I have for the last few days been seeing an on going increase of reported (and approved) Speed and Red Light cameras all over Houston.
They were not there about 3 weeks ago and have started to pop up all over. And many are being approved by the_1stnoel who is a level 3 map editor.
Anyone who lives in the Houston City limits knows there are zero Red Light or Speed cameras. Not only did Houston voters vote to turn off/remove all Red Light Cameras but Texas banned Speed Cameras.
I understand that Users/Drivers can report them but this doesn’t mean we need to approve them. When it comes to approving these the higher levels need to verify and get assurance that they are in fact there, not blindly trust a report.
Most all of the camera placed recently are initially placed by a user name starting with “usa_” following by random letters and numbers.
Not sure who is actually reporting these and why most all the reports or original level 1 posters share this user name structure in common. But Figured I would add as much info as I could.
At this point, there’s not a whole lot we can do about preventing people from reporting the enforcement cameras. The usa_**** users are unregistered users, and for some reason, they all seem to feel universally compelled to report speed cameras and RLCs all over the place.
It’s the job of the AM to know where the cameras are and to approve them or disapprove them based on what’s actually there.
A lot of people don’t know what an actual enforcement camera looks like, so they will report a traffic sensor, which is basically an electric eye that looks sort of like a camera. Or height sensors, or crime/security cameras, or any number of other things that remotely resemble a camera. There are also “traffic cameras” which just allow Dept. of Transportation or Dept of Streets or radio stations to monitor traffic for reporting purposes and aren’t used for enforcement.
There have also been dozens of cameras approved by the same user, the_1stnoel, in the Dallas area over the past few days, including cameras in apartment complexes (where it’s obvious someone was just playing with the phone app), and in cities that are known to have no red light cameras at all.
I suspect that, for the most part, the problem with excess reporting is caused by the sudden proliferation of sensor cameras mounted on top of lights. Cities are replacing the old in-ground sensor loops at a furious pace, and the average Joe doesn’t know the difference (and probably isn’t going to read the Wiki).
Unless you’re a level 3 or higher editor, reporting “not there” doesn’t do anything. If you’re 3 or higher, the points against a camera accumulate until they exceed the lock level of the camera. So it takes multiple reports to “unapprove” a camera through the client.
LIttlestLou and myself have contacted this user about blindly confirming cameras with no reply whatsoever. I have painstakingly deleted a TON of his work, but he seems to confirm faster than I can delete. I did find a list of Dallas RLCs and have confirmed those (with some exceptions where intersections didn’t have cameras to approve). I have found if you email the various cities about red light cameras in operation, they will provide a list for their city, or if they don’t have any, they will tell you they don’t. New Braunfels told me they don’t use RLCs, so I deleted all of them a user had placed (and kept placing until I PM’d about it). Also, a lot of the websites that supposedly report red light cameras are wrong (redlightcameralist.com is one example). I have emailed them about some of the cameras they have reported, but there are too many to worry about.
My message has not been read, but in checking Houston yesterday, all of the red light cameras seemed to be gone in Houston. I’ll check again later, because I suspect that layer wasn’t working.
It it’s still a problem tomorrow, I’ll escalate this to the administrators.
I figured that…same with the last PM I sent you. And it’s important that we make the distinction between Red Light Cameras and Speed Cameras. Many places that have laws covering one do not cover the other.
So to reiterate, Texas has banned all Speed Cameras. Local municipalities have the option of installing Red Light Cameras, but Houston has disallowed them completely.
Saturday it seemed the Camera layer wasn’t working very well, but come Sunday it was working again along with what looked like a client map editor update. There are still a few out there that are not approved in Houston.
Sadly a few are in an area I went out of my way to drive by there on my way home Friday and my routes and driven area failed to update. But I will most likely take the same route home today.