http://www.news-sentinel.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20110627/EDITORIAL/106270332

Let's remain cautious on use of red-light cameras

There is a trend of cities and states turning against them.
 
Fort Wayne has considered installing them, as have other Indiana cities such as Hammond, Gary and Lafayette. Hoosier lawmakers even flirted with the idea of making them a state enterprise.

They are red-light cameras, those infamous devices that click photos and take videos of people running the lights, then send out tickets to the motorists caught. How much safer they make intersections is open to debate, but they generate money for the cities that have them, which makes them hard to resist in tough economic times. But city and state officials should resist them, or at least study them with more than a little skepticism, as an increasing number of cities and states are doing.

Because of the initial enthusiasm for them, the cameras are now in more than 500 cities and towns and more than 25 states. But an anti-camera movement seems to be taking place, according to a report by MSNBC. The Los Angeles Police Commission has voted to remove the cameras. In Houston, voters approved a measure to shut down the 70-plus cameras there. Tennessee voted to limit the location of cameras. The North Carolina Senate has voted to ban the cameras, as has the Florida House.

Early studies indicated the cameras prevented crashes at intersections and saved lives. But the more studies that have been done, the more the evidence has seemed to offer a wide range of results. Because there's no centralized database of all the red-light cameras in the nation, it's difficult to compare intersections with and without the cameras.

There is no doubt, though, about the money-raising potential. Some cities have found the cameras quite lucrative. In Chicago, for example, they generated more than $64 million in 2009. And because in most jurisdictions the cameras are contracted out to private companies that get a hefty percentage of each fine, there is a danger of what has been called “vendor overreach” in increasing the number of citations.

Civil libertarians look at the balance sheet and conclude that the cameras aren't worth the abuse to individual rights they represent. The need for them is especially dubious especially since there is a more effective and less intrusive method of reducing accidents at intersections. Several studies have indicated that changing the signal cycles – lengthening how long the yellow caution light stays on, for example, or keeping all four signals red for a moment before anyone can proceed—can reduce violations, accidents and deaths.

Sometimes, Indiana goes too slowly when considering change. But sometimes, that is just the right speed.
 

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