Where were the police? Couldn't they be more agressive?
Running lights happen at EVERY intersection. Thousands of intersections in the 20 some counties that make up the metro Atlanta area. No way they can put a policeman at every intersection. I don't like cameras ... and I don't run red lights. Too many do, however.
Do we really want to pay someone $30,000-$40,000 a year to sit at a stoplight for 40 hours a week? The resources of our police departments are much better spent doing work in the community or patrolling neighborhoods than babysitting stoplights to make sure someone doesn't run it and plow into a minivan full of kids going to pratice. I'm fortunate that I live in Arizona, they actually have to prove that you were behind the wheel when handing out citations for running reds. I'm also pretty pleased with the redlight cameras on both intersections north and south of my house, the one south is a major community college (30,000+ students) across the street from a regional hospital. Also this intersection is within a mile of 2 Highways, and another mile away from a major retail center (1,000,000sf mall and big box stores). It used to be one of the most deadly intersections in the valley before they installed the cameras.
As long as no one does any funny things such as play with the timers on the lights (they can't really because of MAG aggrements) everything is fine.