Candid red-light camera facts

The use of photo-radar and red-light cameras has been pushed on the public as a means of making the roads less dangerous. But what if we're still not any safer as a result of increasingly omnipresent police surveillance

The use of photo-radar and red-light cameras has been pushed on the public as a means of making the roads less dangerous.

It's not about safety, it is, pure and simply, about revenue. It costs far less to put up a camera and send out citations than to pay a cop (revenue enhancement agent) to sit at the stop light and write citations. Traffic laws are not about safety, they are about money, period. That is why cops are told "If you are doing your job you should be able to write (fill in the appropriate number) traffic citations a month". Been there, done that, bought the T-shirt. It didn't fit!

Boonie Rat

MACV SOCOM, PhuBai/Hue '65-'66

One, in Charlottesville, VA , the yellow lights are shortened when a camera is present so you physically cannot stop without skidding into the intersection. I have tried it and shown others. 2) The traffic grid is not a single light and the computer simulators of the companies that install the cameras set the light speeds and intervals at the point the computer program says will force the most vehicles into violation. 3) I believe I saw a NHTSB study that showed installation of the cameras and fiddling with the lights CAUSED more accidents and injury and death than the lights before the cameras 4)there is a Constitutional question about the crime following a vehicle rather than the perpetrator. Someone else driving my car gets a conviction for me. This is TOTALLY unconstitutional no matter what the police say you can do ( snitch ; but you DO NOT KNOW actually who was driving if you are not in the car ; and constitutionally you do not have to tell them what they want to hear) to get out of it. 5) Monstrous sums of money are being made by the camera installers who are in cahoots with your local government which I consider a greater threat to your freedom than all other levels. D.C. and NYC brag about single lights bringing in millions of dollars each. With COPS turned into revenue chasers for your local politicians , usually in bed with all the vested interests, is there any wonder there is no one investigating crime and terrorism ? Go the easy way Mr Policeman and get your quota of blood money for your masters from the citizens you are supposed to be protecting !

NHTSB has a study showing ALL types of injury and accident are UP !! MONEY talks...you suffer...this stuff has been overturned and banned by the court wherever citizens have the guts to stand up to the greedy bastXXds on their local boards and councils. Sheeple just say baaaa baaa and pay and pay and pay...go along to get along

However, it is known that where red-light running is a problem, a small increase in the time a yellow light remains yellow before it turns red will markedly reduce dangerous road conditions and thereby obviate the need for cameras entirely.

Consider the policy of some companies that supplied and installed the cameras they set the yellow-light time duration a bit less and-or set the switch from all four sides red -- which is normally about 2.5 to 3 seconds -- to perhaps 2 seconds. All sanctioned by the government either by direct approval or neglect of oversight, the government -- in particular the politicians that passed the traffic camera laws -- in fact do make the intersections more dangerous.

The bogus timing of intersection lights was exposed in the media about a year ago and the article(s) were posted on this forum.

Posing this in terms of restricting freedoms is ludicrous. If you think you have a right to speed and run red lights, I would remind you that rights have responsibilities and it will be your responsibility to pay the penalties for physically endangering others. I don't like these cameras either, but let's keep juvenile sophistry in its place.

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