Let me put this out there… I don’t like red light cameras. In fact, I doubt there are many who do. Well there is one group who does, local governments who love the revenue they generate.
I have many reasons for my opposition to these cameras. Mainly, I have a problem with a computer convicting me. If I get an actual ticket written by an actual police officer, I can challenge it in court. If the police officer doesn’t show up (which half the time they don’t) the charge and fine get thrown out. If I challenge a red light camera… who represents the camera? The government doesn’t trust me when I say I’m innocent but YOU want ME to trust that your camera is calibrated correctly?
To my delight, there was a report on ABC World News last night proving my point. As it turns out, some traffic cameras in Baltimore are not set properly. There are reports that people going 10 miles under the speed limit are getting tickets for going 10 miles OVER. And in one case, a car got photographed sitting properly at a red light not moving!
Then there is the issue of whether or not local governments are intentionally rigging the system to catch more people. In a some US cities, local governments have been found guilty of speeding up the light cycle. In other words, the time it takes a signal to go from Green to Yellow to Red and back to Green again has been sped up slightly. Thus, clouding drivers judgement as to how much time they have to safely make it through a changing intersection.
The argument when putting in these cameras is that they reduce collisions. Although head on and T-Bone collisions may be down, the evidence has clearly shown that the number of overall collisions are up. Why? In fear of getting photographed, people slam on the breaks resulting in being hit from behind. This is exactly what happened to me a couple weeks ago. No real damage to either of our vehicles. The icy, slippery conditions certainly contributed to the incident, but had it not been a red light camera, I wouldn’t have second guessed my decision to safely continue through the intersection. If the original purpose for these cameras is not being met,then they must go. Otherwise, it’s simply a tax grab.