Red Light Camera News Baytown: What are we voting for? By Byron Schirmbeck
http://baytownsun.com/opinion/guest_columns/article_3e4376bc-d1b1-11df-9d08-001cc4c002e0.html
What are we voting for?
Posted: Wednesday, October 6, 2010 8:13 pm
By Byron Schirmbeck
As the vote about the red light camera issue in Baytown approaches, voters should know what they are voting for or against. When the city partnered with the Arizona camera company, we were promised this would be a safety program that would reduce accidents. The program simply hasn’t delivered on its promises. This year the BPD reported to TXDOT an alarming increase in accidents at red light camera locations. During the same time period, accidents citywide were actually declining. The increase in accidents weren’t just in the typical rear end accidents that everyone agrees happen at red light camera locations, but also in the specific kind of accidents they told us the cameras were there to prevent. Red light related right angle accidents went up 37 percent and injury accidents went up 75 percent this past reporting period. Total accidents went up 40 percent and rear end accidents were up 83 percent. These statistics were confirmed as an accurate depiction of what BPD reported to TXDOT by the police chief in the televised council meeting on Aug. 24. If accidents haven’t been reduced, then what are we sending millions of Baytown dollars out of state for? That is millions of dollars that could have been spent here at local businesses increasing our tax revenue and saving jobs. Some of that money the city sent out of Baytown was surely used by the camera company to sue Baytown to keep the people from voting. If red light cameras are as popular as the camera company wants you to believe, why are they fighting so hard to keep us from a vote? The red light camera program is, quite simply, a bandaid on a gunshot wound. As long as Baytown continues to outsource enforcement to a corporation we will never have the proper solutions to increase safety on our streets that we need. Contrary to what some camera proponents claim, those opposed to the program don’t support red light running, our families drive these streets too. This isn’t a debate about whether or not red light running should be penalized, but how. Traffic stops are one of the best tools police officers have to interact with the public and arrest criminals. Cameras can’t look for expired licenses or illegal drugs or weapons or arrest warrants, only cops can do that. Should we continue to mail criminal red light runners a souvenir of their bad behavior with no real penalty for not paying instead of taking them off the streets so they can’t run red lights again? Should we continue to pay a bounty of 55 percent of each ticket collected to the Goldman Sachs owned Arizona company that said we don’t get to vote? Should we continue to allow the city to profit from dangerous and illegally short yellow lights? Should we allow a “safety” program that contributes to accidents to continue? If, like me, you say “no” and have had enough of broken promises I urge you to vote FOR proposition 1.
Byron Schirmbeck
Subscribe to this comment's feedwritten by Joe Foster , October 12, 2010
I received a citation from a red light camera recently. Although my vehicle is still in both shots, a vehicle to my left runs the red light. And the form says a Baytown Police Officer reviewed the film? Really? A "trained observer" found that my stationary vehicle was traveling at 30mph through a red light? My only question is, since it is a civil and not a criminal case, can I sue the city for lost wages when I appear in court to fight this ridiculous accusation?
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