
Speed Camera Lottery Decreases Speeding by 22% in Fun Experiment - JangoSteve
http://www.autoblog.com/2010/11/28/video-vws-fun-theory-creates-a-speed-camera-lottery/
======
rarestblog
I still think it was a brightly colored sign with a speed indicator that
slowed the cars down, not the "lottery" part.

In Soviet Russia the Limit Camera Speeds You..

A few years ago there was an experiment in which similar camera (with speed
reading) was installed on a inner circle of Moscow (called smth like "3rd
transport circle"). The result? There was a huge increase in speed - people
were actually COMPETING who can set a record! (Even worse - they were trying
to catch a photo of the sign showing their extreme speeds). The camera was
removed (as far as I know). Never seen any other cameras with actual speed
indicator in Moscow ever since.

Actually there was another experiment that did work in Russia. On a highway a
local group placed funeral wreaths (I'm not sure whether this is what they
actually called in English) along the highway (there were no dead people, just
wreaths). Net result? Everyone were driving within speed limit (which is
almost unheard of in most of Russia). When pulled over drivers were asked
about "why", the usual response was something like "well, it got me thinking
that maybe it just isn't worth it to drive fast..."

~~~
Deestan
> There was a huge increase in speed - people were actually COMPETING who can
> set a record!

We had that when those cameras were introduced in Norway too. The cameras were
then changed to not displaying speeds above the limit - it now just says "over
50!" if the limit is 50. Solved the speed competition problem.

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pmorici
The problem I have with speed and red light cameras is that generally they are
owned and operated by private corporations and they give the government a cut
of fines collected. So in other words it isn't like the government investing
in the equipment to keep people safe it is the government allowing a private
corporation to to have it's way with people.

They for example sent me a speed camera ticket once where my car wasn't even
the once captured as the speeder but my license plate was the only one visible
since a jersey barrier was blocking the plate of the real culprit so they went
ahead and sent it to me anyways even though it was blatantly obvious the
ticket was improper. I had to go to court to and the ticket was immediately
thrown out but not before I wasted 4 hours on a work day.

~~~
natrius
The dichotomy you present implies that governments can't contract out efforts
to make people safer. I don't see the logic behind that.

Separately, governments are perfectly capable of using law enforcement as a
revenue generator, so that downside isn't specific to private companies.

~~~
pmorici
I'm implying that a for profit company has no motive to double check the
tickets they send out it is to their advantage to send out false tickets
because there is no penalty to them for the government eventually loosing the
court case.

In this case the ticket was like $80 for a minor speeding infraction, 6 over
the limit. I took a half day off my job to dispute that I had to drive to the
very heard of down town in a busy metro area to get to the court house. Tell
me if I had any common sense and no principles what is it that I should have
done?

That isn't to say the government doesn't have the same motive to maximize
revenue but I can't imagine the instinct being as strong as for a for profit
company.

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cookiecaper
If I had the money -- not that it would take all that much -- I would like to
set up cameras, maybe webcams or CCTV cameras on a building that had a good
view of the street. Then I would run x frames daily through an OCR program and
keep a public online database of dates and times where certain license plates
were seen.

I hope this would help people realize what they're giving up by allowing these
cameras and their potential for abuse by a figure much more powerful and
connected than just some guy who set up a few cameras, and maybe lead to a
revolt against this kind of monitoring.

~~~
homonculus
What's the issue here? Enforcement is only a problem if the laws being
enforced are restrictive. If they make it illegal to be a Jew, then we have a
problem with the cameras. If they're only using it to do what police officers
already do (monitor traffic violations) then the only difference is that
police have more resources to deal with more important crimes.

~~~
cookiecaper
The thing is that while they come under apparently "reasonable" auspices, like
automating traffic cops, they are still cameras that already have all the
fundamental components of a surveillance system; it just has to be hooked up
to a database somewhere and the same thing is easily implemented. They already
have OCR software reading plates and printing out and mailing tickets, so if
the feds, a state, or municipality were so inclined, they could without much
additional effort tack on a database that tracked what-cars-were-where.

That's just one nefarious purpose and deployment, I'm sure if we thought about
it more we'd come up with many others. The CCTV cameras that litter Britain
were also installed under the "reasonable" auspice of catching people who stab
each other. The red-light cameras are not so blatant, but the principle is the
same, and as people become more and more acclimated to those, it'll be an
easier sell to do Britain-like CCTV monitoring.

So it's really an issue of trust. Do you trust the government to keep their
promises and never use these widely-deployed networks of cameras for evil? Do
we believe that the government will only ever use these to catch those who
violate traffic law? Do we expect an equitable and reasonable enforcement when
we outsource to machines? If you're speeding because your wife is in labor or
your grandma is dying and you get pulled over, the policeman will usually do
an immediate reversal and offer an escort instead of a citation. Do we want to
replace that with automated cameras so that one with a medical emergency gets
3-4 tickets from machines that detected he violated the speed limit or ran a
red light on the way to the hospital?

The Constitution is proactive against the attainment of such government power
because its framers knew that even though you may have one set of
administrators that are pretty good and upright, the next set may be more
crooked, and when the crooked people see all this unexploited potential,
they're that much more likely to attempt to attain to a position that will
allow them to enact uncouth practices.

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bugsy
I agree it is a brilliant idea with good design. It's a great way to bribe the
general public into supporting police state measures such as the ubiquitous
installation of cameras and monitoring. "Support Big Brother - You Might
Already Be a Winner!"

Supporting these sorts of very clever social control programs is very
consistent with the history of Volkswagen Corporation, which has a long
history of corporation and government working hand in hand, such as the
origins of the Beetle as a car of the people brought to them by the benevolent
oversight of their Fatherland.

~~~
JangoSteve
Interesting observation. Though, just to be clear, this promotional series VW
has been doing called "The Fun Theory" is merely meant to observe how fun can
affect human behavior for the better. The tie-in with their brand, of course,
is that fun IS functional.

This is the first/only experiment connected with the government (and the
Swedish government at that). The rest have been environmental or health-
related (making more people recycle, take the stairs, etc).

~~~
bugsy
Stairs at a subway station, public waste cans and bottle recycling centers are
all government controlled things that are presented to people as good stuff
the government has made which is for the public's own good. I do not contest
at all that there are benefits to throwing away trash, walking up stairs or
recycling glass containers. But I observe these are all elements of social
control by the government. Surely among the tens of thousands of proposals,
not all of them were things that government is responsible for and which deal
with social control "for their own good". Yet that is the only thing that is
selected for these pieces, which does in fact show that this is the chosen
focus by Volkswagen for this program. Not too controversial though to say so
since ht their Fun theory site states clearly it is all about "changing
people's behavior", and changing behavior is about controlling people.

~~~
homonculus
Are you less free because of trash cans?

------
stretchwithme
But was there any actual safety improvement? Its not a double blind study or
anything, but it would be interesting to know if the street got safer.

~~~
alex_h
It's interesting that the average speed on this road was already as low as 32
km/h, and dropped to 25 km/h. At these speeds, I doubt there were any traffic
accidents in the first place.

~~~
kgermino
Interesting. I wonder would the cars in this video be significantly different
than cars in the US as I have a hard time keeping my car that slow regardless
of the road I'm on?

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CWuestefeld
I don't understand why law enforcement is so focused on driving speeds. I
suppose it's just because it lends itself readily to quantization and
photography.

Other actions are far more dangerous than driving fast. Failure to signal is
pretty much a pandemic around here, and when people do signal, it's only
_after_ they've already slowed, just before the turn (clue: turn signal is
supposed to be a warning that I'm about to slow down).

Less frequent, but also very dangerous, is incorrectly turning onto a multi-
lane road (for right turns, rightmost lane turns into rightmost lane; next
lane turns into next lane, etc. For left turns, leftmost lane turns into
leftmost lane, etc.) In my experience no one observes this, and very few
people seem even aware -- but the consequence (that I've witnessed enough
times, and even experienced) is to force other cars right off the road, or
worse, toward incoming traffic.

And, of course, bad lane discipline (failure to keep right, a/k/a/ "left lane
dick") isn't a direct danger, but impedes the flow of traffic, and results in
_other_ people doing stupid things.

I don't believe that speed enforcement yields much safety improvement; it's
just easier and delivers revenues to the authorities. If they were really
interested in safety they'd enforce these other laws, but how many people have
you ever heard of being ticketed for those other infractions?

ADDENDUM: Another evil behavior I forgot to mention: reading while driving.
Lately we hear a lot about using cell phones or texting while driving. But a
few times a month I see people actually reading books or the newspaper while
driving. This is the most dangerous thing I can imagine. I once called the
police about this on their "report aggressive driving" line (my wife was
driving), and they weren't terribly interested.

~~~
ugh
I don’t know about the US but nearly two in five deaths in traffic accidents
are caused by speeding in Germany.

Reducing deaths is probably the first priority, which would explain why
infractions that usually only result in low speed collisions with no deaths
are not as strictly enforced.

~~~
CWuestefeld
_nearly two in five deaths in traffic accidents are caused by speeding in
Germany_

I challenge you to demonstrate that it's speeding _in itself_ that led to the
accidents. I _might_ believe that it's speeding in conjunction with other
asinine behavior, e.g., you change lanes unexpectedly, and since you're going
really fast, neither driver has a chance to react. But in such cases, the
speed isn't root cause, it's an aggravating factor.

Why not go for the root cause, rather than concentrating almost exclusively on
the aggravating factor?

~~~
ugh
Why should I demonstrate that? You are the one making assertions without
evidence.

~~~
CWuestefeld
Ummm. Perhaps you forgot about the part where you claimed, without citation,
that "nearly two in five deaths in traffic accidents are caused by speeding in
Germany". So it would seem we're both guilty.

The difficulty in providing any kind of documentation here is that there are
many orthogonal factors at play, making it difficult to say much of anything
without very carefully defining terms. For example,
([http://www.ksl.com/?nid=148&sid=5309267](http://www.ksl.com/?nid=148&sid=5309267)
)

 _The bad news is [between 2000 and 2008, in Utah,] 110 people died because
they weren't wearing a seat belt, by far the No. 1 reason, outranking things
like speed, fatigue, DUIs or distractions._

Clearly, not wearing a seat belt is not a cause of an accident. It's an
aggravating factor, making the results worse in the event that an accident
does occur. I submit that in most cases, speed fills the same role.

Consider the wikipedia article at
[https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Traffic_fatal...](https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Traffic_fatalities#Causes)

 _# That the evidence shows that the risk of having a crash is increased both
for vehicles traveling slower than the average speed, and for those traveling
above the average speed.

# That the risk of being injured increases exponentially with speeds much
faster than the median speed.

# That the severity of a crash depends on the vehicle speed change at impact.

# That there is limited evidence that suggests that lower speed limits result
in lower speeds on a system wide basis.

# That most crashes related to speed involve speed too fast for the
conditions._

A close reading of this reveals that it's not generally one's _absolute_ speed
(e.g., the fact that they're going 80MPH), but their speed _relative_ to most
other drivers, irrespective of the speed limit. So if the speed limit is 65
and I'm going 75 along with most of the traffic, my risk is minimized; slowing
to the posted speed _increases_ risk.

The third bullet seems to support my claim. It does not say that crashes are
more likely at higher speeds, but that the severity of a crash, when one does
occur, will be worse.

Finally, the last bullet again references speed _relative to conditions_.
Thus, on a given road in given weather, visibility, traffic, etc., 80MPH may
be just as safe as 65 under other conditions; and in winter conditions, even
40MPH might be more dangerous than any of those. It's not the speed as such,
particularly with respect to any particular posted one-size-fits-all number,
but the speed relative to actual conditions. But the laws regarding speed
limits do not recognize this at all.

So again, for a meaningful debate, I think we need to separate the discussion
into causes of accidents, aggravating factors for accident severity, and the
way in which laws address these issues.

~~~
ugh
No point in continuing here, just one thing: You don’t have “60 when wet” or
digital traffic signs with speed limits in the US?

(I’m more than happy to accept numbers on good faith. If someone cites a
number I just assume that it is well sourced, at least if it seems plausible.
I just applied that assumption to myself but if you have to know my source is
here:
[http://www.destatis.de/jetspeed/portal/cms/Sites/destatis/In...](http://www.destatis.de/jetspeed/portal/cms/Sites/destatis/Internet/DE/Presse/pk/2009/Unfallgeschehen/begleitheft__Unfallgeschehen,property=file.pdf))

------
ryanlchan
I've always wondered why gamification wasn't integrated into things beyond web
apps. Gamification is a concept, a lens through which we can enact persuasive
design - there's nothing in there that says its web specific. Lots of Web 2.0
concepts came from 'real world' product design; I don't see why the
relationship can't go both ways.

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rmc
This video presents a neat idea, however they haven't explained their method.
So we don't know how they arrived at the "22% reduction" conclusion.

* Was there a speed camera visible to motorists on that stretch of road before this experiment? If not, people might be slowing down because they are now passing a speed camera.

* What time of year was the before and after done? From the video it looks like Scandanavia. Was the after section during the winter and the before during the summer? People would (I assume) adjust their driving speed based on weather conditions, which might explain the reduction.

etc.

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jacabado
Just today I tought of a counter in the speed control traffic lights to count
how many time the light turned red. This could incentivate drivers to stay
under the limit and keep the traffic flowing.

It's really annoying to be stopped by another unaware driver just over the
limit, this could make everybody fight for the lowest score and be ashamed
when they contribute to it. What do you think?

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pavel_lishin
Please spoil the surprise. I don't want to watch a 2 minute video when I can
read a two-sentence explanation, like:

"Speeders have their photo taken, and get issued tickets, the funds from which
go into a pot. People who obey the speed limit get their photo taken, too, and
are entered in a lottery to win back some of the money from the tickets."

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gabelerner
wouldn't installing just the portion that mails fines for speeding decrease
speeding by 22% as well?

people aren't slowing down because they might win. they just don't want to get
fined.

~~~
icegreentea
If they already have the speed camera installed (assuming they did... thats
how they got the before figure), then I would think the mailing the ticket
part already exists.

I know all the red-light cameras (close enough) in Toronto get the tickets
mailed out. You can even pay them online now!

~~~
JangoSteve
I would have to assume that this absolutely is the case. As far as I can
figure, there'd be no way to get percentage decrease in speeding without
already having a speed camera installed as a baseline. Without a speed camera,
the only way to measure speeding is by number of tickets issued by police at
that exact intersection. But police would only ever be able to catch a small
percentage of all speeders, whereas speed cameras could potentially catch all
speeders. So installing a speed camera would likely show an increase in the
number of speeding tickets issued, whether or not the actual number of
speeders changed.

In fact, a cursory googling turns up no studies showing whether speed cameras
actually decrease the number of speeders. Only inference can be made, as
studies DO show that speed cameras decrease the number of injuries and deaths.

~~~
mikeknoop
Excellent point your research suggests:

There are few if any prior case-studies regarding the effectiveness of speed
cameras.

But they are good at generating money.

~~~
jrockway
What's wrong with generating money? Why not let the people disobeying the law
pay for the roads?

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verroq
Greed, not fun motivates people, that's what it looks like in this case
anyway.

------
nitrogen
Has there ever been an instance of a speed camera malfunctioning in such a way
that the limit enforced by the camera is reduced, having the effect of
ticketing every driver on the road?

