Posted on 06/16/2005 7:57:31 AM PDT by scott7278
If you run a red light in Arnold, you could get a ticket, even if you don't get pulled over by a police officer.
The City Council is expected to vote tonight on a proposal to install cameras at the city's busiest traffic intersections. Car owners will be issued citations in the mail, even if they weren't the ones driving.
To issue a ticket under the plan, the camera would have to capture high-resolution images of the car license plate and the signal clearly shining red. The proposed ordinance says people inside the vehicle - including the driver - will not be photographed. Whoever the vehicle is registered to would be ticketed, unless that person can prove someone else was driving. Scofflaws would be fined $94.50, the same as if they were ticketed the old-fashioned way.
If council members approve the plan - and the city's mayor believes they will - Arnold will be the first community in the St. Louis area to install the so-called red-light cameras.
Elsewhere, the cameras have met with mixed reaction and even accusations that cities have changed the timing of some signals to reap extra revenue.
Arnold Mayor Mark Powell says he expects the cameras to pay for themselves, but he says safety is the city's motivation. He said the city initially would install cameras at two busy intersections - Jeffco Boulevard and Highway 141 and Richardson and Vogel roads - and atop a traffic light near Rockport Heights Elementary School.
Powell said the city isn't trying to invade privacy, and it doesn't plan to crack down on drivers who barely run a red light.
(Excerpt) Read more at stltoday.com ...
That'll work.
</sarcasm>
Big Brother is everywhere.....
This will work, too.
A new revenue stream. Show me the money!
All you have to do to keep people from running red lights is to make the yellow a reasonable length of time.
Cities that used these to generate revenue found they could generate a lot more revenue by shortening the yellow by half a second.
So much for presumption of innocence.
as long as we know about in advance, why have a problem with it? Either don't run the red light or cover your tag.
Nothing Arnold, MO does surprises me. They loved having the MODOT work zones on the highway a few years ago -- nice little revenue stream for them even when there were no workers around.
Yep. Do you have to go to the Ministry of Justice to dispute it?
I will say this, traffic cops are USELESS. In the midsize city where I live they are usually on their cell phone.
You can think of this by imagining a four-way intersection where a car making a left hand turn has to travel 150 feet to pass through the intersection. If the yellow light is set at 5 or 6 seconds the car has sufficient time to pass through the intersection before the light turns red.
By reducing the yellow light duration to three seconds it now becomes difficult for the car to safely travel through the intersection before the light turns red.
After some time drivers will adapt to this be either running the red light or performing an emergency stop which can cause them to be rear-ended by the car, SUV, or truck behind them.
In a legal sense, is the city of Arnold liable for any injuries or damages caused by an accident because the yellow light duration, which was determined to maximize revenue, has created an unsafe condition?
Yep. The burden of proving innocence is on the accused. Any thoughts about where that will lead in the future?
Why not just tell the city council that anyone who votes for this crap will be drummed out of office, and mean it? Years ago, some town in Texas tried using a system called Orbis, and the townspeople spelled it out for the BB wannabes. The pols repented of it.
I'm coming to read your mail in a week. You have ample warning.
My daughter just moved from Arnold in February. I thought it was a quaint "red-neck" sort of town, and it felt much like home (rural Utah).
But then again, Salt Lake City has cameras at all major intersections. I'm not sure what they're watching for, but I make sure to pick my nose when I stop at a red light, just to entertain them.
Oh, wait...
True, true.
Big market for stolen license plates
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