Posted on 07/06/2011 10:57:36 AM PDT by Ron H.
The city of Houston will turn its red-light cameras back on today, Mayor Annise Parker announced after this mornings City Council meeting.
According to a statement from the mayors office, tickets will be issued after a short period of equipment testing.
(Excerpt) Read more at blog.chron.com ...
Cities coffers and donut fund must be running low...
I’m really surprised, since Houston is in Texas, that people haven’t shot those cameras off the pole. They did in some town in KY a few years back.
Guess the turnips need to be squeezed one more time to see if there may not be a drop of blood left. Houston stinks.
They need the money for their lucrative government retirement pensions...
What’s the legal explanation for this ability to turn them back on?
There was an article here a few months ago about accidents being DOWN since they turned off the cameras. There were all sorts of silly explanations:good weather, fewer drivers, etc.
So, I wonder what “safety” statistic caused them to decide to turn them back on? Or was it an “income” statistic?
Houston ping!
Someone I used to work with claimed she had used her Glock to shoot not one, but two of these in a certain western state.
Code Section A-7, HPD-PC-187-334190: We need more money, pay up.
The judge ordered the cameras back on because she believes the referendum was passed to late. Red Light camera opponents should begin with a new referendum to mandate no less than a delay of 10 seconds after red before the cameras are triggered to capture an image.
or how about a referendum slapping about a billion petty bureaucratic regulations and specs on the cameras that will ultimately cause the contractor to just throw-up their hands and walk away?
Just one more reason I am glad I moved to the suburbs. The city is a disaster because of years of total liberal mismanagement.
Shot noise generator might do it too.
Big Brother is ticketing you, all in the name of “public safety”.
easier to use them as targets
Houston sure has turned into a sewer. Can’t say God at military cemeteries anymore either. I can’t believe it’s part of Texas. Katrina definitely hit the wrong city.
In opticsIn optics, shot noise describes the fluctuations of the number of photons detected (or simply counted in the abstract) due to their occurrence independent of each other. This is therefore another consequence of discretization, in this case of the energy in the electromagnetic field in terms of photons. In the case of photon detection, the relevant process is the random conversion of photons into photo-electrons for instance, thus leading to a larger effective shot noise level when using a detector with a quantum efficiency below unity. Only in an exotic squeezed coherent state can the number of photons measured per unit time have fluctuations smaller than the square root of the expected number of photons counted in that period of time. Of course there are other mechanisms of noise in optical signals which often dwarf the contribution of shot noise. When these are absent, however, optical detection is said to be “photon noise limited” as only the shot noise (also known as “quantum noise” or “photon noise” in this context) remains.
Shot noise is easily observable in the case of photomultipliers and avalanche photodiodes used in the Geiger mode, where individual photon detections are observed. However the same noise source is present with higher light intensities measured by any photodetector, and is directly measurable when it dominates the noise of the subsequent electronic amplifier. Just as with other forms of shot noise, the fluctuations in a photo-current due to shot noise scale as the square-root of the average intensity:
The shot noise of a coherent optical beam (having no other noise sources) is a fundamental physical phenomenon, reflecting quantum fluctuations in the electromagnetic field (due to the so-called zero-point energy. This sets a lower bound on the noise introduced by quantum amplifiers which preserve the phase of an optical signal.
FoxyTag.com is a website that offers free software that you download onto your cell phone to alert you of nearby red light cameras.
Houston-—too hot, too big, too many illegals, and now too many liberal politicians. Why is it that every major city eventually becomes a liberal rathole.
Los Angeles has been contemplating turning the red-light cameras off.
They’re not bringing in the revenue. Judges refuse to enforce the tickets.
Here are a couple of Google links that provide a number of articles on the subject.
This is Houston. Houston is no longer the conservative bastion it once was. Hence the lesbo mayor
I would think you could burn the CCDs with a laser pointer.
Because Republicans grow up to be successful businessmen or hard working employees. They try to be self-sufficient.
Democrats grow up to go to work on the government payroll, get connected, live on that the rest of their lives. Either that or they try to get burrowed into the government assistance infrastructure. They are mostly forever dependent.
Cut the size of government, and you’ll notice a drop off of people who consider themselves Democrats. When forced to go to work, you suddenly see things different. You want to keep what you work for.
No problem, just put the squeeze on the local serfs a little more any time you need more revenue (TAXES). It's a lot easier than deciding who and where to reduce bloated waste in government spending.
Or to a neighboring county as in my case. Good riddance to the ever expanding barrios of Houston.
What is a city? Which city are you referring to? There are at least 275 municipalities in the US with populations over 100K.
A headline like “City turning red-light cameras back on” is about as useful as “Team wins game!”
Nope, do what Brits do....hang a gas-soaked tire on it and let it burn
As per the posting rules around here. Try either clicking on the article link to see the precise title or the FR posting rules to answer your own question. How many times must this simple rule be explained?!
Texans are a breed apart. This could never happen there.
Must be some other Texas.
A lot of digital cameras have mechanical shutters, so you'd have to be lasing it directly while a red light runner was being photographed.
The city I live in put a few in but now has removed all red light cameras. There is still some sanity left in SoCal.
I would suggest you take it up with the moderator. I followed the rules posted here for posting titles. I agree that it would make it better the way you suggest.
I don’t know if the moderators accept my calls any more.
Houston PING
Can’t wait to see the police cheif’s excuse when accidents go up again. He claimed they went down with the cameras off because gas prices were high and the weather’s been dry.
A convenience store (Pak’s) was robbed again last month, this time they shot one of the customers. 4 robberies there, a camera on site, and never has HPD made an arrest.
Cameras don’t prevent crime or create “safety”. It’s about revenue, much of which goes to a private company.
Good !
Yep, the bottom line as always. It's about finding new ways to pick the pockets of the average every day hard working citizen. When that isn't enough they'll shorten the yellow light, install radar cameras on the freeways and anywhere else they can and try to get away with it. But, it will always be about safety or for the kid's or whatever else these tax and spend thieves can think up to separate you from your hard earned money.
When can we vote this POS out?
Wonder who is getting a favor?
I told my hubby if they didn’t get rid of those things they would find a way to bring them back on. Apparently they did without informing the voter. I have had it with these losers in government. It’s not only time to throw them out; it’s time some of them need to go to jail.
Not to mention the high cost of the best health insurance other peoples money can buy for the overworked, overstressed public servant.
i was getting found of the tire and gas route...hee hee heeee
Did they ever catch those folks that did that???
If they won’t listen to a vote to shut them down by the people...Then my call to my City Counselman was to look into when the contract with ATS is over...Then push to not renew it...
Mayor “Light in the loafers” Parker said she reluctantly ordered them turned back on, so when the contracts over, then she can find it easier at that time, perhaps...
Ask me if I’ll hold my breath though...
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