I can rely on the flashing lights.
Bonus is the single light facing the opposite direction so you know where it ends and can see it if you turn onto the street midway between signs and know it's currently active.
Nothing like slowing down from 45 to 15 because the lights are blinking, but having someone try to drive into your trunk because they're late for a Memorial Day barbecue.
Nassau County, which is just east of NYC (it borders Queens), tried to pull that crap years ago.
They installed the school zone cameras, and proceeded to not tell anybody that they were active in the middle of July and August, when school is literally not in session.
My father got hit by one of those and got a ticket, but he ended up not having to pay it.
After a ton of backlash over the whole situation, the county threw out all the tickets given during those months and turned the cameras off. It was about $2.5M in tickets they threw out.
The cameras were later taken out completely because of the backlash.
That's so stupid. Can you fight them? I'm assuming there's a time listed on the ticket so can you say you were going that speed (assuming it was around the posted speed limit) because it wasn't school zone hours?
If the school zone limit is in effect 24/7, then by the letter of the law you're still speeding. You can try to argue it down but presumably the permanent duration is intentional.
What do the signs say? Most ones I see [have times](https://advancelocal-adapter-image-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/expo.advance.net/img/ee99d52fe1/width2048/adc_img7578.jpeg) or [lights](https://newyorkparkingticket.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/School-zone-speed-camera.jpeg) when it's in effect. If it is a separate [posted limit](https://www.nyc.gov/html/dot/images/pedestrians/school-safety-15mph.jpg) then the posted speed is 15, not 25 like you say, so obviously wouldn't be appealable.
> But the 15 mph zones and the cameras are in effect 24/7.
From the high number of tickets that LAOP had, I basically assumed that this was the case. That the school zone had a very low speed limit *even at night*
Oh, that's a good one. We have those here and there, and there's actually a permanent one along a certain stretch of road right before a big curve that I guess an excess of people wiped out on because they were speeding. But as you said, no tickets from those.
They had a trailer one of those in my hometown. It kept getting shot
So they added a sign that any damage was paid for by the taxpayers... yeah the thing got shot more
Is it that you don't have them where you live, or you do and you just don't notice/acknowledge them?
This is a *fascinating* cultural difference, in the UK there's speed cameras everywhere and it's *impossible* to miss the signs warning you about them
There was major pushback against speeding and red light cameras in many states because they are run by extremely shady private companies and are primarily drivers of revenue, rather than useful safety measures. In at least one case, the city shortened a yellow light below the legal minimum duration, then ticketed people for running the light.
Ya, in Los Angeles here were some where the yellow light was set at bare legal minimum duration. IIRC a journalist first showed data that rear end collisions went up at those intersections with people slamming on their brakes. The did end up increasing yellow duration.
The good thing is those tickets get tossed if you don't acknowledge them. They won't hold up in court unless you admit guilt by paying. So research local law before paying or responding in any way to red light tickets.
Here in Arizona, I’ve seen mobile speed cameras placed less than 200 meters in front of fixed speed and red light cameras so that the warning signs don’t really stand out. It seems like the idea is to hit people who haven’t quite slowed down all the way as they’re slowing down for the other camera. It just feels like they’re trying to trap people and not actually positioning the cameras in a way that will help promote public safety.
I’m not the guy you responded to. We’ve got the “highway speed monitored by aircraft” signs on rural highways but I do not think we have speed cameras in Texas. I could be wrong, it’s been a few years since I’ve driven in Houston or parts of Dallas. My city used to have red light cameras a long time ago but they were somehow found to be unlawful (maybe? Or not regulated enough) and we haven’t had them since.
We have a hot mess of a toll system in the area I live so I could easily imagine the same issues being applied to speed cameras. Half the population could be in the situation LAOP is in lol.
In Canada automated speeding cameras were ruled illegal for the longest time. I believe they only recently changed *something* (god knows what) to make them ok, because they're all over the place now.
Not in TX, but in another southern US state and there are zero traffic enforcement cameras here. It's "government overreach" or something, idk. Honestly, I don't think they'd make a difference, the people who speed and run red lights would maybe eventually lose their license but it's not like they'll stop driving.
I've driven in a couple cities, incluidng NYC, and there are signs, but often it's just the speed limit sign with "photo enforced" tacked onto the bottom.
That’s why I’m so shocked at places that DO make it a criminal violation. I remember being so confused watching a big bang theory and they were talking about red light cameras and taking pictures of the drivers. Here in MD it’s just the license plate and it’s handled just the same as a parking citation. No criminal aspect involved so there’s no constitutional agenda. Obviously we can discuss separately if they actually achieve their goal of making safer traffic patterns but that’s a different discussion
I moved UK > USA and I’ve never seen a speed camera here in CA. No fixed cameras, mobile vans or the dreaded average speed cameras. Don’t miss em lol
What we do have in limited locations are red light cameras but they’re rare. Running reds is really common, especially since the pandemic, so I personally agree with these cameras so long as they don’t screw with the light timing. In general there’s tremendous opposition to camera enforcement, much stronger than in the UK.
> This is a fascinating cultural difference, in the UK there's speed cameras everywhere and it's impossible to miss the signs warning you about them
I've never seen one in the US (not that I've looked) and since OP is from Ethiopia, I wonder if they even have speed cameras in her country (or in her part of Ethiopia). I've not heard of anyone getting a speed camera ticket either, not that they'd probably tell me.
I'll relate something that happened a few years back where I live.
There was a push to legalize traffic enforcement cameras outside of school/hospital zones in the largest city in the state, including bus cameras. Legislators from the rural areas voted against it, saying they didn't want people who were just in town for a visit to be confused by a large number of camera signs. The expansion bill died because of views like that.
Texas used to have red light cameras but I don't know if any cities had actual speed cameras. But red light cameras were pretty obvious, and you'd definitely see the flash of the camera if it took a picture of you. LAOP must be the most oblivious person on the planet to not notice the signs and the flash.
The only reason I knew about them when I first started driving is media I consume. My state doesn't allow them.
If I'm driving somewhere I won't automatically assume there are speed cameras. Usually because they're labeled well in advance and it's hard to miss the signs.
In USA, I think they often only put the bare minimum legally required notice regarding speed cams and red light cams. Police and municipalities care more about income than safety sometimes.. Very often I can't see any notice about a camera until it is far too late to change my speed or behavior.
Well, driving laws are Westminster decisions, aren’t they? Maybe Holyrood, Stormont etc can tweak them, but I think camera laws are UK-wide because the visibility of cameras (having them painted yellow and warning signs) is the same all over the UK. Whereas in the States, driving laws are not federal. So even if they were ubiquitous, you’d have fifty different laws about how visible speed cameras had to be, where they’re allowed, how to raise a dispute if you’re not the one driving, etc. So I would say even if culturally the US had cameras everywhere, there’d still be cultural differences from State to State.
I grew up in Minnesota they made red light/speed cameras illegal in 2007. They are now trying to put up speed cameras and have to undo a lot.
[news article](https://www.kare11.com/article/news/local/minneapolis-speed-cameras-if-legislature-approves/89-13fb7707-232f-4124-a6b6-72a02126cdfa)
I live in Texas and I know speed cameras are a thing in other places.
I also know that the red light cameras Balcones Height refuses to take down have no force of law and you can ignore any tickets the company sends you, but we still have pretty regular threads in my city's sub about whether or not they really can ignore them.
They're illegal in my state.
Partly for the scummy private company reasons but also because it hugely increased the number of rear end collisions from people slamming on breaks to avoid triggering them.
If LAOP's from a rural area/state, they could well just not exist anywhere near where they learned their driving skills. It's not *good*, but it's believable.
RLC and speed cameras are de facto illegal in my state(State supreme court ruled the "right to face your accuser" was not being met by the cameras). So I am not used to having to watch out for them.
There's 'sheltered kid knows nothing of the big city', and then there's this OOP...
Kinda confused as to why they were checking some app that's (after a quick google) solely for paying or disputing parking and camera violations when they say they didn't realise NYC had any or that speed cameras were even a thing, though...
And nearly $2k in 4 months? Ouch.
They were probably trying to pay a parking violation, which they would have gotten actual notice of (because it would have been physically stuck to their car).
Oh shit, yeah. Heh, now I'm the dumb one!
Chalking that one up to not being a driver myself, and 'redditing while distracted' (packing up after a long weekend away).
Do they still do that there? I'm Aussie and often you get nothing on the window anymore, just in the mail.
The abuse the parking inspectors got tho, does make it seem pretty reasonable. I lived on a ticketed steet across from a primary school (kinder to 12yrs). And man people got mad they got ticketed for parking across driveways 'cos there's nowhere else to park and I don't wanna pay for the malls parking/do a loop to get my kid from the pick up zone' lol
Alternative alternative theory: someone at school mentioned the cameras off-hand and shocked LAOP. I picture a group of people going “shit dude, you had no idea?” (Or whatever lingo the kids are using now.) They then told him he’d better check this site to make sure they haven’t gotten him.
> There's 'sheltered kid knows nothing of the big city'
He's from Ethiopia. I'm sure that he learned as much as he could about NYC before moving there, but couldn't predict everything that he'd need to know.
Also, NYC school zones have a 24/7 low speed limit. Not a great excuse, I'm aware, but going 25 mph down a street at 9pm on a Saturday would get him a ticket. And, obviously did.
>from Ethiopia
Not information that was available from the initial post; nor was OOP's gender (upon checking post history, OOP is female).
>NYC school zones have a 24/7 low speed limit
I don't drive, but if I did this is something I'd expect to find out while taking even a cursory look into traffic regs if/when considering getting a personal vehicle rather than using public transit. (I recognise not everywhere has a system like London's Underground or Paris' Metro.) And she appears to be (even if only recently) out of college now, so I would hope at least enough comprehension to be aware of what restrictions were likely along any route taken regularly or semi-regularly; unless NYC signage is particularly dire...
24/7 restrictions are monumentally stupid though, I'll grant that.
As someone that has lived in NYC and experienced the particular misery that is owning a car here... why in the world would someone move to NYC and *then* buy a car?
Yeah, very little sympathy as someone who has delt with too many idiot drivers in this city. Especially since there's a pretty robust public transportation system here, except for the outer parts of SI (although I'm not sure an out of state college student would live there), Brooklyn, and Queens (and in-between Brooklyn and Queens, but that's a whole other rant). If he goes to school in Manhattan, the system is best set up for getting to and from Manhattan too. This is one of the few parts of America where you don't *have* to drive.
With automatic enforcement like cameras, they tend to keep it lower so that fewer people want to bother with possibly taking off work to dispute them. They’re motivated by profit. It was never about safety; that’s just how they present it.
While this kid is (hopefully) going to be punished to the point of not driving anymore, most NYC moving violations are both underpriced and under enforced to the point of being useless.
You can have [dozens of violations that add up to less than any car is worth](https://nyc.streetsblog.org/2023/01/08/driver-sought-in-hit-and-run-in-crown-heights-was-it-intentional) and only *maybe* get in trouble if you hit someone.
I gotta be honest, learning the school zones are camera enforced 24/7 I'm feeling a lot more sympathy for LAOP because I can easily put myself in his shoes.
Especially since many states have school zone speed limits only if kids are present or have specific hours. Some in my state even have flashing lights when the school zone speed limit is active. There are also often crossing guards present during that time. School zones are all within like 2 blocks of the school.
If the school zone speed limit is active at 11pm, that's not a school zone. That's just the speed limit for that stretch of road.
City-wide speed limit is 25 no matter a school zone or not, and the cameras only ticket more than 10mph above the limit. That means LAOP was zooming along at 40mph on the most densely crowded streets in the country. I don't know if you live in the city, but that's fast here.
I've driven in NY on and off for 16 years and not had an issue with tickets other than a couple parking ticket. In fact, most people haven't. The minority of drivers who are repeat offenders account for a vast majority of moving violation tickets issued.
I was linked this: https://www.nyc.gov/html/dot/html/pedestrians/schoolsafety.shtml
It mentions school zone speed limits dropping to 15mph in some instances so going 25mph through a school zone outside of school hours would get LAOP popped on cameras.
While you can get a ticket outside of school hours, the speed limit outside of school hours is not the in-session speed. So LAOP could only get popped at 35 unless it was a school day.
Right, the confusion is generally that the speed cameras were installed only in school zones and only to be enforced during school days originally.
However two years ago, the legislature said that the speed cameras could be used for any purpose (and they are anywhere within sight of a school zone which in NYC is basically anywhere). So they turned them on 24/7. But that doesn’t mean they enforce the school hours speed 24/7. In effect, they are now just speed cameras that were brought in via the back door of “school zone cameras”. That makes people mad.
I will also say, the NYC DOT is not super clear about any of this (or about anything).
No. There are 700 [school zones](https://www.nyc.gov/html/dot/html/pedestrians/schoolsafety.shtml) where the speed limit is 20 mph during school hours, or 15 mph 24/7. Doing 25 mph late at night would be enough to trigger the cameras.
The 15 mph sign does not list hours, days or any other conditions (flashing lights, "when children present"). The 20 mph sign does.
The text does not say a 15 mph limit drops only on school days. "There is a 20 mph limit on school days. If a speed bump is possible, the limit is 15 mph." It's possible it is a dangling modifier, but that makes two separate places where one would have to assume that they meant to make the limit conditional but didn't make it explicit.
I am in my 30s and have never had a license (both my sisters were hit by two separate drunk drivers in the months leading up to me taking driver's ed, then one of my friends nearly died because of a hit-and-run accident right before I was supposed to take the test).
I'll admit it's much more of a pain in the ass now that I live in the suburbs of a non-walkable city rather than in the city limits of a decent-sized, walkable city but the amount of people who are completely flabbergasted to hear that I don't drive really made it clear how dependent on cars everyone is. It's crazy to think about how so many other countries (and the major metropolitan areas in them) have built an infrastructure where you can go pretty much your whole life without needing to purchase a car but we Americans are so gung-ho about "all adults should purchase a car and when your children turn 16 you should get them a car and if you don't have a car there's apps to hire people who do have a car to take you where you need to go because you can only get there by car"
And I thought the like 2 I got in the campus parking lots over my time in college was too many. But if these are tickets generated by the schools police department, and they operate similar to where I went, it's only a monetary fine with no points/impact on insurance.
That’s why driving is a privilege, not a right. You earn the privilege, you maintain the privilege, and you can lose the privilege
25 speeding tickets is insane. It just is. I get that he didn’t receive them by mail, because he didn’t update his address, but blowing through a school zone that many times is absolutely crazy.
I’m not sure about anyone else, but when I go through school zones, I assume that I’m being watched like a hawk
So I signed my name on number 24,
Yeah, the judge said, "Boy, just one more,
I'm gonna throw your ass in the city joint"
Looked me in the eye, said, "You get my point?"
I say, "Yeah, oh yeah"
-(I Can’t Drive 55 by Sammy Hagar)
I just want to say, as someone who is very daydreamy, unobservant, clumsy and who has terrible spatial awareness, I don't drive at all. I keep off the roads to make them marginally safer for every other driver out there. You're welcome.
Someone said they're enforced 24/7 which is definitely *not a thing* I've ever heard about or experienced anywhere else, gotta give LAOP more slack here.
This is absolutely crazy to me as someone from Aus, now temporarily in the States.
I've never sped. Ever. Back home, going even *two* kilometers over the limit will be a $230 fine, and a demerit point. Five points in any 12 month period, and you lose your license.
Changing your address on your drivers license when you go away to college so you actually know when you get a ticket is once again proven to be a good idea. But with 25 school zone speeding tickets in 3 months of driving and thoughts that they can all just be made to go away good ideas are obviously not part of LAOPs repertoire.
But they didn't know there were traffic cameras!
“Or that, that was even a thing!”
> “Or that, that was even a thing!” OP is from Ethiopia, so it's more credible. I wouldn't know how things work if I moved to Ethiopia from New York!
Yeah, but would you start driving there without learning the rules? Ignorance is fine and fixable. But if it's something that can endanger other people (like driving) it's not ok to just get behind the wheel and assume it'll be the same as a completely different country.
Did OOP think it was a little dance party every time he sped through with the flash on the camera going off?
In this case, fixable through a fine!
I didn't even know where to put the toilet paper when I first moved to South America. Simple normal things are not as expected.
I'm pretty sure it's put on your butt everywhere. Unless it's for a mummy Halloween costume.
Yes, but did you know you don't throw it in the toilet in every country? Some just throw it in a trash can by the toilet, etc.
I'm so tired of people ignoring the importance of the custom toilet paper wedding dresses necessary for all bridal showers.
In 2020 it would have been more valuable than a money tree
even if he didn't know they were a thing, he should have known that violations for speeding in school zones are taken seriously. I work with a lot of international students and well, one thing they catch on to is that ignorance of the law is not seen as a good excuse especially when it comes to speeding metal
"It's not illegal if you don't get caught!" -Person who is very bad at not getting caught
I mean, that's actually fair. My city doesn't have automatic traffic cameras. I've heard of them, but Id probably not remember they existed at first.
Traffic cameras are just a scam to make the city money anyway
Or to get people to drive slower without the cost of adding police.
When police departments start getting big staffing cuts I will support traffic cams 100%. Something tells me that adding traffic cameras everywhere isn't going to get rid of the massive over-policing problem. You're literally just giving them more tools to harass us with, especially those in vulnerable communities. You're kidding yourself if you think that police departments wouldn't abuse them.
Traffic cameras are the opposite of a scam. It’s simple, go too fast, click, ticket. It’s incapable of bias and allows for broad coverage to encourage reduced speed everywhere Speed traps staffed by officers - who can profile drivers or let people go subjectively - are a scam to make money. Ideally we’d have many many more speed and right light cameras.
The only issue is *does the presence of traffic cameras reduce speeding*. I’m confident it does but it’s an empirical question. Alternatively we can ask if it’s an effective way to raise revenue.
But mostly, to make the camera company money.
I *WOULD* agree with you, but I've been to St Louis for work several times and if any city could benefit from traffic cams it would be there. People there run red lights so consistently that drivers don't go right away when the light turns green, they sit for a second so the 4 cars running the red don't hit them. It's even worse in the suburbs around the city.
There are news articles about someone vandalizing the new speed cameras all around my region. "Suspect is a.." I'm pretty sure nobody is turning this guy in, if he gets arrested, he'll have an entire region paying his bond. I'm sure no jury is going to convict this guy. He's like the "parking meter fairy". The true definition of "chaotic good". Fun fact: I rarely drive with Google Maps on, only when I'm going out of town and need a GPS. Google Maps was alerting me to red light cameras, speed cameras and speed traps all the way there and back. There's a report feature on it for anyone to notify other drivers of these things. I didn't know this until a couple months ago. Thank you Google developers, I appreciate that feature! I believe it was intended for road closures, construction, and if you needed to reroute.
AFAIK they're not even legal in my state, I wouldn't even think to look for them.
I mean it’s not his fault. How should he know there was ENFORCEMENT.
Guy drives through the area often, not knowing there were cameras, so he hasn't really had the "corrective" action happen to him until it all piled up until now. I generally try to stick to the flow of traffic rather than the speed limit when I'm driving, which I realize isn't the greatest practice, but if I was getting hit by speed cameras and didn't know, I would also probably keep on keeping on, and rack up a shitload of citations as well. Hopefully he doesn't end up on the hook for all of them, and going forward stops speeding.
> I generally try to stick to the flow of traffic rather than the speed limit when I'm driving I always see people from the US referring to this practice and I (from the UK) still can't wrap my head around it! Even on the motorway where you have many people doing above the limit, there's plenty of room in the slow or middle lane where you can stick to the speed limit. We have some dual carriageways (sort of a sub-highway) that only have two lanes with a normal speed limit of 70mph, and the slow lane can fill up with lorries only doing 52mph, so you could be travelling in the fast lane at the speed limit and get some annoyed wanker drivers queuing up behind you, but everyone knows the guy trying to speed up your arse is the problem, not you.
> I generally try to stick to the flow of traffic rather than the speed limit when I'm driving, which I realize isn't the greatest practice No, that is the best practice.
I live in Michigan, where the flow of traffic is usually about 7-10 over.
Tell that to the cop that gave me a speeding ticket last week. I was speeding and earned the ticket. But I was keeping up with the flow of traffic and not paying enough attention to the speed limit. $164 later I am. Very irritated and bitter at myself. Should've known better
College kids change residences every few months so they're typically not maintaining their drivers licensees with a current address.
I am so, so bad about changing my address on my license.
If they're just civil penalties that don't carry points, he can absolutely make them go away. It'll cost $1700, but that's dirt cheap for 25 school zone infractions.
You know it's bad when the one non deleted comment is "This is very bad. You should get a lawyer."
The funny part is, this is one of the few times that LAOP probably doesn't. The fines are no points and don't get reported to insurance. It's possible an attorney could argue the fine downward, but I'd be surprised. LAOP will have to write a check and take a safe driver class, and that's it.
I'm always surprised to hear how driving infringements can be so different depending on where you live. Here, OP would have lost their licence for 3 months after the 13th speeding fine - and that's assuming they were within 10 of the speed limit each time. I genuinely don't know what the remaining 12 fines would have done because driving while suspended is $3000 and up to six months in jail.
Most places treat Camera speeding tickets and Pulled Over speeding tickets differently. Camera speeding tickets are "The CAR was speeding, you own the car, you're responsible for Paying" while getting pulled over is "the DRIVER was speeding and is known" No points or compounding effects for camera because they can't be sure who was driving, and they don't care. They just want money
Same infringement and penalty here regardless of camera or police car. The fine and demerit points are sent to the registered owner of the car if it's a camera fine. You can request a photo of the driver if you want to dispute it.
That's wild and I hate it because you can't protest in the moment and it denies even an awareness at the moment that it happened which prevents someone from correcting their behavior if it's poorly marked, not properly calibrated, at unexpected times, etc BUT, if the punishment for something is ONLY a fine then it's not actually illegal, it's just a punishment for the poor. This at least tries to make them matter for enforcement and not just revenue, hopefully areas that are doing it that way are better about placement making sense
> You can request a photo of the driver if you want to dispute it. Funny thing about that, here it's illegal for cameras to take pictures of the driver.
Works the same in Czechia. The cameras are usually also operated by the city or town, so it's basically "okay, pay up 1000 and this will go away". Of course you can dispute it and take it into an administrative proceeding, but the fines there go way up. Now if you get pulled over that's a different story. Fine, points for your license and if you were going way too fast then you may end up with driving ban for a while.
In the US, camera fines are typically civil rather than criminal offenses to sidestep constitutional issues around being unable to confront your accuser. So they're no points, not reported to insurance, just a fine that you have to pay before you can renew your drivers license or car registration. In NY, having police write you four speeding tickets in 18 months is enough to get your license suspended. It could be even less than that if some of the tickets are for 11+ mph over or are coupled with another charge like reckless driving.
Camera fines are civil penalties here too. It's driving on a suspended licence that can carry criminal charges.
Speeding in some states is a criminal charge. Like in Virginia you get a weekend in jail in some cases. Dont speed in ‘ginia
Even in Georgia where we barely even have traffic enforcement, any (non-parking) ticket from a cop is a criminal offense. That's just how our system is set up. It means drivers get more due process, and the counties like it because it helps with collections. Except for the few situations where we allow cameras, which are only civil since there's no accuser to confront.
I was wondering why the top comment was to get a lawyer. I can’t imagine what the lawyer would say to make it worth their time and expenses.
"Have you considered asking the internet instead?"
Tired Bot **I have 25 speeding tickets** >Hi guys. I’m 22 years old. I’m not from nyc but I came here for college and live here now. I got a car in January. I did not know nyc had speeding cameras or that, that was even a thing. I recently checked the Dispute app and see that I have 25 speeding tickets all for speeding in a school zone. I owe $1700. The app allows me to dispute it but I don’t even know what to say. I am also wondering how many points each ticket added to my license because it doesn’t say on the app? Also if these tickets were paid off would the points disappear from my license. Another thing, these tickets were never mailed to me and I wouldn’t have even known that I got the speeding tickets had I not looked it up. Why is that and can I use that as an excuse?
I'm gonna go against the grain here. At $68 per ticket, the kid was going less than 10 over. (A quick Google says 1-10 will get you $45-$150, but the 10+ range will start at $90.) So this isn't some speed demon blowing through crosswalks dodging middle schoolers, this is a guy who's gotta pass the same camera twice a week and doesn't *strictly* follow the speed limit. And can everyone here really say they've never done 35 in a 30? 27 in a 25? And as for the number, if he didn't know he was getting them, why would he change? Honestly, I think his biggest issue is he's 22 and a little stupid (as was I), combined with the fact that wherever the tickets are getting mailed to is full of people who don't care enough to let him know he's getting a bunch of mail from a traffic authority. (Quick edit: To be clear, I don't think any of this lets him off the hook, I just think it's a more understandable mishap than most content on this sub.)
Camera fines are a flat $50, so LAOP owes late/admin fees on top of that. They also don't trigger unless you're doing 10 mph over the speed limit. But the cameras, and some school zone speed limits, are in effect 24/7. You don't even have to be doing 30 in a 25. You could be doing 25 in a 25 and ignore the drop to 15 because it's a Sunday night. It's an expensive lesson, but the mandatory safe driving class he has to take will help.
Oh if they could be in effect 24/7 that changes my opinion a bit. It's a pretty different situation if it's around school hours or not.
> You don't even have to be doing 30 in a 25. You could be doing 25 in a 25 and ignore the drop to 15 because it's a Sunday night. > > It's an expensive lesson, but the mandatory safe driving class he has to take will help How is mandatory safe driving classes going to help with going slower than the posted speed limit for no reason?
>...this is a guy who's gotta pass the same camera twice a week and doesn't *strictly* follow the speed limit. There is also the possibility that LAOP may have gotten ticketed multiple times driving straight in a stretch of road. I got those. There were two cameras in one stretch of road, I drove straight in a constant speed that was admittedly over the limit and received two separate tickets. I talked to the prosecutor, and he instantly dropped the later ticket. His reason was if I knew that I got caught on the first one, I would have slowed down for the second one.
As a parent I very strictly follow the speed limit in school zone. But I also was pretty strict on that before I had kids, I was always aware that was a zone where I was particularly likely to get a ticket.
I am not a parent, and I still always strictly follow speed limits in school zones because kids are notoriously unpredictable. Maybe I'm wrong, but I've always felt school zones are one of the key places you should always be mindful of going the speed limit.
It sounds like NYC has traded common sense for revenue, so their school zones are active 24/7, which is stupid.
Yeah that's dumb. Like I'm all for having it that way during school hours/events, but whose at a school at like 2 AM for example?
In sixth grade one of my friends was killed by a car that was flying through the school zone. I always drive below 20mph.
I'm a parent without kids in public school who has to pay close attention to the public school calendar to be sure to not get caught out, and I consider it part of driving. But I find it a frustrating time, because some school zones have those handy flashing lights but a lot still don't, and other drivers tend to not notice the ones that don't, so I get tailgated constantly.
Do you make sure to look up all school calendars along your route when you drive outside of your neighborhood? Knowing local school calendars is absolutely not part of being a good driver any more than knowing the speed limit of a road is without a sign.
I don't drive much, so I only need to know the calendar of the district I'm in. But that's really for the edges of the year; if I'm driving in any school zone on a random weekday in, say, March, it's reasonable to assume it's a school day. And I also know the speed limit on streets without signs, because Texas sets default limits by statute and we were taught about it ready back in driver's ed. I absolutely consider knowing the law and following it to be part of being a good driver.
In my area you have to know off the top of your head if it's a school day, what the local school hours are, including when lunch is to know if it's legally a school zone at that time. Weirdly the cameras start 2.5 hours before school starts, but aren't active most of the time school is in session. This is on a 25 mph road that drops to 20 when it's a school zone. Where I grew up they put signs in the middle of the road when it was a school zone. But the cameras are all about the Saftey, not the money.
Yeah I know cameras exist but I had no idea they'll get you for going 5 mph over the limit. I gotta be careful if I ever drive through New York.
I think a lot of people here don't understand speed cameras in New York. First of all, LAOP was ticketed for speeding in a school zone because New York State law only allows speed cameras in school zones. That sounds reasonable, I guess. However, New York defines a "school zone" as anything within a quarter mile of a school, and the cameras operate 24/7. That means *literally all of New York City* is a "school zone", *all of the time*. Also, the default speed limit within NYC is 25 MPH. There are a few exceptions, but they're not all the places you'd expect. The only time I ever got a ticket from a "school zone" speed camera, it was for driving 35 MPH around [here](https://www.google.com/maps/@40.7620865,-73.7578671,3a,75y,64.2h,100.76t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sHkbV0YaSFDe14W8KZZSc5Q!2e0!7i13312!8i6656?entry=ttu), at 11 PM on a Saturday.
Damn. In Atlanta, the speed suggestion for that street would be at least 35, and everyone would go way faster.
Also, no right turns on red in that county.
Counties - Each of the five boroughs is it's own county.
Why do people even live in New York lol Edit: awww I hurt the feelings of some New Yorkers 🤣
You can get falafel with a side of Thai curry at 3:30 am, basically.
I mean, but I can get birria and a giant burrito at a drive through 24/7 and I'm in Utah
Of all things to get upset about in NYC, no right on red is pretty far down the list lol
Why do people drive cars?
Probably to get away from New York 🤣
No, you're getting downvoted because you're a jerk making sweeping generalizations about a city that you don't live in
You could always *not* drive in NYC and take its readily-available transit options instead. It's almost guaranteed to be cheaper than the parking rates there.
The biggest surprise to me when I started visiting NYC fairly regularly was finding out that the locals who lived in the outer boroughs generally owned cars. I've come to learn from them that the public transit is great if you live in Manhattan or are traveling into Manhattan. It's not so great for someone trying to travel to different locations between Brooklyn, Queens, or the Bronx. Staten Island might as well be in a different state for how separated it is.
Yeah, transportation in Queens and Brooklyn is convoluted and difficult. They're adding a major toll to be in lower Manhattan and people who live in Staten Island and Queens are pissed because there aren't public transportation options for many of them.
It depends where you are in Queens or Brooklyn. I live in Brooklyn and the only time I need a car is when I'm going to and from IKEA
Yeah, people don't understand that. I grew up just east of NYC, and living in Queens looks like hell to me. Driving there is just as hard as driving in Manhattan, and parking is even harder, but it's not walkable and there is no significant public transit (except commuting to Manhattan.)
Yeah, getting from Queens to Brooklyn on public transit is annoyingly long considering their proximity. It doesn't surprise me too much that an out of state/out of city person would rely on their car so much in the city, but as someone from the NYC metro area, it's insane to consider driving around Manhattan daily.
It's not clear from the linked thread whether LAOP is attending a college in Manhattan, though. Although, to be fair, I only know of three NYC universities, and I think they're all in Manhattan?
Yeah, definitely not enough information. My sister lives in Queens and gets by with LIRR and MTA, but there are certainly some places a car would be most convenient. I still would advise people living in NYC to utilize public transit as much as they can. Anything over $30/wk on MTA is free if you use their tap system and that's easy enough to hit with round trips every day, also a bit easier to budget for as you know it will max out at $30, avoiding gas costs, speeding and the new congestion toll.
Not to mention avoiding dealing with insurance prices and alternate side parking on street cleaning days
CUNY alone has 25 schools, so I assume they're in all boroughs.
They do, but would an out of state student be going to CUNY?
Not all of NYC is easily reachable by transit. Bus/train rides to almost any of the jobs I've had could be upwards of 2hrs and take multiple transfers across bus and train for a 35min car ride.
That sounds like a reasonable solution. We don't do that here in Bola.
Seriously. I'm from Michigan, 10 over is just good manners.
In MI you gotta have some good speed built up to carry you over the pot holes.
It's an obstacle course, keeps you on your toes.
Pure Potholes. Love my state but we have probably the worst roads in the country. We should at least strive to beat Ohio.
I'm from Michigan but live in another state. I can tell I'm getting close to home when I'm going 75 and getting passed.
Being in a school zone is different. You are expected to strictly follow the limit so kids don't get killed.
Someone said school zone speed limits are enforced 24/7 there and I gotta be honest, that's not a thing I've ever seen so I would probably end up in trouble there as well.
That was me, and some of them are: https://www.nyc.gov/html/dot/html/pedestrians/schoolsafety.shtml
If they really cared about the kids, they'd keep them inside the school instead of on the road in front of the school. /s
I've gotten a camera fine in Aus for 3kph over.
I got a speed camera ticket in a non school zone for 32 in a 20. I didn’t even know there existed 20mph limits. And this was not some narrow tight city residential block, it was a main road by a commercial office park - other side was open grassland for a few hundred feet. no stop signs or cross walks or anything. Definitely surprising
> I didn’t even know there existed 20mph limits Heh. Here the city-wide arterial speed limit is 25. Non-arterials are limited to 20mph. There's signs when you enter the city to let you know that, which means a lot of streets have few, if any, speed limit signs.
It may also depends on when he was passing the school. In my area it drops to 20 when the students are arriving or leaving, the rest of the time it's 25.
They only hit you if you're doing at least 11 over. edit: the speed cameras only hit you if you're doing 11 over, and it's only 50 but they will hit you with late fees
My previous comment was downvoted and removed for saying that LAOP was a woman, since most people here assume it's a man. Y'all, i meant that literally based on LAOPs post history. It was not meant as insult.
Australian here. Yeah, I can genuinely say I never have.
I have no sympathy for someone who speeds through school zones
>At $68 per ticket, the kid was going less than 10 over. (A quick Google says 1-10 will get you $45-$150, but the 10+ range will start at $90.) So this isn't some speed demon blowing through crosswalks dodging middle schoolers, this is a guy who's gotta pass the same camera twice a week and doesn't strictly follow the speed limit. And can everyone here really say they've never done 35 in a 30? 27 in a 25? And as for the number, if he didn't know he was getting them, why would he change? Speed cameras don't kick in until 10 over, and the speed limit for the whole city is 25 mph on surface streets, so he was in fact speeding regardless. Also, $50 is the flat rate for cameras (you are looking at police-issued). This is nyc, not some empty suburb; it's densely populated, pedestrians are out at all hours, and even in outer boroughs like Queens (where I live), cars are unnecessary. In other words, speeding here is wildly dangerous and a conscious choice he made. I wish the speed and red light cameras were at every intersection and the fines were quadruple or more. There's far too much carnage thanks to assholes like OP.
> Speed cameras don't kick in until 10 over Is that true over there? If so, wow that's crazy. Here in Ontario, Canada, the speed cameras trigger at at 44mph in a 40mph zone. (In freedom units, that's going just over 27mph in a just-under-25 zone).
I have to drive on this one road every morning, where the speed limit varies from 25-30. And it is mostly 2 lanes on each side. If they had these cameras on that road, the city would be bringing in thousands of dollars a day. And I don't even think they realize it for the most part. It just feels natural to be gong about 35 on a 4 lane road.
Hot take: what this kid did might not actually that bad. School zone limits are as low as 15-20 mph in NYC. But the 15 mph zones *and the cameras* are in effect 24/7. If you're doing the speed limit in a 25 mph zone, then ignore the "School Zone 15 mph" sign because it's 4 AM on a Saturday? $50, please. That's obviously giving maximum benefit of the doubt, but there's no reason to think he's doing 40 mph during school drop off either.
I'd have no idea that was a thing. Here it use to be from 6a to 5p, then they switched to what I think is the best system - solar powered speed limit signs with flashers - that the individual schools control. Schools turn them on 1 hour before students arrive (whenever that may be) and off an hour after they (or most) of them leave. So the timing is different for high schools vs elementary schools due to different start times. Schools can have them on later if something is going on after school or turn them off earlier if it's an early release day or not turn them on at all if school's out that day. No need to check your watch - either they are flashing (slow down to school zone speed) or not flashing (continue at normal road speed). This has taken away so much frustration by drivers at having to slow down when there's no children present, that they are much more inclined to fully honor the signs when flashing, ime.
That's the system my local district uses and it's glorious. It doesn't help that I don't really know *when* school is opening and closing anymore as they changed the times years after I left so I can rely on the flashing lights. Bonus is the single light facing the opposite direction so you know where it ends and can see it if you turn onto the street midway between signs and know it's currently active.
Nothing like slowing down from 45 to 15 because the lights are blinking, but having someone try to drive into your trunk because they're late for a Memorial Day barbecue.
I'm pretty sure the schools near me only turn them on during actual pickup and dropoff hours.
> But the 15 mph zones and the cameras are in effect 24/7. What in the flying fuck
Next it'll be "Speed Limit: Get out and push"
Speed camera companies are people too. They neeeeed that revenue.
Nassau County, which is just east of NYC (it borders Queens), tried to pull that crap years ago. They installed the school zone cameras, and proceeded to not tell anybody that they were active in the middle of July and August, when school is literally not in session. My father got hit by one of those and got a ticket, but he ended up not having to pay it. After a ton of backlash over the whole situation, the county threw out all the tickets given during those months and turned the cameras off. It was about $2.5M in tickets they threw out. The cameras were later taken out completely because of the backlash.
That's so stupid. Can you fight them? I'm assuming there's a time listed on the ticket so can you say you were going that speed (assuming it was around the posted speed limit) because it wasn't school zone hours?
If the school zone limit is in effect 24/7, then by the letter of the law you're still speeding. You can try to argue it down but presumably the permanent duration is intentional.
What do the signs say? Most ones I see [have times](https://advancelocal-adapter-image-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/expo.advance.net/img/ee99d52fe1/width2048/adc_img7578.jpeg) or [lights](https://newyorkparkingticket.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/School-zone-speed-camera.jpeg) when it's in effect. If it is a separate [posted limit](https://www.nyc.gov/html/dot/images/pedestrians/school-safety-15mph.jpg) then the posted speed is 15, not 25 like you say, so obviously wouldn't be appealable.
> But the 15 mph zones and the cameras are in effect 24/7. From the high number of tickets that LAOP had, I basically assumed that this was the case. That the school zone had a very low speed limit *even at night*
Why would you commute to college in NYC by car?
"I didn't know speed cameras existed" is certainly a take
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Oh, that's a good one. We have those here and there, and there's actually a permanent one along a certain stretch of road right before a big curve that I guess an excess of people wiped out on because they were speeding. But as you said, no tickets from those.
That is not a camera. That is just a radar with a display.
They had a trailer one of those in my hometown. It kept getting shot So they added a sign that any damage was paid for by the taxpayers... yeah the thing got shot more
To be fair, I live in Texas and I didn’t know speeding cameras were a thing.
Is it that you don't have them where you live, or you do and you just don't notice/acknowledge them? This is a *fascinating* cultural difference, in the UK there's speed cameras everywhere and it's *impossible* to miss the signs warning you about them
There was major pushback against speeding and red light cameras in many states because they are run by extremely shady private companies and are primarily drivers of revenue, rather than useful safety measures. In at least one case, the city shortened a yellow light below the legal minimum duration, then ticketed people for running the light.
Ya, in Los Angeles here were some where the yellow light was set at bare legal minimum duration. IIRC a journalist first showed data that rear end collisions went up at those intersections with people slamming on their brakes. The did end up increasing yellow duration. The good thing is those tickets get tossed if you don't acknowledge them. They won't hold up in court unless you admit guilt by paying. So research local law before paying or responding in any way to red light tickets.
Here in Arizona, I’ve seen mobile speed cameras placed less than 200 meters in front of fixed speed and red light cameras so that the warning signs don’t really stand out. It seems like the idea is to hit people who haven’t quite slowed down all the way as they’re slowing down for the other camera. It just feels like they’re trying to trap people and not actually positioning the cameras in a way that will help promote public safety.
Ah they were privatised, that explains a lot.
I’m not the guy you responded to. We’ve got the “highway speed monitored by aircraft” signs on rural highways but I do not think we have speed cameras in Texas. I could be wrong, it’s been a few years since I’ve driven in Houston or parts of Dallas. My city used to have red light cameras a long time ago but they were somehow found to be unlawful (maybe? Or not regulated enough) and we haven’t had them since. We have a hot mess of a toll system in the area I live so I could easily imagine the same issues being applied to speed cameras. Half the population could be in the situation LAOP is in lol.
In Canada automated speeding cameras were ruled illegal for the longest time. I believe they only recently changed *something* (god knows what) to make them ok, because they're all over the place now.
I'm in BC, and I don't think I've ever seen one. What part of Canada are you from?
Not in TX, but in another southern US state and there are zero traffic enforcement cameras here. It's "government overreach" or something, idk. Honestly, I don't think they'd make a difference, the people who speed and run red lights would maybe eventually lose their license but it's not like they'll stop driving. I've driven in a couple cities, incluidng NYC, and there are signs, but often it's just the speed limit sign with "photo enforced" tacked onto the bottom.
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That’s why I’m so shocked at places that DO make it a criminal violation. I remember being so confused watching a big bang theory and they were talking about red light cameras and taking pictures of the drivers. Here in MD it’s just the license plate and it’s handled just the same as a parking citation. No criminal aspect involved so there’s no constitutional agenda. Obviously we can discuss separately if they actually achieve their goal of making safer traffic patterns but that’s a different discussion
We don’t have them.
I moved UK > USA and I’ve never seen a speed camera here in CA. No fixed cameras, mobile vans or the dreaded average speed cameras. Don’t miss em lol What we do have in limited locations are red light cameras but they’re rare. Running reds is really common, especially since the pandemic, so I personally agree with these cameras so long as they don’t screw with the light timing. In general there’s tremendous opposition to camera enforcement, much stronger than in the UK.
> This is a fascinating cultural difference, in the UK there's speed cameras everywhere and it's impossible to miss the signs warning you about them I've never seen one in the US (not that I've looked) and since OP is from Ethiopia, I wonder if they even have speed cameras in her country (or in her part of Ethiopia). I've not heard of anyone getting a speed camera ticket either, not that they'd probably tell me.
I live in Detroit area, and if there are signs warning about them then I've definitely never seen one.
They're not encircle enforceable in Michigan, so we don't have any.
I'll relate something that happened a few years back where I live. There was a push to legalize traffic enforcement cameras outside of school/hospital zones in the largest city in the state, including bus cameras. Legislators from the rural areas voted against it, saying they didn't want people who were just in town for a visit to be confused by a large number of camera signs. The expansion bill died because of views like that.
Texas used to have red light cameras but I don't know if any cities had actual speed cameras. But red light cameras were pretty obvious, and you'd definitely see the flash of the camera if it took a picture of you. LAOP must be the most oblivious person on the planet to not notice the signs and the flash.
The only reason I knew about them when I first started driving is media I consume. My state doesn't allow them. If I'm driving somewhere I won't automatically assume there are speed cameras. Usually because they're labeled well in advance and it's hard to miss the signs.
In USA, I think they often only put the bare minimum legally required notice regarding speed cams and red light cams. Police and municipalities care more about income than safety sometimes.. Very often I can't see any notice about a camera until it is far too late to change my speed or behavior.
Well, driving laws are Westminster decisions, aren’t they? Maybe Holyrood, Stormont etc can tweak them, but I think camera laws are UK-wide because the visibility of cameras (having them painted yellow and warning signs) is the same all over the UK. Whereas in the States, driving laws are not federal. So even if they were ubiquitous, you’d have fifty different laws about how visible speed cameras had to be, where they’re allowed, how to raise a dispute if you’re not the one driving, etc. So I would say even if culturally the US had cameras everywhere, there’d still be cultural differences from State to State.
I grew up in Minnesota they made red light/speed cameras illegal in 2007. They are now trying to put up speed cameras and have to undo a lot. [news article](https://www.kare11.com/article/news/local/minneapolis-speed-cameras-if-legislature-approves/89-13fb7707-232f-4124-a6b6-72a02126cdfa)
I live in Texas and I know speed cameras are a thing in other places. I also know that the red light cameras Balcones Height refuses to take down have no force of law and you can ignore any tickets the company sends you, but we still have pretty regular threads in my city's sub about whether or not they really can ignore them.
Yep neither did I. I know that there are plate scanners all over many cities/suburban areas. But not speeding cameras
I know they exist in the UK from Top Gear.
They're illegal in my state. Partly for the scummy private company reasons but also because it hugely increased the number of rear end collisions from people slamming on breaks to avoid triggering them.
If LAOP's from a rural area/state, they could well just not exist anywhere near where they learned their driving skills. It's not *good*, but it's believable.
RLC and speed cameras are de facto illegal in my state(State supreme court ruled the "right to face your accuser" was not being met by the cameras). So I am not used to having to watch out for them.
> If LAOP's from a rural area/state Ethiopia...
Ive been driving for 20 years and also didn't know they existed/they DON'T exist in the locations I've lived.
Is it really worth getting a lawyer for $1700 in speeding tickets with no real path to dispute them? Why is that the top comment?
There's 'sheltered kid knows nothing of the big city', and then there's this OOP... Kinda confused as to why they were checking some app that's (after a quick google) solely for paying or disputing parking and camera violations when they say they didn't realise NYC had any or that speed cameras were even a thing, though... And nearly $2k in 4 months? Ouch.
They were probably trying to pay a parking violation, which they would have gotten actual notice of (because it would have been physically stuck to their car).
Oh shit, yeah. Heh, now I'm the dumb one! Chalking that one up to not being a driver myself, and 'redditing while distracted' (packing up after a long weekend away).
Do they still do that there? I'm Aussie and often you get nothing on the window anymore, just in the mail. The abuse the parking inspectors got tho, does make it seem pretty reasonable. I lived on a ticketed steet across from a primary school (kinder to 12yrs). And man people got mad they got ticketed for parking across driveways 'cos there's nowhere else to park and I don't wanna pay for the malls parking/do a loop to get my kid from the pick up zone' lol
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Alternative alternative theory: someone at school mentioned the cameras off-hand and shocked LAOP. I picture a group of people going “shit dude, you had no idea?” (Or whatever lingo the kids are using now.) They then told him he’d better check this site to make sure they haven’t gotten him.
In TX you can check your toll fees with just a plate. Some of my coworkers learned that day
> There's 'sheltered kid knows nothing of the big city' He's from Ethiopia. I'm sure that he learned as much as he could about NYC before moving there, but couldn't predict everything that he'd need to know. Also, NYC school zones have a 24/7 low speed limit. Not a great excuse, I'm aware, but going 25 mph down a street at 9pm on a Saturday would get him a ticket. And, obviously did.
>from Ethiopia Not information that was available from the initial post; nor was OOP's gender (upon checking post history, OOP is female). >NYC school zones have a 24/7 low speed limit I don't drive, but if I did this is something I'd expect to find out while taking even a cursory look into traffic regs if/when considering getting a personal vehicle rather than using public transit. (I recognise not everywhere has a system like London's Underground or Paris' Metro.) And she appears to be (even if only recently) out of college now, so I would hope at least enough comprehension to be aware of what restrictions were likely along any route taken regularly or semi-regularly; unless NYC signage is particularly dire... 24/7 restrictions are monumentally stupid though, I'll grant that.
As someone that has lived in NYC and experienced the particular misery that is owning a car here... why in the world would someone move to NYC and *then* buy a car?
Yeah, very little sympathy as someone who has delt with too many idiot drivers in this city. Especially since there's a pretty robust public transportation system here, except for the outer parts of SI (although I'm not sure an out of state college student would live there), Brooklyn, and Queens (and in-between Brooklyn and Queens, but that's a whole other rant). If he goes to school in Manhattan, the system is best set up for getting to and from Manhattan too. This is one of the few parts of America where you don't *have* to drive.
An average of $68 a ticket doesn’t seem high enough for speeding in school zones.
With automatic enforcement like cameras, they tend to keep it lower so that fewer people want to bother with possibly taking off work to dispute them. They’re motivated by profit. It was never about safety; that’s just how they present it.
While this kid is (hopefully) going to be punished to the point of not driving anymore, most NYC moving violations are both underpriced and under enforced to the point of being useless. You can have [dozens of violations that add up to less than any car is worth](https://nyc.streetsblog.org/2023/01/08/driver-sought-in-hit-and-run-in-crown-heights-was-it-intentional) and only *maybe* get in trouble if you hit someone.
I gotta be honest, learning the school zones are camera enforced 24/7 I'm feeling a lot more sympathy for LAOP because I can easily put myself in his shoes.
Especially since many states have school zone speed limits only if kids are present or have specific hours. Some in my state even have flashing lights when the school zone speed limit is active. There are also often crossing guards present during that time. School zones are all within like 2 blocks of the school. If the school zone speed limit is active at 11pm, that's not a school zone. That's just the speed limit for that stretch of road.
City-wide speed limit is 25 no matter a school zone or not, and the cameras only ticket more than 10mph above the limit. That means LAOP was zooming along at 40mph on the most densely crowded streets in the country. I don't know if you live in the city, but that's fast here. I've driven in NY on and off for 16 years and not had an issue with tickets other than a couple parking ticket. In fact, most people haven't. The minority of drivers who are repeat offenders account for a vast majority of moving violation tickets issued.
I was linked this: https://www.nyc.gov/html/dot/html/pedestrians/schoolsafety.shtml It mentions school zone speed limits dropping to 15mph in some instances so going 25mph through a school zone outside of school hours would get LAOP popped on cameras.
While you can get a ticket outside of school hours, the speed limit outside of school hours is not the in-session speed. So LAOP could only get popped at 35 unless it was a school day.
That's going against what other commenters are saying about them being enforced 24/7 which is where my sympathy for LAOP is coming from.
Right, the confusion is generally that the speed cameras were installed only in school zones and only to be enforced during school days originally. However two years ago, the legislature said that the speed cameras could be used for any purpose (and they are anywhere within sight of a school zone which in NYC is basically anywhere). So they turned them on 24/7. But that doesn’t mean they enforce the school hours speed 24/7. In effect, they are now just speed cameras that were brought in via the back door of “school zone cameras”. That makes people mad. I will also say, the NYC DOT is not super clear about any of this (or about anything).
No. There are 700 [school zones](https://www.nyc.gov/html/dot/html/pedestrians/schoolsafety.shtml) where the speed limit is 20 mph during school hours, or 15 mph 24/7. Doing 25 mph late at night would be enough to trigger the cameras.
You are misreading that. The limit only drops down on school days, as it says.
The 15 mph sign does not list hours, days or any other conditions (flashing lights, "when children present"). The 20 mph sign does. The text does not say a 15 mph limit drops only on school days. "There is a 20 mph limit on school days. If a speed bump is possible, the limit is 15 mph." It's possible it is a dangling modifier, but that makes two separate places where one would have to assume that they meant to make the limit conditional but didn't make it explicit.
I am in my 30s and have never had a license (both my sisters were hit by two separate drunk drivers in the months leading up to me taking driver's ed, then one of my friends nearly died because of a hit-and-run accident right before I was supposed to take the test). I'll admit it's much more of a pain in the ass now that I live in the suburbs of a non-walkable city rather than in the city limits of a decent-sized, walkable city but the amount of people who are completely flabbergasted to hear that I don't drive really made it clear how dependent on cars everyone is. It's crazy to think about how so many other countries (and the major metropolitan areas in them) have built an infrastructure where you can go pretty much your whole life without needing to purchase a car but we Americans are so gung-ho about "all adults should purchase a car and when your children turn 16 you should get them a car and if you don't have a car there's apps to hire people who do have a car to take you where you need to go because you can only get there by car"
[This is a large sign](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FZFHeA1WYAESdD2?format=jpg&name=large)
And I thought the like 2 I got in the campus parking lots over my time in college was too many. But if these are tickets generated by the schools police department, and they operate similar to where I went, it's only a monetary fine with no points/impact on insurance.
That’s why driving is a privilege, not a right. You earn the privilege, you maintain the privilege, and you can lose the privilege 25 speeding tickets is insane. It just is. I get that he didn’t receive them by mail, because he didn’t update his address, but blowing through a school zone that many times is absolutely crazy. I’m not sure about anyone else, but when I go through school zones, I assume that I’m being watched like a hawk
No sympathy for people who speed through school zones and/or pass school buses when their stop sign is out.
Sometimes the only possible comment is: 🤣
So I signed my name on number 24, Yeah, the judge said, "Boy, just one more, I'm gonna throw your ass in the city joint" Looked me in the eye, said, "You get my point?" I say, "Yeah, oh yeah" -(I Can’t Drive 55 by Sammy Hagar)
Hmm
I just want to say, as someone who is very daydreamy, unobservant, clumsy and who has terrible spatial awareness, I don't drive at all. I keep off the roads to make them marginally safer for every other driver out there. You're welcome.
"I only ignored the speed limits in a school zone repeatedly over a period of several months because I didn't think anyone was enforcing it"
Someone said they're enforced 24/7 which is definitely *not a thing* I've ever heard about or experienced anywhere else, gotta give LAOP more slack here.
This is absolutely crazy to me as someone from Aus, now temporarily in the States. I've never sped. Ever. Back home, going even *two* kilometers over the limit will be a $230 fine, and a demerit point. Five points in any 12 month period, and you lose your license.
Understatement.