Would you brake for a 'snap happy' red light camera with a big rig coming in hot on your tail?
Five new red-light cameras have yielded a lot of ‘green’ for greedy big government bureaucrats, nailing over 8 percent of Westminster, Md.’s residents since they became operational on March 15. By contrast, nearby Washington, D.C. only manages to catch less than 1 percent* of its own residents with traffic cameras.
“Police Chief Jeff Spaulding says the system is supporting itself,” The Washington Post reports. “Spaulding has gotten accident data from the camera sites but has not reviewed it. He won’t draw conclusions from it because it’s too short a time, he said. But he said he believes the cameras change drivers’ behavior.”
Yea, like slamming on the brakes because yellow light timing has been cut short to increase the number of people who blow red lights! Now, motorists have to decide whether they’d rather pay a $75 fine to avoid getting rear-ended or stop on a dime at a second’s notice and risk their lives and those of their passengers. It’s even more fun making this determination on wet and icy roads, something traffic cameras do not take in to consideration when automatically ticketing safety-conscious motorists faced with life and death decisions.
*D.C. population approximately 600,000. D.C. issues 6,000 traffic camera violations per month, but not all issued to D.C. residents.
“slamming on the brakes because yellow light timing has been cut short to increase the number of people who blow red lights!”
unlikely. traffic engineers use established calculations.
Pingback: Houston Citizens’ Red-Light Camera Revolution Could Spread Nationally |