If we assume that the primary purpose of a speed camera is to reduce speeding where its placed, then you want it to be as visible as physically possible. A hidden camera does absolutely nothing to slow someone down - they will get a ticket in the post few weeks later, but at the time when they drove past it, it didn't do anything to slow them down.
Of course, these cost savings are predicated on the relative effectiveness of non-visible cameras. The fact that they are used in some countries is evidence that they might be effective. This also seems to me to lend credence to the idea that having visible cameras is a concession to some other interest group, because, although I can understand why the "driving lobby" would want cameras to be visible (so they know when to obey the law), I am having trouble thinking of an interest group who would want cameras to be non-visible for some non safety-related objective - I am of course open to suggestions.
I hate to come off overly cynical, but that almost feels like lack of effort: wanting to repeatedly catch large number of unaware drivers to cause increase in ticket revenue seems like a painful obvious one?
Unless we are not considering the government an interest group in this context but that too seems erroneous...
There are signposts. I should always be aware of them. I am often not, many years of habit + very infrequent city driving these days tend towards mistakes. I am slightly more aware now - but I anticipate several years before i've internalised the new rules fully
The acceptance of the rule of law really seems to be central to this whole speed camera issue. If you accept that your actions are subject to the law then you will also accept the consequences of any transgressions you make, intentional or otherwise; the mechanism of enforcement is simply irrelevant. An individual may want to be excused from consequence for a particular law, on the basis that they disagree with them (e.g. speeding), but that isn't how the law works, and necessarily so.
Lived in a small town where non-visible cameras were used years ago - huge amount of fines were given, mostly to people out of town. Few years ago, all cameras had to be made visible - now the main road going through town has 3 cameras, no one speeds through the town again, but the revenue has dropped down significantly(it's probably costing the town money now).
Now the question is - which outcome is preferable to the citizens? One where people speed, but the town is getting a lot of money from the fines, or one where people don't speed, but it's actually costing the town money.
I'm sure if you ask the folks at the local council, they would say they preferred non-visible cameras - their budget back then was huge, at(obviously) expense of public safety.
There is, of course, no reason why a local council should not decide to deploy visible cameras in such a situation, alongside a national network of non-visible cameras (you obviously don't need to have both visible and non-visible cameras at the same site). The cost-effectiveness argument still holds, under the assumptions previously mentioned.
The purpose of the camera is to enforce the law. By painting them yellow we're allowing drivers to evade the law: slow down for this bit, keep driving at our usual unlawful too fast speed everywhere else.
Unless you have Orwellian enforcement this is basically not true. People go as fast as they feel comfortable in the conditions. You can't just slap a 50 sign on a highway and expect people to go 50. If you want people to go a particular speed you need to play visual tricks or screw with the traffic flow to make them feel like the desired speed is the speed they should be going. These approaches have their trade-offs but those trade-offs are generally considered to be less bad than the trade-offs from having speed limits that are irrelevant most of the time.
Of course getting these drivers off the road would be a case of funding police properly (so they can be around to witness these things happening) instead of the easy option of sticking speed cameras everywhere.
In the parallel universe where all speed limits were set by the highway engineers instead of the people who scream "think of the children" loudly enough you could at least make that argument.
In our universe I think claiming that doing 38 in a 30 with no consideration of context makes someone a shitty driver is pretty laughable and in the same category as "weed is bad because it's illegal."
>Of course getting these drivers off the road would be a case of funding police properly (so they can be around to witness these things happening) instead of the easy option of sticking speed cameras everywhere.
One of these costs money and is set up and administrated by the local government. One of this will be set up for the local government by a private company in exchange for a cut of the profits. Which do you think the government will do?