CBS 2 News Story On Red Light Cameras
CBS 2 investigative reporter Pam Zekman had a report on red light cameras Monday night.
Honestly, Zekman piece is pretty vacuous, with little new information. It’s essentially interviews with drivers who dislike the red light cameras and some revenue numbers from the city and other town’s top performing RLC intersections.
Perhaps the highlight of the piece was her short interview with Prof. Rajiv Shah who’s research (first reported here) which seems to show that RLC in Chicago doesn’t seem to have any effect on reducing crashes.
Read CBS 2′s full story, “2 Investigators: The Red-Light Cameras That Generate The Most Tickets.”
It’s interesting to note, the Des Plaines intersection mentioned in Pam’s story experienced a 56% upsurge in crashes after its first year of RLC operation. The police promoted the cameras as a “Safety” tool. Reality is motorists are getting tooled and injured to make profits. The cameras ought to be yanked out and make unprofitable road safety improvements!
Red light cameras give a false sense of safety because even with a $500 fine (Calif.) the presence of a camera doesn’t stop the real late runs – because the runners don’t know (a lost tourist) or don’t remember (a distracted or impaired local), that there’s a camera up ahead. They’re not doing it on purpose!
The real late runs cause the accidents. To stop them, improve the visual cues that say “signal ahead.” Florida’s DOT found that pavement paint cut runs by up to 74%. Make the signals bigger, add backboards, and put the poles on the NEAR side of the intersection. Put brighter bulbs in the street lights at signals. Add lighted name signs for the cross streets.
Even if you have cameras, do the cues. They’re cheap to do citywide, unlike cameras which are expensive, can’t stop real late runs, increase rearenders, drive shoppers away, and send local money to Oz, AZ or NYC, never to return.
At this point, the problem will have to get worse before it gets better. My hope is that cash-strapped governments like Chicago become SO greedy that they reduce yellow light timings even more, increase fines, fine people for having any part of their car in the intersection after the light goes red, and add the speed cameras to ticket for the slightest infraction.
When EVERY driver gets fined, people will become so fed up with the cameras they will have to come down. Once politicians start getting voted out of office because of this crap, then things will change. The problem is, most people don’t get outraged at shady dealings until they are directly affected by them.
Pete, I’d love to agree with you but year after in the city of Chicago, in the county of Cook, and in the state of Illinois, we elect the worst politicians out there. Most of the people I vote for lose and I’m frustrated with voting. I can understand voter apathy but voter apathy really helps keep us with crappy politicians. I do hope the red light cameras come down and that the speed cameras get shot down. I can dream.