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Safety vs Revenue

Tuesday, July 21st, 2009

My current city of residence has some of the safest roads in the country for a city of its size. Naturally then, city leaders want to undo some of that by installing red light cameras.

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 21st, 2009 at 1:32 pm by Radley Balko and is filed under Motorist Freedom, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

10 Responses to “Safety vs Revenue”

  1. #1 |  Marty |  July 21st, 2009 at 1:53 pm

    next, you’ll have speed cameras and then you’ll get the wonderful cameras that measure tread depth in your tires… all for safety! I love the British protesters putting tires filled with gasoline over the cameras.

    around here, the cops review the ‘guilty’ photos to see if they warrant a ticket! they don’t even have to get off their asses to work a traffic trap…

  2. #2 |  Nando |  July 21st, 2009 at 2:00 pm

    It doesn’t say where they installed the cameras. Does anyone know which intersections they are at (so I can avoid them like the plague, at the risk of being called a coward)?

  3. #3 |  Ginger Dan |  July 21st, 2009 at 2:07 pm

    Nando,

    I wouldn’t call you a coward, I would call you safety-conscious. Alas, not being a citizen of the Commonwealth, I have no clue where the cameras are.

  4. #4 |  BamBam |  July 21st, 2009 at 2:09 pm

    Check out trapster.com for real-time data. Or file a FOIA request for the data with your city office.

  5. #5 |  tim |  July 21st, 2009 at 2:21 pm

    Fortunately I live in a state that ruled that red light camera’s were illegal and a state legislature that understands how much we loath them.

  6. #6 |  Cynical in CA |  July 21st, 2009 at 2:32 pm

    Radley, make a copy of the mayor’s license plate, borrow a car that looks just like his, and rack up the fines for him!

    /totally fucking serious

  7. #7 |  Kristen |  July 21st, 2009 at 3:44 pm

    Isn’t there already one at Gibbon and Route 1, or Franklin and Route 1? I seem to recall seeing one thereabouts years ago.

  8. #8 |  Hannah |  July 21st, 2009 at 4:07 pm

    If you’ve got an Iphone just get the app. Just remember that according to D.C. Police Chief. Cathy Lanier you are now considered a coward for using them. Of course this is after D.C. drivers are driving slower in those areas and causing the $1 billion annual revenue to drop to an expected $29 million for speed cameras. If I ever get one of those phones/gismos I’m so getting that app. Go Cowardly me go.

  9. #9 |  Andrew Williams |  July 21st, 2009 at 8:05 pm

    #1 rule of gov’t: if it ain’t broke, fix it! esp. if it means using money already budgeted so we can get the same amount or more next fiscal year.

  10. #10 |  Larry Roberts |  July 22nd, 2009 at 9:30 am

    From the article Radley links to: “Accidents jumped 43 percent at intersections with traffic cameras the last time Alexandria operated red-light cameras, between 1998 and 2005.”

    An increase from 5 accidents in 1998 to 10 accidents in 2005 would represent an increase of 100% over the period but I’m not sure what that would tell us about the effect of traffic cameras. Suppose the number of cars going through the intersections in question had also increased by 43%.

    It would have been nice if the article had included some speculation about the reason(s) for the increase. How much of the increase is accounted for by people who stopped at an intersection being rear-ended by drivers who were not expecting them to stop?

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