Comments on: Smile, You’re On (Traffic) Camera

By: Gaetano

Gaetano — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 19:51:17 +0000

Hi all! I am from the south of Italy where the situation of the traffic, for example in Naples, is very… strange! The revenues increase in many small cities is due to the devices like “Autovelox” and T Light! Less taxes but more tickets for the drivers!

By: Alessandro

Alessandro — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 20:56:16 +0000

Dear Lucy,

Thank you so much for your article about such an interesting topic! As a matter of fact, here in Italy we have a lot of those infernal electronic machines by the name of T-red. I do not know the exact meaning of the word “T-red”… I guess it could be an acronym for Trafficlight-Red. Is there anyone who can help me to find out the origin of that name? Thank you guys form the beautifull Rovigo, Italy!

By: Leandro Santos

Leandro Santos — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 14:26:55 +0000

Hi everyone, I’m from Brazil, more precisely from Sao Paulo city. Here we have a similar system with cameras to catch you when you run a red light. I got caught once when I was driving at dawn and thought that was unsafe to stop at the red light. I tried to contest the fine, but they didn´t accept my claim. I do agree that this system is designed to increase the council revenues with fines. This happened here in my city. Lots of people are fined because they aren´t aware of the system.

By: Igor

Igor — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 10:32:15 +0000

Here in Russia we have a lot of accidents and about 30,000 people died every year on the roads.
I think that even this method will be very helpful to decrease the number of people who were killed in car accidents in our country.

Too many drivers breaks speed limit very easily. Too many front collisions with many victims. Of course $175 is a large sum, but if this law has prevented only one death – I think it’s worth it!

By: xjw0316

xjw0316 — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 01:41:18 +0000

can I leave message here? just have a try.

By: nguyenlam

nguyenlam — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 17:37:24 +0000

Hi all! I’ve just read this blog! It’s very interesting. So I really want to ask that why we have a right turns rule here? Imaging that you are in a hurry and you don’t see anyone in the next intersection, why you waste your time? Why you must stop your car completely if you will not hurt anyone? So you still keep your track and you will receive a bad ticket later. It’s so funny!

By: Extramurs

Extramurs — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 16:10:33 +0000

Hi everybody! This is the first time I write a comment in this blog. However I discovered this awesome webpage the last month and I was amazed! I’ve listened about 20 podcasts (including the English Cafes) and you are really helping me in improve my english even faster. Thank you and congratulations!

Well, I live in the same place that elcomandant, in Valencia, an eastern and mediterranean city of Spain. Lately, the number of control cameras have been increasing; but I think that most of them are located outside the city (motorways and highways) where most of the accidents take place. I haven’t seen any camera in my city, but well, I don’t have the driving card yet so I’m not very aware about it

By: emiliano

emiliano — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 12:29:15 +0000

Regards elcomadant, Valencia is a very beatiful city. I have been there twice or more times before, but I would like to go again an see “La Ciudad de las Artes y de las Ciencias” and how great the city is now.
Some months ago I sent Jeff some photos of it (La Ciudad de las Artes y de las Ciencias) because Jeff likes very much Arquitecture, I think it should be easy for you to inform he directly about Calatrava’s work over there.
Now for me it is very difficult to go and see it, sure I like to go, but who knows?, may be some year when my wife would be better?.
Best regards again and enjoy your city. emiliano (Madrid)
P.D. Did you told something about Isla de La Palma sometime ago?. I know someone told he likes it a lot, as home, but I don’t remember who? Only I remember he lives in Valencia….may be you?.

By: Mehdi

Mehdi — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 12:23:18 +0000

Dear Lucy!

I live in Iran, where everything is possible, here is a place that people have a lot of freedom, you can drive through a one-way street on the opposite, change your way suddenly in intersections, run a redlight (when not crowded) and so on. But you should be carefull to not to get in trouble with a collision because that way you would be charged a lot by the police and the innocent. Police will charge you for the offence and the complainant for the damge to his/her car. The rationale for all the bad things that happen is OUR WEAK LAW. And maybe that’s because they want to increase the city revenue. There are some cameras in some parts of the big sities and that’s exactly like the U.S. because you would receive your ticket and taken picture from the city’s traffic division, but let me say that those cameras just take pictures for high speed driving.

Wish you all the best
Mehdi

By: Dominique

Dominique — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 12:08:07 +0000

Like Georges said, cameras in France are installed mostly to control speed.
At the begining, special devices that detected cameras were forbidden because they used frequency bands that entered in conflict with official bands like the police, firemen or even ambulances. However, I know that some of these special devices are legal but I don’t know why. But now, with the GPS system, drivers are able to be warn… and that’s legal.
In France, drivers can lost points on their driving licence. They recover them one or three years later or they can also follow a block release to recover a part of their points. When the capital sum of 12 points is unavailable, the driving licence can be nullify.
Do you know that there are one camera every five kilometres on the Swiss freeways ?
I don’t know if this control system is the best way to give security on the traffic but since few years a number of lives have been saved… and it’s the main objective.
So, be careful