Red Light Camera News Red light cameras: dehumanizing and expensive
Red light cameras: dehumanizing and expensive
Michael Haley Napa Valley Register | Posted: Tuesday, February 15, 2011 12:00 am |
I was driving down Big Ranch a few months ago heading toward Trancas and some person in one of these monster trucks was right on my tail. As we approached the light I became concerned about what to do in case the light turned red and I had to brake quickly. I felt angry to be in that position. Fortunately for me, the light didn't turn red but it reminded me of why I don't like the red light cameras. I would rather have a police officer there watching because there is no way I would have gotten a ticket with someone on my tail like that if I had run through it.
The City Council is doing a review of the cameras this Tuesday, and looking through their staff report, I find it is only maybe true that they have helped cut down accidents, because when you read some of the stats it finds that at the Big Ranch, Trancas intersection, there were eight injury accidents in 2007, compared to six in 2010 — a whopping 25 percent decrease, looked at one way. But with such small numbers, another way to look at it is only two less in an intersection with literally thousands of cars going through it every day, hardly compelling. At 29 and 121, it went from 65 collisions in 2007 to 62 collisions in 2010. Are you kidding me? If you look through the whole file, there is no way a statistician would call the numbers we have statistically significant.
Personally, I just do not like the idea of us giving up our power to anonymous authorities, robotic authorities in this case. It is dehumanizing. I want a real human police officer there watching and giving the tickets. Sure, it is way less efficient, but it is way more humanistic. It is a small point, but not in the context of how much we are being forced to do that in so many ways in our world more and more all the time. It makes people feel alienated from each other and our world.
We have the government listening in on our phone calls, we put people on a terror list by the millions with scant evidence. Even something like whether housing will get built out at Berryessa is in the hands of anonymous unresponsive federal authorities. It is frustrating and dehumanizing. In so many ways large and small, for good reason or not, we are giving our power away to anonymous and technological sources that increase that sense of loss of control over our own lives. So in that sense, even though it is true that this is in a small way, it matters.
Four-hundred and sixty-five dollars for rolling through an intersection on a right turn that at one time or another everyone has done is simply an outrageous amount of money. That is grocery money for most of the people who get those fines.
One of the heavily cited places is at 121 and 29, where in my view it can be perfectly safe to roll through that intersection. You can see whether the cars opposite you are turning or not. My concept of running a red light and what I am concerned about is someone flying through way after the light has changed at a high rate of speed, now that is dangerous. But not people rolling through a right turn at Highway 121, and certainly not to the tune of $465!
People, we are never going to live in a world that is 100 percent safe, or close to it. Put up all the cameras you want, some losers are going to fly through a red light once in a while. We could require all schoolchildren to wear biohazard suits to school every day, and probably cut back on a lot of flu and colds. But what kind of world is that? Not one I want to live in.
Making what is surely mostly working people pay $465 for something that represents a marginal safety improvement at best is just callous. I am very concerned about how hard people are becoming just because you are mad that someone tailgated you or you saw someone go through a light too late. If we could get that person, great, but this is a wide anonymous net that is mostly catching a lot of people who are otherwise good drivers and causing them more than a little inconvenience.
When you boil this all down to what is happening, I am afraid that it is little more than people getting satisfaction over busting someone out of all of our frustrations of seeing bad driving and not much else that is beneficial.
Michael Haley blogs regularly on napavalleyregister.com and daily at www.napablogger.com. He is a former candidate for Napa County Supervisor and long time community activist.
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