Negative Space: red light cameras
- Money more important than safe intersections
- When cities make money when laws are broken, they’ll ensure that those laws are broken more often. With red light cameras, this means shortening yellow times to unsafe levels.
- No Turn on Red
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Why is there a “no turn on red” on this intersection? No idea; it’s got the best visibility of any intersection on my bike route, the road is wide, straight, and flat for about a mile to the left.
- Red light cameras increase accident rates
- Yet another study showing that red light cameras increase, rather than decrease the danger at intersections.
- Round Rock vote to terminate Redflex contract
- Round Rock will, this coming Thursday, consider a resolution to terminate their contract with Redflex for red light cameras. I think that’s a great idea.
- Speeding and budgets: Conflict of Interest
- Obviously, the money generated by speed laws creates a conflict of interest for state lawmakers, who will need more “lawbreakers” in order to meet budget numbers. But the conflict of interest doesn’t always stop there.
- The traffic ticket lottery
- States and cities are treating traffic enforcement as a tax lottery for themselves. Why not turn the winnings over to the voters?
- Turning crime into a profit center
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Asset forfeiture and traffic laws have one dangerous thing in common: they turn danger into a profit center for government.
More Information
- Red Light Camera Studies
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“The preponderance of independent research (in other words, research that was not funded by ticket camera vendors or units of government interested in justifying camera-based traffic enforcement) has illustrated that ticket cameras typically increase, not decrease, the number of accidents at controlled intersections.”
- Schwarzenegger Pushes Speed Cameras In California Budget
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“California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, desperately seeking new sources of revenue to cover a $19.9 billion budget shortfall, yesterday declared a state of fiscal emergency. As part of his proposed solution, Schwarzenegger called for the deployment of a massive statewide speed camera program to generate at least $397.5 million in net profit to state and local government.”
