In May it came out that accidents FELL in Houston after RLC were SHUT down by the voters!  http://blog.chron.com/newswatch/accidents-fall-at-houston-red-light-camera-intersections/

This really frustrated Houston (and ATS).  In fact the NMA had a interesting post on it.  http://alerts.motorists.org/nma-e-newsletter-124-grasping-at-straws

Recently HPD (at ATS request) hunted in the past and said the accidents didn't go down (silly silly Houston Citizens).  They said accident went "up".  http://abclocal.go.com/ktrk/story?section=news/local&id=8178752&status=ok   (In fairness they used the same period from a previous year, but no mention of non camera sites or traffic rates or what "counted".  ATS requested data on the 50 RLC intersections only). 

What happen is HPD data shopped.  They had to go back to the previous period to make their "claim".

In fact Anti Camera Attorney had this to say about the HPD claims: 

Houston attorney Paul Kubosh led the fight against the cameras and he doesn't believe this new data at all.

"What this is is nothing more than a carefully orchestrated plan by ATS, the city of Houston and the mayor to prep the public for the eventual cameras coming back,"

(Or an attempt more like it!)

Of course playing games with statistics is what Ban the Cams and others have come to expect from the scamera side.

City of Houston and HPD for example were busted MANIPULTING a earlier RLC report in 2008 to give the illusion RLC "worked" when in fact they CAUSED MORE WRECKS! 

Quote:  "Police in Houston, Texas put pressure on a Rice University professor to alter negative data compiled while studying Houston's red light camera program,"

http://www.thenewspaper.com/news/26/2675.asp   (earlier post on Houston report UNDERMINING TX Dot RLC study:  http://www.thenewspaper.com/news/26/2642.asp)

Also see:  http://www.clarksvilleonline.com/2009/01/15/texas-red-light-camera-accident-stats-fudged/ 

In fact a more interesting question is WHY DID HOUSTON REFUSED TO RELEASE DATA ON RLC JUST BEFORE THE PUBLIC VOTE BANNING RLC  in 2010???  http://www.thenewspaper.com/news/33/3310.asp

Doesn't that strike anyone as odd???  If RLC improved "safety", they would have been blasting that all over the news!  But Houston DIDN'T!

Let us not forget about ATS either.

There are serious questions involving ATS involvement in the MO Dot "Report" raised in this article: http://againstallclods.wordpress.com/?p=244&preview=true

Two quote of interest here:

Quote 1:   Ahh, touche, perhaps? Hmmm, well no, not really. Looking at their own raw data, we find that whopper 45% figure represents a grand total reduction of 3 (that’s THREE) accidents over a grand total of 55 intersections studied over a three-year period (a reduction from 9 to 6 serious accidents). And even that data is sketchy because when looking at the intersections both pre- and post-red light camera installation, they looked at a full 3 years data when compiling the “pre” camera data, but only a 12-36 month “post” camera period.

Quote 2:  And that’s not all. There are legitimate questions about the methods and sources used in the MoDOT study which cast serious doubt upon the results and their impartiality. For instance, they failed to use data from the city of Washington, MO, even though the data were available to the authors and fit the purposes of the study. Why would they not use data from the city of Washington? Hmmm, could it be because the data wasn’t helpful to the conclusion they desired? Could it be because American Traffic Solutions, one of the “vendors” who had input into the study, but who’s name was not disclosed by MoDOT, asked that it be excluded?

Food for thought eh! 

There is a moral to this story:

Whenever there is money involved, statistics “results” can be manipulated.  (And Ban the Cams has seen some of those manipulation like the distance game, dollar amount game, date games (that the MO Dot Example above shows).   Oh yes, the Exclusion game as what happened in the MO Dot "report" above.

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