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Transportation meddling

From Boing Boing (4./12)Cities making red-light cameras more profitable by making them less safe



And from Techdirt (via Slashdot) (4/12), a title about pretty much the same thing.



I remember talking to a Transportation Engineer when I worked at the Texas Transportation Institute while I was in college. He told me about similar shenanigans along Texas Highways when small municipalities would adjust the speed limits so that the towns could be "speed traps" and the town could use those highways as "revenue enhancers".

Problem was, if a Transportation Engineer rated a piece of the highway as being able to maintain a certain speed limit, AND an accident was attributed to the municipality lowering the limit significantly lower than what that rating was, the municipality AND THE COUNCILMEMBERS WHO VOTED FOR THE LOWERED SPEED LIMIT could be held JOINTLY and INDIVIDUALLY LIABLE for any loss of life or property attributable to that lowered speed limit.



I would think the same thing would hold about traffic lights and/or cameras.



We'll see how all this goes ...

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