Malfeasant

Fair enough, I can get behind that.

How does it encourage dangerous driving when it actively punishes dangerous driving?

Because the people who habitually drive badly find out pretty quickly how to game the system and not face the consequences, and/or consider the fines part of the cost of driving how they want. Fines don't stop bad behavior, they just put a price on it.

Before you dismiss me by saying I just want to get away with speeding, consider that it's easy to fight a ticket from a camera- in most cases, you just don't respond and it goes away, though of course that varies with jurisdiction. If I wanted to get away with dangerous driving, I'd be all for replacing cops with cameras.

I have some experience with this.

15mph on freeways, 1mph on city streets. Go!

underpasses flood

I'm in the Phoenix area, while that can happen, it's a rare occurrence.

overpasses freeze.

Even rarer.

Really it all comes down to cost- we spend millions on adding more lanes to highways, but very little on local connecting roads... Why spend anything to fix a problem when we can profit from the problem?

Eh, they're generally safer. They do tend to increase number of accidents, but because they force you to slow down and merge, they're generally minor. More fender benders, fewer fatal wrecks, isn't that a good thing?

While I hate photo enforcement as much as the next guy, this is a piss poor argument against it. Have you never been fucked over by a lying cop? I have. Camera tickets are way easier to fight.

Because they're not just taking a picture when triggered - they stream full motion video back to HQ full time. That should tell you how much money is up for grabs.

My city is installing red light cameras because of course milking drivers for missing the yellow by 1/2 second is better than actually fixing the problem of having hundreds of right angle crossings between roads with speed limits over 40mph (so people routinely go 50+ simply because they can)...

If we replaced some of those with roundabouts, others with over/underpasses, that might actually reduce fatal collisions, but that would cost money rather than rake it in, so...

I was thinking more of a washing machine with an off balance load...

Dishes done.

This is similar to my strategy when I was little, like 4-6 years old, whenever anyone asked what I wanted to be when I grew up. The truth was I didn't know, but if I said that, the asker would keep pestering me with stuff like "what about a policeman or a fireman or doctor" etc etc etc and I knew I didn't want to be any of those- so I would say "a chicken" and they would assume I was brain damaged and leave me alone.

But there's money to be made...