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“How’s my driving?” asks your bumper sticker. “Not great, Bob,” says the robot with a camera. That little one-act play repeats on the daily at 15 intersections across Portland, thanks to fixed speed cameras. Councilor Steve Novick thinks the city should install 1,000 of them. Traffic safety advocate Sarah Iannarone wants more, too, but worries they get installed primarily in low-income neighborhoods (“Double Vision,” WW, July 2). That debate engrossed our readers for a while, until they detoured down memory lane to recall their own traffic citations. Here’s what they had to say:
Mark F, via wweek.com: “Reporters need to question these statements more. Do low-income people not have a choice on how fast they drive? That’s a little condescending to think that just because you have lower income, you can’t adhere to speed limits.”
PDsaurusX, via Reddit: “Exhibit 462,359 in the case of Portland v. Getting Anything Done. GTFO with this disparate impact nonsense.”
AllChem_NoEcon, via Reddit: “I think the impetus there is less ‘Poor people can break laws’ and probably more ‘Have we tried a traffic circle? Have we tried literally anything other than making poor people poorer?’”
BobTheJanitor2, via wweek.com: “If you look at the map, the cameras are predominantly in low-income areas (the hashed areas), even though the data says the dangerous streets are citywide. For instance there is only one camera in Southwest, even though all the big streets in that area have a speed problem, and while there are a lot of dangerous streets in East Portland, there are a lot of cameras in East Portland.
“Most of the time, the people driving (and speeding) on the street live nearby: people who live in Southwest are speeding on their streets and people that live in East Portland speed in East Portland. In general, it isn’t people who live in East Portland going to Southwest to speed (or vice versa).
“If they don’t enforce the law citywide, if they only enforce it in low-income area, then it primarily becomes a penalty for low-income people.”
TP503, via Reddit: “If you don’t want a speeding ticket, don’t speed. It’s that simple. I live in a lower-income neighborhood in outer East Portland, and all I want is for people to slow the fuck down. If one of these cameras catches you? Good. You earned that ticket.
“We’ve spent too long coddling people who put others at risk. Enough already.”
KingJoe74, via Reddit: “I learned from reading a couple of good novels that surveillance of the people is probably not a good idea. I suggest folks open a couple of highly recommended books, specifically 1984 and Brave New World.
“What is wrong with you people?”
Harley Leiber, via wweek.com: “I got nailed out on 122nd and Washington...on my way home from getting the oil changed in my Mazda CX 30...I was going 12 miles over the speed limit. I blamed the turbo. I opted for traffic school, online. Took an hour, saved $175, and the ticket didn’t go on my record. The class was very informative. The instructor reminded everyone to take off their hats if they were wearing them to ensure they weren’t napping. Loved the uncensored pictures of the traffic accidents. Graphic. Better than YouTube. Anyway, I learned my lesson and drive more slowly when in that specific area. I wish they would put in one at Stark and Southeast 22nd, Stark and Southeast 20th...The Central Catholic High School kids, and their parents, blast through the neighborhood from late August to early June…blow through stop signs, at 22nd and Pine, 28th and Pine, yada, yada, yada....It’s a nightmare from which we get a reprieve when they are out for summer. City would make a small fortune.”
Deckard Woolsey, via wweek.com: “I was driving with the flow of traffic, which was 10 over, then the light was turning and I had a guy tailgating me. I had to speed up to catch to avoid an accident, got a ticket, they mailed to the wrong address, was never informed, court date passed and got my license pulled, no chance to fix my first speeding ticket ever in 20 years. I’m a delivery driver; as soon as they pull my next background check, I’m fired. So take your justification for 1,000 cameras and go live in NYC because people’s lives actually are destroyed off of the ‘eight cameras’ already. I live in Oregon explicitly because I am sick of broken California laws. You people are so deranged, you’re going to burn in hell.”
SEE SOME EVIL, HEAR SOME EVIL
I cannot thank Willamette Week and Anthony Effinger enough for your continued coverage of the Oregon National Primate Research Center.
When others in media have chosen to ignore this story, WW and Mr. Effinger have worked to expose animal abuse and neglect, government waste, questionable scientific experiments, the possibility of zoonotic disease transmission...the list goes on.
This is what real journalism is about—telling us what we may not want to know but what we need to know. As it is coverage like this that informs people which inspires them to take action to change things.
Sara Crane
Toronto
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