Losing Money

Cleveland, Tennessee that is!

I should have said that, sorry. I kind of figured that, since the web site was Chattanooga, folks would know that we weren't talking about Cleveland, Ohio.

Of the five intersections, the accident rate for one doubled, another was statistically unchanged and the other three declined;

The question to ask is whether they declined due to economic conditions (less traffic because employment levels are lower), perhaps traffic due to rerouting (people take other streets to avoid the cameras) or what?

Unfortunately other accidents (such as fender benders) often are weeded out of the stats and without knowing what the overall traffic volume was in both periods, the numbers are, in any case, completely useless.

From the tone of the article, however it seems that it ISN'T about the money for the town, at least. It is the camera company that wants out - and they are absolutely in it for profit - their contract should have maintained certain minimums. If it had, then the town would likely have called for the removal proving the claim.

Two articles appeared in the Chattanooga Times Free Press (in the Metro and Region section) on February 6th. One had the title "Red Bank mayor defends cameras" and the other "Cameras going dark". I tried to determine how I might provide links to both articles but it seems the paper requires $1.95 per article to access it.

The "Cameras going dark" article dealt with the link which jackj180 provided in the initial post in this thread. I was glad to see that the linked article had before and after statistics, because they were not mentioned in the article I read. Basically they were (before camera and after camera)
site 1 59 and 20
site 2 46 and 23
site 3 07 and 04
site 4 05 and 10
site 5 19 and 18

I found it interesting that - when bramfrank quoted these statistics - the choice was made to point out that the accident rate for one of the sites "doubled" (which it did - from 5 to 10). However, depending on how one feels about cameras, one might have said that the accident rate at one site was cut to one third of its previous rate (59 to 20), another was cut in half (46 to 23) while another was almost cut in half 9from 7 to 4).

My hope for this site would be that our members would provide enough pertinent information about facts listed in an article for other menber to make up their own minds about what conclusions to draw from the article cited.

Now, I am a little reluctant to take at face value the statement by the Cleveland City Manager that "making money was not the reason the city agreed to the cameras in the first place. Cleveland went into this for the right reason, for public safety." However, I see no reason why a municipality could not espouse public safety and, "Oh, by the way", we'll make money at the same time.

The other article concerning Red Bank, TN cameras says that statistics "showed a 19 percent drop in Red Bank accidents over the course of three years" and quotes the Mayor as saying that safety, rather than revenue generation, is the main reason for the cameras. Once again, I take that with a grain of salt but see no reason for both safety and revenue being drivers of the decision.

I do not have any information about the statistics for the cameras in Chattanooga itself - there are quite a few. BUT - if I were being "selective", I could claim right now that, in the Chattanooga metropolitan area, two out of the three municipalities demonstrate that safety has been the primary outcome of their cameras. This, however, would not be proper because Chattanooga's statistics might entirely turn the conclusion around - being much larger that the other two municipalities. I just don't know them.

Sorry about the lack of info but I can't give you any more than what is in the article. I gave you a link, not the article itself. Any complaint you might have is with the article, not members of this site.

Law enforcement should NEVER be about making money. It should always cost a government money to enforce the law. If law enforcement becomes a profit center then the reason(s) for a law's existence might become generating income and not protecting the citizens.

The use and effectiveness of red-light cameras increasingly are being called into question.......

http://www.nwherald.com/articles/2010/02/05/r_w9m_tvwnrwulkm...

Interesting. It must be an election year.

jackj180, I appreciate the fact that you gave me the link to the article. Still, you could have quoted all five site facts in the article, but you chose to quote only the negative one.

I do take your point that "Law enforcement should never be about making money". That is the first cogent argument I have heard that strikes true about the "revenue" issue. However, I would point out that there are a number of other services that are related which might be part of the consideration. For example, Erlanger Hospital gets some proportion of the emergency cases that result from accidents due to running red light here in Chattanooga. Erlanger is subsidized by government which means we pay taxes. Rather than having "law enforcemet" make money on the cameras, any revenue over expense could be directed to such other related costs.

If I read the Cleveland article correctly, the municipality was willing to conbtinue losing money because of the safety results. It was the camera company that pulled the plug.

Hey, All I said was that the accident numbers are suspect because they are taken out of context.

The question to ask is what the accident RATE is - and that wasn't quoted. So the information provided in the article is completely useless.

I also said that if the camera company had required a clause calling for a floor on payments, it would likely be the city calling for the removal.

I gave a link to an article. I'm not responsible for any of the info either in or not in that article. I fall to see where it is my fault the article didn't include the full information. Nor do I understand why it is my responsibility to do the research needed to uncover it. In the future it might be best for you to ignore any link I provide as it might not contain the full story and I certainly wouldn't want you to be disappointed.

As for making money enforcing the law, it might be a good idea to require excess monies to be turned over to a non-profit charity. Most hospitals today are for-profit operations, county or church supported hospitals no longer exist in Ohio, they are all owned by for-profit corporations. There isn't anything wrong with that but they shouldn't profit from law enforcement.

jackj180, If I misread the intent of your original post, I apologize. However, your first sentence seemed to imply that you thought the intent was to make money (thus, the ending “Yeah, Right[exclamation point]”).

I read your second sentence as asserting that Cleveland was taking down the camera because they (Cleveland versus the camera company) were losing money. When you ended the sentence with “hhmmmmm”, I interpreted that as a smug comment from an opponent of cameras who had just found justification for his position. Once again, if I misread your intent, I apologize.

A following post by bramfrank took the facts in the article accurately but used them selectively. He said “Of the five intersections, the accident rate for one doubled, another was statistically unchanged and the other three declined;” That selective use of the facts seemed to focus on the doubling of the accident rate at one intersection, while not specifically stating the fact that the accident rate was at least cut in half at three other intersections. A proponent of cameras might have only stated that the accident rate was at least cut in half at most of the intersections, but that would have been selective usage also.

Bramfrank did read the article the same way I did and commented that “it seems that it ISN’T about the money for the town, at least”, then pointed out the the camera company was pulling the plug, so to speak, because they are a for-profit company.

Bramfrank also made an excellent point about the “accident rate” and whether or not anything else changed over time, like intersection traffic volume. The facts as presented in the article were not sufficient to draw a valid conclusion one way or another. Myself, I also feel that the number of accidents at each intersection was too small (as a sample size) to make a statistically valid conclusion for each intersection.

As I have said in a previous post, jackj180, I find your argument that law enforcement should not make money to be a particularly cogent one. I would hope that municipalities would include in the ordinances that authorize camera a clause that any funds received in excess of the cost of the cameras was to be applied to public safety like 911 call centers or something of like value.

jackj180, I agree that you are not responsible for the info in any articles. I hope you agree, however, that you do have some responsibility for how your posting of an article might influence the “takeaway” of a reader who did not take the time to follow the link and read the article. On reading your post, I had to conclude that you are an opponent of traffic cameras and had just found an article that supported a position that traffic cameras were not about safety and were all about revenue. Once again, if I did not interpret you correctly, I apologize.

You got my comments right jgermann. It IS about money, if it wasn't then they would not be taking out the cameras that are losing money. Note that they aren't removing all of the cameras, just the 5 that are losing money. At least that's what I got from reading between the lines.

I may have misinterpreted your comments about the article. I felt that you thought it was my responsibility to research articles written by others. If I did then I'm sorry. But I won't stop commenting on stuff like this.

I think that the only people who should be allowed to issue tickets are the police. The only people who should be allowed to collect fines are the courts. And that there should be some way to ensure that enforcing laws should cost the government, not be a profit center.