Red Light Camera News Red light cameras / Proceed with caution
Red light cameras / Proceed with caution
Posted: Sunday, November 6, 2011 12:01 am
Here's an idea for cash-strapped towns: Put police on commission. Instead of paying salaries, just give each officer a share of whatever fines he or she brings in.
What could possibly go wrong?
If you're now trying to decide whether that's the worst idea you've ever heard or merely in the top three, you can see the problem with red-light cameras.
New Jersey is now in the middle of a five-year pilot program to test the cameras. The state hopes to have 24 municipalities participate in the study, which ends in 2013. Hamilton Township in Atlantic County and Middle Township in Cape May County have applied to install the cameras at their busiest intersections.
Both towns plan to partner with a private company that will operate the cameras and share the ticket revenue with the state and the municipalities. The appeal is that the setup costs the town nothing.
And the problem with that is the same problem you'd have with police paid on commission. The system creates incentives for issuing tickets, rather than preventing violations.
Or, as the New Jersey Public Interest Research Group put it in a report issued last week, red-light camera programs too often put profit over public safety.
If private companies and municipalities are dependent on the revenue generated by violations, there is less incentive to correct traffic problems and prevent people from running red lights in the first place. The National Motorists Association says camera programs may encourage towns to leave intersections in a dangerous condition in order to increase revenue.
And that revenue can be considerable. In the five months between December 2009 and April 2010, a red-light camera program in Newark ticketed more than 20,000 drivers. The city's share of all those tickets was nearly a half-million dollars.
But consider the drawbacks. When drivers see cameras, they sometimes stop more suddenly than they otherwise would, causing accidents.
Last year, Glassboro discovered that it had incorrectly issued 12,000 tickets at an intersection where the yellow light was one second shorter than the federal minimum of 4 seconds. (The light hadn't been lengthened when the speed limit changed from 25 to 35 mph.) The cost to drivers? $1 million.
Ban the Cams note:
1. http://www.thenewspaper.com/news/33/3368.asp Quote: Glassboro, New Jersey admits red light camera generated $1 million worth of tickets at intersection with short yellow.
2. http://www.thenewspaper.com/news/34/3418.asp Quote: Straight through violations disappear at Glassboro, New Jersey intersection approach with longer yellow time.
A Texas Transportation Institute study found that most red-light violations occur when drivers misjudge when the yellow light will change to red by less than a quarter second. So if towns are really concerned with safety, they can make more of a difference by lengthening the time that a light stays yellow, or by delaying the green light at the cross street.
But nationally, towns have been sued by their camera contractor when they tried to improve intersections.
NJPIRG suggests that towns should look for such engineering solutions to dangerous intersections before they think about cameras.
Towns that still want to pursue cameras should follow the lead of Paramus, which is paying a flat fee for the service, so that there is no incentive for issuing tickets.
Traffic safety, like other areas of law enforcement, should never be a for-profit enterprise.
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