Tribune Hammers City’s Pedestrian Fatality Claims
Mayor Emanuel at press conference to announce speed camera program
Ouch!
That’s going to leave a mark.
The Chicago Tribune has a piece today eviscerating dramatic safety claims by the city.
For months now, Mayor Rahm Emanuel has been touting the safety benefits of red light cameras in regards to reducing pedestrian deaths, to make his emotional case to install speed cameras in Chicago.
60% reduction! Emanuel and his people claimed.
But when asked to provide the raw data or the reports, City Hall claimed it was secret. And even with FOIA requests being made for the info, the Trib never got their report.
So, reporters tried a different tactic. Use federal crash data on Chicago to do their own analysis of pedestrian fatalities at red light camera intersections, the Trib comes up with a 26% reduction in pedestrian deaths. Not 60%.
In addition, similar to what The Expired Meter discovered, that 26% mirrors the general citywide decline in crashes and pedestrian fatalities.
In other words, red light cameras may not be doing anything to improve safety.
Here’s their full, delicious story, “Mayor’s speed camera stats sketchy.”
There is a reason Ped/Car accidents will never vanish in this city.
People Jaywalk.
I’ve watched people cross against a green light and barely get missed by a CTA bus or UPS truck.
Pedestrians in this city are Stupid on the whole.
But yeah…The Mayor and his staff lied about numbers.
Big surprise.
Since 9.5 is thinking about the safety of the children, maybe he should include libraries as well for the speed cameras.
Do you know the biggest thing the city can do to protect kids? STOP THEM FROM BEING SHOT!
This program is based on lies with no public input. Every report they claim backs up their data they either can’t release or they misread the data on the ones they do. Now we find Rahm’s “buddies” stand to gain from the cameras. This cash grab has been fast tracked since day one. The senate passed it in 3 days, the house maybe a week. All done quickly so we couldn’t ask questions. How many more times do we have to go through this crap before we say enough is enough?
Sauce….firstly we’d need about 150 cop’s hired every 6 months every year to Maintain current staff levels of Street Cop’s.
Then we’d need about 1,000 more Cop’s just to cover the Retirements from 2006 thru 2009.
The police can not prevent shootings from happening.
Why? The Mayor and Exempt Command staff and Make Believe Church Ministers are the Reason.
I sent a FOIA request to Governor Quinn after he signed the speed camera bill recently. I asked for the materials upon which he based his decision to sign the bill. The majority of the material I received was authored by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety which is 100 percent insurance company funded. As I read through the various documents I couldn’t help but notice most of them had the same tone as if written by government spin doctors, lobbyists and camera vendor interests, lots of verbiage, but light and real facts. In light of the latest Chicago backroom connection exposé about Rahm and his high-powered influence peddlers its surprising there isn’t a public outcry against this public fraud. Are you going to let them pass another parking meter lease deal fraud?
Rinzler,
Might as well add hospitals, churches and ice cream stores to the list.
That slope is getting slipperier! (sic?)
Don’t forget to add Starbucks and dry cleaners…since Ton’s of parents stop there first before dropping Sally off to school.
The Chicago Tribune reporters appear to be more interested in blocking speed camera enforcement than reporting on it. In the article referred to above, even the headline is inaccurate: “Mayor’s speed camera stats sketchy.”
The Tribune analyzed red light camera enforcement in Chicago. To date there has been no speed camera enforcement, and to equate the two is inaccurate.
So what would be a good way to assess the effects of speed cameras, aside from the commonsense notion that camera enforcement will reduce speeding, and that speeding causes more crashes, as well as crashes that are more dangerous? How about the following data we have given the Tribune and it continues to selectively omit from its reporting:
– An analysis of more than 90 studies assessing speed enforcement cameras in the Journal of the Transportation Research Board found an average injury crash reduction of 20 to 25 percent, with more effective programs reducing injury crashes by more than 50 percent.
– According to research done by the United Kingdom Department of Transportation, at 40 mph, pedestrians survive a crash only about 15 percent of time. At 20 mph, the survival rate for pedestrians is 95 percent.
Back to red light cameras: the Tribune’s analysis of red light camera enforcement may have revealed that the city bungled its assessment of crash reductions near red light cameras. We’ve cited the city’s crash reduction stats near red light cameras, and the city needs to set the record straight if that data is not accurate.
We haven’t reviewed the Tribune’s analysis, but it doesn’t appear to prove or disprove that red light cameras work. One thing seems pretty clear: Drivers don’t blow lights nearly as much where these cameras are located.
Chicago needs to do all it can to reduce speeding and improve safety on our streets. This will require enforcement tools and a change of attitude about how we drive in our neighborhoods. It’s worth emphasizing that if drivers aren’t exceeding the speed limit, they will not be ticketed by speed cameras.
Ron Burke, Active Transportation Alliance
Ron,
You’re completely missing the point of the Tribune article.
It wasn’t the Trib or this website that introduced the idea that alleged improvements in safety due to RLC enforcement as the basis for speed camera enforcement–it was the Mayor’s office.
That’s been the city’s basis of their entire argument to bring speed camera enforcement to Chicago.
It was the Mayor’s office who made the bold claim that RLCs have dramatically decreased pedestrian fatalities and then refused to provide the data or study for the public to review. So, the Trib had to find the data themselves.
And when they did, they found the city’s claims to be exaggerated. Not only that, the alleged decreases in fatalities mirrors the drop in fatalities nationwide, statewide and citywide. In other words, RLC has NO statistical impact on reducing pedestrian fatalities.
Similarly, in a post the day before the Trib’s study, this site had a story about how a CDOT study of nearly 100 RLC enforced intersections showed NO decrease in total crashes with increases in rear end crashes but decreases in right angle crashes which, much like what the Trib found out, parallel overall city and state decreases for crashes. Again, showing there was no statistical effect from red light cameras on reducing crashes.
Here’s our story: http://theexpiredmeter.com/2012/03/chicago-red-light-camera-study-shows-mixed-results/
Think about it this way. If RLC was so good at reducing crashes, wouldn’t they be reducing crashes at rates GREATER than city averages? But they’re not–the reduction in crashes is the same as any other city intersection.
If the Mayor’s office wants to use pathetically weak RLC statistics to make the case for speed cameras, speaking only for this site, we’re going to point out the fact that the stats don’t support their premise.
Mike…Ron has been missing the big picture for years.
Now that I have found your wonderful site (and bookmarked it I might add) can you tell me when these Speed Cameras are supposed to go into effect?
I SO VERY MUCH agree with Parking ticket Geek and capt M Plate on this and just shake my head at the Active transportation Alliance guy. So misguided, so central planning committee kind of guy, wonder if he has a dacha somewhere as a member of the privileged governemental “advisory” class that are stooges for the “less freedom, more rules” crowd that Chicago is already overwhelmed with.
Side note, just came back from a wonderful trip to the Smoky Mountains in Tenn. and in chatting with the cabin owner that we stayed with, the appraised value of her riverfront cabin is $300,000 and her real estate taxes are…..wait for it, wait for it…..not the $5,000-$10,000 it would be here in Chicago but $1,500. Or .05 % of value, as opposed to the 1.6-3.5% we pay here and in the collar counties. I pay over $8,000 for my principal residence valued at about $500,000 and over $5,000 on a townhouse valued at about $150,000.
So, when I move to Tenn. in 3 years after retirement my tax bill burden on a comparable house will have dropped over $55,000 just by being out of the land of the Democrats.
Oh, and of course, we are not really paying our fair share, are we?