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slakr007's comments:
on Red Light Cameras
Your safety guy is saying that the yellow light times exceed the recommended times at all lights with cameras.
Since evidence shows that extended yellow lights reduce infractions, you can't say that the cameras are doing anything.
posted 3 years, 8 months ago
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on Red Light Cameras
So, repeated studies showing that the cameras cause more accidents, are abused by cities, have unproven accuracy, are not proven to increase safety at all, are usually owned and operated by companies that obviously have a vested interest in making sure citations provide consistent revenue, and proven evidence that just carefully timing yellow lights can very nearly eliminate red light infractions make no difference to you?
The rule is "don't go through red", and my understanding is that the cameras only take a picture if the light is red BEFORE you even enter the intersection. A clear infraction.
Your understanding is probably wrong. I posted a link to an Ars Technica article about traffic cameras in Denver. For a year, the company operating the cameras failed to provided data to the Denver Police proving that the cameras were taking pictures of the right cars, were taking pictures at the right time, and that the cameras never dropped below 98% accuracy (whatever that means).
The Denver Police never asked for the data either. Probably because Denver's revenue from red light citations went from $6,000 to $173,000 per month.
By the way, not providing the data was against the law. So, that company blatantly broke the law while providing a service that is supposed to catch people breaking the law...and most likely falsely cited people in the process.
AND, the Denver Police themselves, collected data from experiments with yellow light timing showing that, without cameras, timing yellow lights correctly reduced red light infractions almost by a factor of 4.
That does not even get into cities illegally changing yellow light timing to entrap people.
Great system! I feel safer.
posted 3 years, 8 months ago
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on Red Light Cameras
On a side note, if we were to replace many STOP signs with YIELD signs, we could save time and fuel. And save on tickets!
Yep. Round-abouts (rotaries, traffic circles, whatever) have been proven to be much safer and efficient than four-way stops. Those are really hard to retrofit, though.
posted 3 years, 8 months ago
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on Red Light Cameras
Here's an article about how cities have been illegally decreasing yellow light timing to generate revenue with traffic cameras:
http://techdirt.com/articles/20080410/011257809.shtml
Here's an article about findings that traffic cameras increase traffic crashes:
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20080313/231629539.shtml
And, Mississippi actually listened to these reports and passed a state-wide ban on traffic cameras back in February.
posted 3 years, 8 months ago
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on Red Light Cameras
Well, here is at least one article that calls into question the accuracy of the cameras and their contribution to safety.
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/01/denvers-red-light-cameras-no-data-just-tickets.ars
The most interesting part is the end:
``The Rocky Mountain News points out, however, that the Denver police's own data shows that it's not the cameras that are improving safety, but rather lengthening yellow light times. The city agreed last summer to experiment with lengthening yellow lights by one or two seconds at a handful of locations and found that violations went down significantly—the daily average dropped to 9, 10, and 16 violations at the different lights, down from 125 violations between the three when the yellow lights were the legal minimum of 3 seconds.''
posted 3 years, 8 months ago
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on New Genetic Therapy
I don't know anything more than you. And, I'm not asking you to endorse anything. It's just a question.
Medical science has greatly contributed to population increase and greatly contributed to our standard of living increase. But, I cannot imagine that both of those can always be increasing.
<shrug>
I don't know...Wikipedia says there are population models that say the world population will stop increasing in 2050. Of course, that could go right out the window if, say, we cure cancer.
posted 3 years, 8 months ago
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on New Genetic Therapy
If the consequences are not known until 35 years later (just a random number), then do the researchers really know the risks? If the researchers do not know the risks...worse yet, think there are no risks...then the parents cannot know the risks.
It's certainly not unprecedented that a medication or treatment would be used without even an understanding of a fraction of the real risks.
It was especially frightening that the good doctor claimed to think the procedure was 99% safe. Not only because of the likelihood of overconfidence, but also because 99% safe can mean many many things.
posted 3 years, 8 months ago
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on New Genetic Therapy
Odd question from you. You told me once you wanted 99% of humans to disappear.
How much longer should our lives be? How many more babies of ours should be born healthy? How many more people can we support...not just in terms of food and nature, but in political, educational, and financial terms.
posted 3 years, 8 months ago
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on New Genetic Therapy
I am a huge believer in science. It's the only thing I believe in. But, there are two ways to look at this: what is good for you and what is good for society as a whole.
When you start meddling at this level, the effects on society can be much larger and destructive than we understand. We should not let empathy override critical analysis of science.
Looking critically at science and challenging it is not a judgement against science. It is actually what makes science works.
posted 3 years, 8 months ago
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on New Genetic Therapy
That was more of a splitting-hairs question...were you talking about safety of the procedure or safety in the long-term? The procedure might be unsafe in the short-term and immediately cause death in humans. The procedure might be unsafe in the long-term; the person seems healthy are perfect...then, at age 35, he/she dies suddenly. In those 35 years when we think the treatment is great and wonderful, how many people are treated if the statistics say 1 in 4000 people have such mutations?
posted 3 years, 8 months ago
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on New Genetic Therapy
Where is the critical point when we should stop trying to cure diseases? Not to belittle the work done, but should we really strive to eliminate any and all diseases?
posted 3 years, 8 months ago
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on New Genetic Therapy
"Safety" in the sense of screwing up genes and doing more harm to someone than good?
posted 3 years, 8 months ago
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on Getting Tough About Driving Drunk
So ignoring things makes them go away?
posted 3 years, 8 months ago
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on Getting Tough About Driving Drunk
I don't know about Oregon, but I do know it is a popular punishment in Florida. After researching AA, I would like to see it shutdown.
posted 3 years, 8 months ago
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on Getting Tough About Driving Drunk
Good idea, except it does not work. Florida's 10-20-Life law has not stopped gun crime even though it makes people that even slightly injure someone with a gun nearly permanently responsible for that crime (25 years to life).
http://news.ufl.edu/2006/01/10/three-strikes-law/
posted 3 years, 8 months ago
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on Getting Tough About Driving Drunk
@scottmil
Quite frankly it should be illegal to treat people for something they don't have and is entirely unethical. I have no idea how it is legal to treat someone for a disease when a doctor has not established they have one.
Right on. Right on.
I will even go so far as to say that, while not the only treatment mandated, AA is a disease itself and the state mandating AA is a scary thing.
posted 3 years, 8 months ago
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on Getting Tough About Driving Drunk
They were sketchy on the details because it is a car show where the hosts do "stunts" like race RVs on a race track, chase a Land Rover with a battle tank, etc. The hosts spent a night driving people just to see what kind of cars they drive, quiz them about how much they know about the cars, and to see how easy it is to ride, disassemble, and reassemble the mopeds.
But, it was a very interesting idea. I am pretty sure the people had to pay for the service like a taxi. But, I would imagine that it had several advantages over taxis. Mainly that it was your own car, they probably made it easier to make reservations, the pricing was probably more sane, etc.
Really, though, the details are inconsequential. What's important is that it was a group of people trying to think of the problem in terms of what motivates people to drive after drinking instead of just thinking about punishments.
I'm sure we can't actually stop drunk drivers all together. It may sound insensitive to say this, but we have to accept a certain amount of danger in driving. We really need to realize, though, that "getting tough" does not help at all.
posted 3 years, 8 months ago
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on Getting Tough About Driving Drunk
It doesn't matter if we start summarily executing people on site for driving under the influence, it is not going to stop the problem.
At what point do we realize that "getting tough" has no effect on crime and only wastes tax money. Is it really that hard to think up innovative solutions that do not involve law enforcement?
An episode of BBC's "Top Gear" highlighted a service in Britain that provides drivers. You call the service before or after you go out, they send someone on a small moped that fits in a trunk, the person drives you home, and rides his/her moped on to the next job.
There, that's one idea. I'll bet we could solve the problem of DUI if we turned on our brains and stopped electing politicians that promise to solve all of our ills by criminalizing everything.
posted 3 years, 8 months ago
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on Getting Good Grades
scottmil,
True about salespeople. Best Buy and Fry's, for instance, are definitely strikingly different experiences because of the way they pay their floor staff.
And, you are definitely right. I think some people mentioned it in the show, but applied to the wrong kids, applied without solid standards, or applied excessively, monetary rewards will definitely fail spectacularly in education.
posted 3 years, 8 months ago
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on Getting Good Grades
scottmil,
I think that is the undertone of this whole discussion. Different things work for different people. You cannot generally say monetary rewards work or don't work.
"I'm somewhat successful, but so what---how much more successful might I have been?"
Not sure where you are going with that question.
posted 3 years, 8 months ago
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