Are Red Light Cameras All That Bad?

I don't have a problem with enforcing the law. However I think it should be done by an elected official and the identity of the driver of the vehicle verified so the correct individual gets the ticket.

http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2011/05/18/dupage-county-rejects...

They are just a money maker...
cities want the money so there putting more in...
your right if the money went to like homeless shelter people would believe its for safety.....

If you paid fine on light that was declared later illegal, can you get your money back?
http://taxdollars.ocregister.com/2011/06/01/man-wronged-by-r...

Bottom line is any city, county or state could hire an officer to do the same thing and certianly he/she could write enough tickets in a day to more than pay their wages.
Oh and a big plus would be more police officers on the street. Problem is cities clearly don't want this.
That is what you should be asking your elected officals....
If safety at intersections is such a priority why not hire police officers knowing they would be revenue nuetral and not only give out tickets but take a few bad guys off the road at the same time?

First, let me say that I am in favor of hiring more police officers.

But, let's think for a moment about how police officers would be able to enforce red light. Could they really issue enough tickets to match a camera?

Here are some of the problems I see.
1. Being able to chase and stop the offender means that the officer can monitor only one direction. The car must be across the intersection being monitored so that the chase car can pull out quickly enough to catch the offender.

2. The chase requires that the officer have a vehicle so the tickets generated must cover the salary and benefits of the officer PLUS the cost and maintenance of the chase car.

3. The chase and stop will require a certain amount of time (and during that time other offenders will be given a pass, so to speak). Let's say that the total process takes 10 minutes before the officer could return to position so the maximum number of tickets would be 6 per hour. Would that be enough?

4. If one wanted the same coverage as cameras at a particular intersection, one would need 6 officers and 2 vehicles (assuming the vehicle was passed from shift to shift).

5. Offenders would almost always be ticketed. There would be very little talking the officer out of a ticket just because you were (fill in your favorite excuse for running a red light). But, now we get to the problem of how accurate was the officer's assessment of a red-light being run. A camera produces visual evidence the officer cannot.

6. A ticket from an officer gets one points and perhaps impacts insurance premiums.

7. At what point do citizens rise up in arms about the "red-light trap" and start claiming that the jurisdiction is invading their privacy, etc. all in the pursuit of more revenue?

NOTE: officers eliminate the defense of "that was not me driving the car."

On balance, it seems to me that automated traffic enforcement is a better solution IF (and this is often a legitimate IF) the actual tickets issued are screened in a reasonable way. This would include a certain "grace" period (usually less than a second) for the time that the vehicle entered the intersection after the light had turned red (which is another reason I favor a two-second "ALL RED" timing like we have in my city). Further, the reviewing officers would not issue "rolling" right turns on red for instances similar to those for which an officer at the intersection would have only given a warning.

I just got a red light ticket. I was making a left hand turn with a yellow arrow. The picture does not show the arrow only the red light (for straight traffic). I am going to fight it. It is $65 - that's a lot of money.

It seems people speed up now to avoid the cameras.

If you were already in the intersection when the light turned red, it is my understanding that you can (indeed must) complete the left hand turn. However, I thought that cameras were not supposed to activate unless the vehicle entered the intersection after the light had turned red.

Just a new Village taxing mechanism.

Thats all these red cams are....easy routes.

A left turn light remains green after the light for traffic going straight turns red. I don't know if the camera was triggered by the "straight" red light. It is hard to see the turn signal in the picture.

In my town the Yellow Light is set for 3 seconds with a posted speed limit of 45 mph. This setting should be increased to allow drivers to come to a safe stop before the white line. Also, if a large truck is in front of a smaller vehicle you cannot see the changing light in time. If you are in the left lane and a truck is along side when passing the Red light Camera Ahead sign it is impossible to see the sign.

I am in favor of the Cameras if my concerns are addressed.

I think the Institute of Transportation Engineers would say that the yellow for 45 MPH ought to be closer to 5 seconds

here in long island, i'd rather have an electronic device send me a ticket.

Yesterday's article in the New York Times is of interest for this subject.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/05/business/05road.html?_r=1&...

Gary Hayman

In San Diego the yellow has to be five seconds at least on any red light cameras

It is a video camera and will show you everything so you can watch the tape. Did it switch in 2 seconds? Was there a reason?

I hate tickets, I haven't had one since I sold the motorbike, everyone I got I deserved, when I got one, I did my best to get off it (without spending more money), sometimes I managed to get off, sometimes I didn't.

As for red light, pole, or speed cameras, they free up the cops so that when I ring 111 or 999 over at your place there just might be a cop there to help me out with that burgular or what ever. They are free to do real police work.

So for me they are OK, and yes I have the cameras loaded on the GPS.

cameras are bad. the law states u must be served for the infraction therefore nobody pays the fine since there are no consequences.

I'ld fully support the red-light cameras if the cities and townships did not treat them as a revenue source. Any revenue generated by such policy should be "refunded" in form of property tax decrease in the following year.

Now that we allow digital cameras to send us infractions in the mail, how much of a stretch is it to when everyone will have a chip implanted or even facial recognition software so every infraction is sent to us in the mail. How far can we be from "Your repeated violation of the Verbal Morality Statute has caused me to notify the San Angeles Police Department. Please remain where you are for your reprimand." [Demolition Man]

Huh?

When Ford, GM, (or even Holden) automates their automobile factories and assembly plants that doesn't "free-up" auto workers to do "real factory work". No. Those jobs are simply eliminated.

Same with automating police jobs. The positions are eliminated from the rolls, and there is an overall lower density of officers throughout the precinct area to respond to serious calls.

Do you have any proof for this statement? I know some departments have terminated officers but it's due to general budget issues and not because a portion of their duties were automated.

That's not the way this works. The first claim made was that automated ticket enforcement "frees" police officers to do more serious work like emergency and 911 calls.

So...show to me THAT is true. (...If there is any showing to be done.)

Show me that police employment is a special economic model. Show me that idle policemen will stay on the employment rolls over time. Because modern economics, which is well proven, (at least emperically) incentivises those un-used and idle man hours be removed from the employment rolls over time.

However, if you are looking for a "proof" of modern economics I suggest you begin with googling Adam Smith.

I'm not the one making a claim - which was never challenged by the way. You are the one making a spurious claim that cannot be shown to have a basis from a verifiable source.

Over 200 years of emperical econonic data that confirms idle, unused manpower will eventually be redistrubited throughout the economy is in no way "spurious".

I think you have chosen the wrong words.

Application of economic theory does not always require a source.

(If the price of oil decreases, only those being obstinate would require a "verifiable source" for the claim that the cost of gas and transportation will also decrease.)

So, is the application of resource allocation in a market economy here.

In a time of shrinking budgets, I am not aware of any special economic, social, or psychological theory that compels police commissions to keep idle, unused man-hours on the employment rolls.

Economic theory makes the claim. I just apply the principals.

If you believe market forces will result in an alternative outcome you are free to express them here.

I suggest one listens to a scanner to find out what the many police calls are about and how long it takes the police to reply. Many times I think that certain people should have their cell phones shoved up where the sun does not shine for it wastes an officers time but every call must be answered.
People running red lights and speeding can be curtailed by cameras 24/7 while the police answer all the other calls.

I suspect you have resorted to talking about economic theory because you are unable to provide any data that would indicate that municipalities that have traffic cameras have reduced the number of police officers.

I agree that a common result of automating in factories is to eliminate the workers previously doing the jobs which were automated. However, there is no reason to equate factory automation with installation of red light cameras, because officers were not really sitting at red lights looking for offenders to start with. One would have to show that officers were assigned to red light intersections so that the installation of a camera provided the opportunity to "eliminate" that officer if said officer was not assigned to another task.

Consider New York City. There is recent news that the mayor wants a camera at every intersection http://www.poi-factory.com/node/34149

NYC implemented cameras is 1993 (http://home2.nyc.gov/html/dot/html/pr2006/pr06_51.shtml)

New Your City's police department increased dramatically between 1991 and 2001, growing by 45 percent according to data in the book Freakomomics pp 129.

So this tidbit of evidence indicates that your claim is indeed spurious as Box Car indicated.

If you have any data that would indicate that any municipality has reduced officers as a result of cameras, I would be interested in seeing it. Seems to me if that had every occurred then thenewspaper.com would have leaped on it as evidence of the negative effects of cameras.

I just blame the environment.

you might want to read this article.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/20/nyregion/20police.html

I think there is complete agreement that automation "frees-up" the field officer. To be more precise it "reduces the man-hours actively performing a job function". When man-hours are reduced there is little incentive to account those hours in the employment rolls.

Police enforcement is not a special, exempt economic case, some of those man-hours are going to be freed to other sectors.

@blake7mstr, the numbers are indeed dropping and now are lower than the numbers in the 2008 article to which you linked. Cameras have been there since 1993 and the size of the police force has varied first up and now down. There is no correlation to the existence of cameras as was implied by others.

We seem to be referring to articles written by people who work for the NY Times as our sources.... I don't think that Mayor Bloomberg would ever tell his unionized work force, or the Times, that positions are being eliminated because cameras have replaced them. And the police will continue to patrol the same streets as before.

This town reinstalled them after accidents spiked when they were removed.

http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2011/09/14/elk-grove-village-pla...

Also agree!

Should someone run a light and cause an accident the video camera can pinpoint the perpetrator.

That is priceless.

Agreed also as one who was surprised by the first one ever installed in my area. The yellow light time had been drastically shortened.

Do you know if the yellow light time conforms to the standards established by the Institute of Traffic Engineers?

http://beaconnews.suntimes.com/news/8575160-418/naperville-e...

According to the The Daytona News-Journal Florida Watch:

Fines begin Nov 1 for drivers violating RLC rules on 11 busy intersections. Approx. $900k will be produced based on average between 6 and 10 tickets per intersection per day.

At the same time Tampa Officials instituted a 6 day a week ban on begging.

What is going on?

My wife has gotten two red light tickets. We got the notice in the mail and with it was a picture of MY car in the intersection with the red light clearly on. In addition to that is a link that you can get on your computer with and actually see the video of MY car running the red light. So the only real discussion we had at home was who was driving MY car at that time? Was it the wife or the kids?

From H.L. Mencken’s 1955 collection, Prejudices: A Selection:

"But he (the ordinary citizen of modern-day America) can no more escape the tax-gatherer and the policemen, in all their protean and multitudinous guises, than he can escape the ultimate mortician. They beset him constantly, day in and day out, in ever-increasing numbers and in ever more disarming masks and attitudes. They invade his liberty, affront his dignity and greatly incommode his search for happiness, and every year they demand and wrest from him a larger and larger share of his worldly goods."

Yeah and that's the problem with not getting the ticket IMMEDIATELY. By the time it comes, who knows?? We all learn best when corrections are immediate.

Yes, red light cameras are bad because they are not there for safety, they are there for revenue generation. That invites questionable practices.

And I'm not happy with the legality of punishing the OWNER of the car instead of the DRIVER of the car.

Like many programs conceived by big government, it is good in theory but bad in practice.

Indeed, it seems as if many Automated Traffic Enforcement (ATE) programs are instituted mostly to generate revenue. Saying that they are there for safety may be hypocritical, but, in my opinion, that does not make them "bad".

Whenever a municipality uses questionable practices (like yellow light timing below national standards), that would be "bad". Just because that might happen is not a reason to dismiss ATE out of hand.

Municipalities have to generate revenue to provide
education
police protection
fire protection
garbage collection
brush and trash collection
recycling services
deeds and records
zoning enforcement
road repairs
emergency services
and the like.

Interestingly, ATE gets revenue from people who have broken the law rather than from the citizens in general. Yes, one may argue that I was not driving or that there were mitigating circumstances and that may be true. However, those situations are only a small percentage of the total. I would rather someone who has broken the law pay than have me chip in to replace a revenue shortfall.

The registered OWNER of a vehicle is liable for parking tickets. I can not ever remember seeing any editorials citing "right to face accuser" or "innocent until proven guilty" as arguments against parking tickets.

The current theory is that the yellow lights are shortened in order to create more tickets. Other than that I have no problem with it.

Unlike Parking Tickets and tickets issued by COPS the bulk of the money generated by RLC doesn't go to the Municipalities, it goes to the company who owns the RLC.

All the items you listed above are already covered by Homeowners Property Taxes, Sales Tax, Gasoline Tax

Some items you left out in your list are:
Government fraud
Government waste
Politicians kick backs (you help me get RLC in your municipality and we’ll make sure to contribute generously to your re-election campaign)

WHile pumping gas, I observed a RLC in action. The main highway had a yellow of 5 seconds for the 55 mph light.
The cross street was 4 seconds of yellow for 35 mph. I would say that the yellows there are about right.