Next: Stop Sign Cameras
Posted on | April 7, 2008 at 7:13 am | 4 Comments
Wow, this whole red light camera controversy is a really hot topic. I last talked it about it last week, and on Saturday the Rocky Mountain News devoted a whole ‘nother big followup story to it. The upshot is that it looks like Denver is still going to install the cameras in a couple of months, even though they acknowledge there may be better ways to go about curbing infractions and accidents at the four intersections. Lots of interesting stuff dug up in the article, including the results of lots of studies done in other cities that have the cameras. One point that was most telling to me was this:
Denver plans to mail $75 tickets to hundreds of drivers a week caught by the cameras. The city has $1.1 million in new fines already plugged into its 2008 budget.
Assuming this is true (always an iffy prospect with today’s “journalists”), then I think that pretty much settles the argument about whether it’s being done to reduce accidents or to generate revenue.
To reiterate part of the argument in the articles, it is suggested that increasing the time on the yellow light will do more to deter accidents and red light runners. Denver keeps its yellow light times notoriously short. I like this:
In fact, one Denver camera site may have illegally low timing. Videos taken by the Rocky Mountain News at East Sixth Avenue and Lincoln Street showed yellow lasting only 2.86 seconds, 5 percent less stopping time than required and 11 percent less than recommended for minimum safety.
I love this too:
Denver chose its first four intersections from a list of the top 100 in the city for side-angle crashes over a five-year period. But while two of them are in the top three, the third placed 29th and the fourth – Quebec Street at East 36th Avenue – was way down at 75th on the list. Dave Weaver, Denver traffic engineer, said many choices were eliminated because they are CDOT roads. But there are 32 non-CDOT intersections that ranked higher in accidents than the Quebec intersection.
Why is this such a big deal to me? It’s not really – I don’t intend to run any red lights if I can help it. But I just think it’s kind of dumb and an invasion of privacy, especially if there are better ways to achieve the same objectives. Three of the four proposed cameras are on my normal commute route, so I’m looking forward to dealing with them.
Latre.
Poignant Search Term Of The Day That Led To This Blog: “special k cereal personal story”.
Comments
4 Responses to “Next: Stop Sign Cameras”
April 7th, 2008 @ 5:47 pm
Don’t forget your Groucho Marx driving masks…
April 7th, 2008 @ 9:44 pm
I’ve been caught by red light cameras a couple of times. It’s very annoying because I can rarely remember if I was even in that neighborhood that day.
April 8th, 2008 @ 6:31 am
In a community in the state of Washington, in response to red light camera system system proposed by city council, some local citizens started a ballot initiative that would divert the proceeds to funding a congestion and traffic safety program. Suddenly, there was no guarantee that the city would get the cash, so the council dropped the proposed system.
And theres at least a half dozen studies in the US, England, and Australia that show that accident rates at camera intersections go UP because motorists are paying more attention to the cameras than the road.
April 13th, 2008 @ 7:52 pm
In comment 3, Dr. Gridlock wrote: “In a community in the state of Washington, in response to red light camera system system proposed by city council, some local citizens started a ballot initiative…”
The actual initiative is the state-wide Initiative-985, which will open HOV lanes to all traffic during non-peak hours, require that the various DOT’s synchronize their red-lights so traffic flows, increase funding for emergency roadside assistance, and divert money from the cameras and “Art” to a “Reduce Traffic Congestion” account.
Now, this gem was authored by Tim Eyman, whose initiative writing proclivities here in Washington are as prolific as Isaac Asimov and as well-reasoned as Jesse Ventura, Eyman’s motivations being about the same as Jesse’s. Though he claims this initiative is to fix our traffic situation, his real motivation is to remove the cameras because they are, effectively, a tax. “Once you take away the profit motive, desire for them drops like a rock,” Eyman was quoted in the Yakima Herald Republic. “The true motivation is a revenue source. It’s got nothing to do with safety.” Eyman has never seen a government revenue stream that he hadn’t wanted to dam — he’s probably the biggest reason why we have four ferries laid up in drydock because their hulls are so cracked that they could sink at any moment.
But the question is, is Eyman’s and Dr. Gridlock’s assertion correct? Well, its true that Aberdeen dropped their camera project — the city traffic engineer claimed it was because of safety issues but the mayor was quoted as saying it was because of I-985; “That’s not really what we were expecting when we got into all of this”. Not too long after the Aberdeen decision, Puyallup decided to extend the test grace period. But the same day that Puyallup extended its warning-only period, Bellevue announced it was going to move ahead with its plans to install the Funt-o-trons. Seattle has no plans to curtail its program, including the installation of more cameras. I suppose, though, the true test of Dr. Gridlock’s hypothesis will be to see what happens in Spokane. If they pull the plug on their plans (announced right before Eyman unveiled 985), then Dr. Gridlock might have something.
Why Spokane? Well, the initiative is aimed at sending this money to a state fund to reduce traffic congestion. Traffic does not congest in Aberdeen — I mean, c’mon, would Cobain have left the place if it was hip enough to have traffic jams? It congests in Spokane, but that’s not real congestion — he sneers. No, for real congestion in Washington, you need to hit western Washington, and not just anywhere, but the Puget Sound area from Everett south to Tacoma and west to Gig Harbor. That’s were the Congestion Relief Fund’s money would be spent, and you can be sure the Legislative Monkeys from Snohomish (Everett), King (Seattle) and Pierce (Tacoma) counties will make absolutely sure that most of that fund will disburse to those counties. So all that will happen is the red-light monies will take a short trip down-Sound to Olympia for a little while. But they’ll be back, minus the usual graft, er, shipping and handling fees the legislature will assess. Spokane is fairly well out of this loop, so if they decide to continue to use the cameras, it really will be because of safety.
As to the initiative itself, the fact that there’s absolutely no benefit to municipalities outside of the central Sound region is why the initiative will probably fail, despite Eyman’s imprimatur. Eastern Washington is like western Colorado; isolated from the hustle and bustle of the Big City, they view anything on this side of the Cascades with suspicion and hate the idea of sending even one penny of tax revenue to King County. As for Seattle, Eyman’s reputation is such that if he wrote up an initiative to rename Seattle Barakville he’d still be sent packing back up I-5 to Mulkiteo, his home town. Not to mention the fact that Eyman’s got ethics issues that could keep 985 from getting anywhere near a ballot. Already his cover organization is under investigation for violations of public disclosure laws, and a previous ballot initiative was torpedoed completely when it was discovered that Eyman was using the cover organization’s funds to supplement his personal income. Even out here that’s kind of a no-no.
The issue of red-light (and other traffic violation) camera’s contribution to overall traffic safety is still under study — and I haven’t looked into the research enough to know where things are. But I’m pretty sure the revenue stream these cameras have generated fairly well took the various governments by surprise, Aberdeen being the only place I’ve heard of in Washington where profit was an actual motivation, and that appears to be only on the part of the mayor. So until Spokane weighs in, or any other municipality in any other state with a similar political situation, I’m skeptical of Dr. Gridlock’s reasoning.