Freeze Frame

(The video....currently has a commercial for Ron Paul.  As much as I respect him and value many of his contributions to our country, Paul is NOT a Libertarian.  He is sexist.  I just wanted to clear that up with people who confuse his values with mine.  My candidate will be Gary Johnson.)

So...

I'm getting made fun of because I went public with the notion that red light cameras are unfair because they can't capture everything.  They are not human and cannot see every circumstance from every angle, like a living, breathing police officer can. 

By the time people get tickets for a red light camera offence, they forget the circumstances.  If a police officer issues a ticket the moment that the offense happens, drivers can usually remember why they did what they did.  The shock of the situation would get 90% of the people telling the truth; they'll say if they were in a hurry, or trying not to hit a child in the gutter, or afraid of getting rear ended by the road-raging fool behind them.  Ten percent of the people will lie (the psychopaths) simply because that's what they do. 

I may consider revising the post to talk about B.F. Skinner and the notion of punishment as a deterrent to driving offenses.  In short, unfair punishment ONLY results in avoidance...meaning people will avoid the shopping malls in the center of the placement of all those red-light cameras.  This means that our dear city is losing not only sales tax revenue -but- head tax revenue as eventually jobs will be lost because sales are down. 

No one ever prints that. 

I could also talk about studies which show that people have to be flexible while driving in order to increase safety.  Hard and fast nonsensical rules which exist for revenue collection cause mortality rates to spike.  The truth of the matter is that drivers will do their best to stay safe, even if it means breaking a law.  For example, moving into oncoming traffic to avoid hitting a truck that has crossed into their lane -or- stopping in the middle of the road so little unsupervised kids can cross safely.  Both of these have happened to me this week!  I broke the law because if I didn't, some stupid idiot would probably be injured or worse. 

If anyone has any doubt that the camera lies, I was once a department store model. 

I have never been pretty - if you look at my family photos,  I AM the ugly duckling. 

Models are chosen because of the way the light hits the bone structure. 

Cameras miss my acne scars, they miss my hyper-pigmentation, and if I sit just the right way I look thin (even though as of today, I am about 20 pounds overweight). 

Any model can tell you that cameras lie. 

Yes, people do recognize me from my photos because of my auburn hair but they tell me that I look nothing like I do in the pictures.  Do you know why that is? 

Cameras only capture the photographer's version of reality.

If the city and the company behind the cameras wants to issue tickets, you'll have to deal with their version of reality and pay through the nose. 

Love ya,

S.