{"id":7860,"date":"2011-02-18T00:03:02","date_gmt":"2011-02-18T04:03:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=7860"},"modified":"2011-02-17T23:43:45","modified_gmt":"2011-02-18T03:43:45","slug":"the-red-light-camera-debate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2011\/02\/18\/the-red-light-camera-debate\/","title":{"rendered":"Red light cameras"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Some frightening footage of traffic accidents from a few years ago, posted to one of the mailing lists I&#8217;m moderately active on.<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><object style=\"height: 390px; width: 640px\"><param name=\"movie\" value=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/-qvXbIenivk?version=3\"><param name=\"allowFullScreen\" value=\"true\"><param name=\"allowScriptAccess\" value=\"always\"><\/object><\/p>\n<p>Note that most of these accidents would not be prevented by red light cameras: you can&#8217;t stop inattentive idiots from being idiots just by taking photos of the license plate on the vehicle. However, several of the accidents <em>could<\/em> have been avoided if the non-infringing drivers were a bit more attentive. Dennis Lippert responded to this video and the pro-red light camera fans thusly:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>As usual, the majority of the crashes on the video probably would have been avoided if the &#8220;innocent&#8221; driver had been paying attention to his surroundings. Proving, again, that driving is not to be taken lightly&#8230; not to be done while texting&#8230; or talking&#8230; or doing <em>anything<\/em> else, really&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m <em>all for<\/em> this sort of camera&#8230; just a video overview of the intersection&#8230; which can be used to let law enforcement see what happened after a crash.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m staunchly <em>against<\/em> red-light-cameras as they&#8217;ve been implemented as revenue devices&#8230;. from which some 75% of the revenue comes from folks who innocently slipped thru a red-light a second or so after it changed&#8230; and before the cross traffic started into the intersection.<\/p>\n<p>It has been proven that lengthening the yellow light by a second<br \/>\ndecreases the incidence of red-light-running by something like 50%<br \/>\nper second of extra time&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>Red-light-cameras <b>will not<\/b> stop the folks who simply aren&#8217;t paying attention at all&#8230; or who are wantonly disobeying. All they do is generate revenue from harmless slight-offenders.<\/p>\n<p>Since they generally sent most of the profits to the company that<br \/>\ninstalls the system, rather than to the municipality, this makes<br \/>\nperfect sense.  More tickets = more money.  So the systems are designed for maximum revenue&#8230; not optimal safety.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>As Dennis points out, <a href=\"http:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2009\/11\/13\/red-light-cameras-are-great-for-increasing-traffic-fine-revenues\/\" target=\"_blank\">red light cameras<\/a> are like <a href=\"http:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2010\/12\/07\/cool-idea-dont-expect-it-to-be-allowed\/\" target=\"_blank\">speed traps<\/a> in that they&#8217;re revenue generators first and only public safety enforcement a distant second.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Some frightening footage of traffic accidents from a few years ago, posted to one of the mailing lists I&#8217;m moderately active on. Note that most of these accidents would not be prevented by red light cameras: you can&#8217;t stop inattentive idiots from being idiots just by taking photos of the license plate on the vehicle. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[84,9],"tags":[111,322,239],"class_list":["post-7860","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-government","category-law","tag-cars","tag-nannystate","tag-scary"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-22M","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7860","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7860"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7860\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7867,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7860\/revisions\/7867"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7860"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7860"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7860"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}