Talk:Traffic enforcement camera/Archive 2

Digital speed cameras

I seem to remember reading somewhere that some (though certainly not all, or most) of these new digital speed cameras have some form of storage within the camera which holds the photos they have taken prior to their being transmitted to central computers in a batch. Does anyone have a source which would clarify this? Nevard (talk) 06:39, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

Looking down at the speedometer

Have any of the studies undertaken in this field looked at the danger of repeatedly looking down at one's speedometer in order to ascertain one's speed (to avoid a speeding ticket) and consequently taking one's eyes away from the actual road ahead? Should the article mention it? Thanks —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.176.102.8 (talk) 06:20, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

One should aim to drive a little slower, below the limit, to reduce the risk of accidentally exceeding it. The reduces the frequency with which one needs to check one's speed. It also achieves the legislator's goal of reducing traffic speeds. HiLo48 (talk) 14:02, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Australia-based studies

This sub-section, like many others in the article, is written with an obvious anti-camera POV. It actually includes no studies despite the heading. For a little bit of balance I have just added a referenced fact about the success of traffic enforcement in the Australian state with the most aggressive use of unsigned cameras. HiLo48 (talk) 18:24, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

Is vandalism and assault really a political issue?

The Political issues sub-section describes physical attacks on equipment and operators. That's nothing to do with politics. That's using one illegal act in an attempt to avoid being prosecuted for another. Could be mentioned elsewhere but not under Politics. HiLo48 (talk) 21:03, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Unreferenced claims for Victoria

We have a sentence in the Australia section which is not supported by the references cited:

"With its intensive use of unsigned speed cameras and
other measures Victoria has achieved record low road
tolls in each of the past two years."

There are several problems with it:

1. Neither of the references mentions or implies "intensive use".
2. Neither mentions "unsigned".
3. Neither mentions the toll being at a record low in the last two years.
4. Neither attempts to suggest that speed cameras have played a significant role.

The first reference only makes an incidental reference to the role played by speed cameras:

 "A boost in the hours that mobile speed cameras
 operate - from 6000 to 9000 hours a month - had
 also contributed to the result"

The second doesn't mention them at all.

I deleted the offending sentence twice, but User:HiLo48 reverted it both times. I then edited it to more closely reflect the references, but again HiLo48 reverted it.

I do not intend to indulge in an edit war, but I believe that the sentence contravenes the wiki guidelines on Verifiability, so must be removed, the assertions adequately referenced, or be corrected - I suggest deletion, although I think this would probably be acceptable:

 "The authorities in Victoria state that the increased
  use of mobile speed cameras has contributed to the
  reduction, to a record low, of the road toll there
  in 2009."

-- de Facto (talk). 20:43, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

1 & 2. You're correct, the references don't say that Victoria makes intensive use of unsigned cameras. But it does. It's one of those very publicly known facts that no-one bothers to write about (often quite difficult to cite in Wikipedia). It's why some people complain. They think it's unfair to be prosecuted for speeding when they didn't know they were being watched. I will still try to find a reference.

3. One of the references describes a record low road toll in 2008. The other refers to 2009. Hence the "past two years". Neither says 2007, which was in one of your edits which I reverted.

4. My edit did not say that cameras played a major role (although I suspect they did). It mentioned the cameras "and other measures".

What I added to the article is completely true, but perhaps not perfectly referenced. There are many parts of this article that are strongly POV against cameras AND unreferenced. For example, there is only one reference for the whole of the rest of the very anti-cameras section on Asutralia and it is around ten lines long. Do you intend to apply the same standards to the rest of the article, or just to the bits you don't like? HiLo48 (talk) 09:25, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

1 & 2 are purely personal POV then, so I have removed them until a relaible source can be found. Yes, I was mistaken about the years, I didn't realise that the newspaper reports were almost one year apart, I've added clarification to the cite details. I've also added a sentence to summarise the credit given to cameras. -- de Facto (talk). 16:22, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

So now you will be removing all the anti-camera text without any or with poor references? Or do you want the article to remain largely anti-camera POV?

I should point out that I agree with many anti-camera campaigners that governments enjoy the revenue they get from those who choose to drive faster than the speed limit, but it's largely a voluntary tax. I also know that the approaches developed by non-political road safety campaigners have led to dramatic reductions in road tolls. The article doesn't reflect this at all.

Or will you be happy for me to remove all the unreferenced material, like most of the rest of the Australia section and much of the rest of the article? HiLo48 (talk) 19:57, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

Non-studies in the Studies section

The last two paragraphs in the section US-based studies aren't about studies at all. They are simply reports on where cameras exist. They should be removed from that section, but I'm not sure where they should go. HiLo48 (talk) 04:53, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

Reorganized 'Issues' section

With some trepidation knowing the sensitivities around this subject I have reorganised the 'Issues' section into sections for each camera use which would seem to be more logical - I hope it meets with general approval. I have kept a general 'Controvercies section for any more general concerns (such as 'Big Brother'). Clearly there is more work to be done, however I was going to wait for initial reactions before doing any more work on the article. To be clear, I have not removed any content in this edit or reworded any paragraphs and have purely moved content into a new structure. There seems to be a lot of content relating to speed cameras in the UK the detail of which could possibly be spun out into a different article in due course. There is very little content relating to bus lane enforcement (and they are well used in the UK), and there is next to nothing on other uses which are used (I have seen the police checking for untaxed or uninsured vehicles in my town). In general I suggest we get more content into the article about what they are, how they work etc. PeterEastern (talk) 20:51, 18 April 2010 (UTC)

Ok, so I have made a number of other changes to the article now with some breaks for people to jump in and say something. My edits have all been about reorganising content and adding citations rather than removing content or adding content. I will continue working on the article from time to time which seems to be becoming much more approachable. PeterEastern (talk) 10:19, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Proposed split of 'speed limit enforcement' content

I have been working on this article, the speed limit article and the road traffic safety article. I notice that there are other aspects to speed limit enforcement that are not covered by enforcement cameras and that about half the words in this article relate to speed limit enforcement already. I propose that we split the majority of the Speed limit enforcement section into a new article 'Speed limit enforcement'. Any thoughts? PeterEastern (talk) 12:18, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

• I think you're on to something there Peter. This article is a bit of a dog's breakfast of comments on many types of cameras (and other tools) used for different aspects of road management. I would like to see this whole article disappear, and the enforcement aspects of the various types of vehicle activity monitoring moved into articles covering each of those topics in turn. Speed limit enforcement would be a good start. HiLo48 (talk) 01:38, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

• Split completed. PeterEastern (talk) 14:29, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

Don't agree with this split - it has created a duplication with some portions of this article, as well as speed trap - the "speed trap" article should rather have been renamed and rescoped, so suggest that "speed trap" article is now merged into the new article. Socrates2008 (Talk) 01:06, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

• I agree that speed trap can be merged into it. Apologies if I was a bit to quick on that one. Happy to do some of the merging work. PeterEastern (talk) 05:25, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

Removal of content that is not referenced properly

I have added a batch of 'fact' tags to claims in the controversy section. I suggest that we removed any claims that are still unsupported in 7-10 days. I have noticed that controversy sections are particularly prone to picking up random uncited claims, many of which are of course controversial so it is particularly important that they are well referenced. I previously added tags to uncited claims in the history section - does anyone want to try to find some more references to any content in the section? I am sure a lot of it is true, but again we should remove claims that are not supported in due course. PeterEastern (talk) 04:19, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

I've removed the tagging and added a template instead. Yes, the section is poorly written and fragmented, but some of the "controversial" claims have indeed been made and are easily referenced. The article needs to present a both sides of the discussion, so I like to see some more effort going into fixing it before the knife is taken to it. Socrates2008 (Talk) 12:15, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

• Great stuff, thanks Soctrates - I have no doubt that many of the claims are true and it is great that you are able to put the effort into adding them. The reason I added individual tags was to help others see where references were needed, but your approach is also fine. Fyi, I have just done a similar job with the Gatso article which again has a lot of detailed and potentially convincing history relating to the UK, but without enough references. No rush over this but lets aim for fully referenced articles in the medium term. PeterEastern (talk) 12:56, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

Edits to 'Controversy' section - not really reflecting the sources.

OK, I'll assume good faith, and appeal to your logic.

I'm not British, and from afar it seems that that country uses an unusual financial model for speed cameras. It is exemplified by this quote from one of the sources - "The Conservative council said they cost about £320,000 a year to maintain and very little of the revenue generated is returned by central government." We are told in the article that "The town of Swindon abandoned the use of fixed cameras in 2009, questioning their cost effectiveness...", I really wonder how that cost effectiveness is being measured. If the benefits don't include the revenue in fines generated by the cameras, it's hardly a fair measure. It means that the real reason the cameras are being removed is the unfair (to the council) financial model. Nothing to do with safety, or driver concerns.

There were several edits there, and I saw a few other things like that. Let's tackle them one at a time.

I really do wish you had discussed the changes first. I don't want to revert again. It's not my style to go anywhere near the three revert rule. But if I tackled them all now it could become an unreadable essay.

HiLo48 (talk) 08:53, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

Hi and thanks for your measured approach. I have no idea how Swindon measure cost-effectiveness of cameras; whether it is fair (and if so in who's view), or whether they have hidden motives. Wikipedia does not make such moral judgements; it simply puts sourced encyclopedic material in articles. What is sourced is that Swindon question the cost effectiveness of the cameras. Fwiw I suspect the concept that there is one single real reason the cameras are being removed is unhelpful - it is probably, from my reading of the sources, a mix of concerns. But that is close to being Original Research so I wouldn't personally add it to the article. It would be odd if there was no reference to Swindon in the article, or to the initial judgment on accident rates after the switch-off, but you were quite correct that my initial edit was not NPOV in that it attributed causation, which is not in the source, and I have changed that now. Does that get us further forward? Friendly regards, Springnuts (talk) 09:12, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

No. It doesn't. And that's because you don't care what the real reasons for removal of the cameras are. You want it to appear that councils have somehow come to their senses, as it were. You are making no attempt to present this information in a balanced way. To dismiss my suggestion as abruptly as you have indicates pure POV intentions. I am not happy with your edits, here and elsewhere, and really would like to discuss them BEFORE making them. You are NOT showing good faith in just throwing material into the article without any discussion at all. HiLo48 (talk) 11:01, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

OK we had an edit conflict there - I was just adding that I have put a sentence about fiscal results of cutting the scheme - ie the Government make a profit on it. This may give more balance and meet some of your concerns too I hope. Regards Springnuts (talk) 11:09, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

For several other articles on conotroversial topics which I frequent, the standard practice is that if an editor finds a relevant new source and/or article it is first tabled on the Talk page where editors work together to create a form of words most are happy with. Please think about doing that, rather than your approach today of just posting slabs of new material without any discussion. That approach is NOT civil, and bound to cause concern among others. HiLo48 (talk) 11:18, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

"Says who?" tag

I say it as a person with a reasonable understanding of Mathematics and Statistics. That those with less understanding cannot comprehend does not mean it needs a source. A relevant source would be any decent high school text book. But we don't work that way in Wikipedia. We assume good faith and a reasonable level of knowledge. HiLo48 (talk) 20:32, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

You are adding your personal synthesis, a synthesis which is not in the cited reference. The source doesn't comment on whether it is statistically significant or not - so neither should we unless we can find a notable reference to suppport it. -- de Facto (talk). 20:40, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

It is NOT a personal synthesis. It's a statement of mathematical fact. The words "statistically insignificant" are not just some words I thought up today. They have a precise meaning in mathematics. They mean that number changes as small as those shown do not indicate anything of significance. They could easily happen due to pure chance. We should not have to train people in mathematics before we can tell the truth in Wikipedia. HiLo48 (talk) 20:53, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

How big exactly would the drop have to be to be significant then? -- de Facto (talk). 20:57, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

Comment "Statistically significant" means something quite specific in the mathematical/statistical sense, so link the term to avoid any confusion. But that does not mean that this statistical finding does not need a reliable source - someone other than the Wikipedia editor needs to have said just this. So as long as these are the words in the quote Daily Telegraph article, they are fine to use here - and the problem appears to be that the supplied source does not. Also, I've struck the first use of the word "significant" in the article. Socrates2008 (Talk) 21:41, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

Here are actual figures.[1] The sample is clearly too small and the figures are too close for it to have been "unlikely to have occurred by chance". To not mention that would give the impression that it was statistically significant:

• "last August until the end of April" one fatal, one serious and 13 slight accidents
• "In the same period after the cameras were switched off" no fatalities, two serious and 12 slight accidents

PeterEastern (talk) 22:01, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

For the sake of the less mathematically able readers (and editors) can you show here the calculation used to arrive at the "statistically insignificant" verdict, and what size of sample would be needed for it to be significant please. This would also help sceptical readers to understand when claims of casualty reduction when attributed to the presence (rather than absence) of cameras is statistically significant. -- de Facto (talk). 08:50, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

You just stole my thunder - I was about to copy the Monbiot quote to this article after refining it in the UK article! However, that doesn't get you off the hook; I'd still be interested in the calculation that you used to arrive at that conclusion before I re-disccovered that quote. -- de Facto (talk). 16:52, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

If you don't already believe that it is statistically insignificant then there is nothing I can do to convince you and I am not going to try! I moved the statistically significant phrase to the Monbiot sentence but still believe that the section was stronger and more accurate with the text in the original position and I would be happy to support a move to keep it in its original position without a 'fact' tag if someone wishes to push for it. 16:57, 9 November 2010 (UTC)PeterEastern (talk)

I never said I didn't believe it, I said it wasn't supported (which it wasn't) - now, thanks to my re-discovering the Monbiot quote, it is. However, you said: 'the sample is clearly too small and the figures are too close for it to have been "unlikely to have occurred by chance".' I would like you to show the appropriate calculation which would have supported that view, not least to help us to know what size of sample would be needed for it to be significant. On the other hand, perhaps you are unable to mathematically support your view, and are glad the quote removed that necessity. -- de Facto (talk). 17:10, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

That's like asking for the article on Bridge to contain all the mathematics that proves that bridges won't fall down. HiLo48 (talk) 20:41, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

Do you (HiLo48) or you (PeterEastern) know anything about how to calculate whether those particular results were statistically significant, or what the "sample size" would have to be to make them significant? Your assertions above might have led us to believe that you did - or were you bluffing? -- de Facto (talk). 21:41, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

Comment This is an, err, academic discussion because it's irrelevant for the purposes of verification. Even if everyone here knew nothing about statistics, or indeed were actuaries, the article still needs a reference from a reliable source who has stated that the results are statistically significant. Socrates2008 (Talk) 10:07, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

Would it not be reasonable to use WP:CALC which covers "routine mathematical calculations, such as adding numbers, converting units, or calculating a person's age, provided editors agree that the arithmetic and its application correctly reflect the sources". I note that if one of two seriously injured people in the second period had died or if the fatality in the earlier period had just survived then figures would be the same bar one slight injury which again is subject to a lot of chance. As such I would say that a simple calculation would show that there was a high element of chance and that it is therefore statistically insignificant. Basically the 'reduction' comes down to a throw of one or at most two dice and therefore there is a 50% or at 25% element of chance. I would like a view on this because statistically dubious facts are routinely used by the media (and sometimes by authorities) to make a story where there isn't really one to be had, especially around road safety.PeterEastern (talk) 17:25, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

No - even if you presented a valid statistical analysis here (you haven't), the results would still require interpretation. Any conclusion here needs a source for the very reason that you are interpreting things differently at best, or completely incorrectly at worst (from a formal statistical point of view). Socrates2008 (Talk) 20:58, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

For those interested in statistical (non-)significance, I want to share what's just happened in Victoria, Australia, where I live. It's long been one of the world's leading jurisdictions in the road safety area, ever since being the first place in the world to make seat belts compulsory. In the months of October and November just past, the states road tolls were 37 and 12 respectively.[[Read about it here]] Now while, inevitably, the top cop involved is trying to take some credit, there was no obvious change in laws or policing over those two months. So really, no conclusion at all can be drawn from the figures, and it's a huge change. Such changes only mean something over much longer terms. In simple terms, what seems like a huge change from 37 to 12 is NOT statistically significant. HiLo48 (talk) 23:49, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

Cleanup

I have given the article a bit of a cleanup. I have moved the history to the end, organised the criticism section under sub-headings and created lists to make it easier to now check the individual claims. I have removed some incited and less notable content and tagged other incited claims. I have created an 'other' section for further uses for traffic cameras. I have weeded out some dubious and uncited avoidance methods and the suggestion that one way to not get caught it is set fire to the camera. I do however suggest we have a section covering criminal damage to units - that is notable, but not in the avoidance/evasion section. PeterEastern (talk) 08:35, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

Denmark - fines proportional to income

I have removed this content which is not cited and a quick internet search has not confirmed it. "This is overcome in Denmark where the offender is fined a percentage of their salary, effectively punishing all offenders equally." There was however the recent case in Switzerland where a driver was fined $1m based on the speed and earnings of the driver. It is not clear if this was an 'owner liablity' jurisdiction though.[2]PeterEastern (talk) 08:54, 16 December 2010 (UTC)