Red Light Camera News Schultz: Turn out the lights on idea of using cameras as cops
(Ban the Cams would like to thank www.stpetecameras.org for the link!)
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/opinion/columnists/schultz-turn-out-the-lights-on-idea-of-1201464.html
Schultz: Turn out the lights on idea of using cameras as cops
Opinion
By Randy Schultz
Posted: 8:53 p.m. Friday, Jan. 21, 2011
Even if red-light cameras were more about safety than money in Florida, we might be where we are. But red-light cameras are more about money than safety, which is why we are where we are.
Last week, Post reporter Jane Musgrave showed in two stories how this technology that so many cities and counties in Florida lust after as a revenue stream may produce only a trickle of money but a river of problems. Local governments imagined that motorists would fork over their fines without protest. Instead, some of those drivers have hired attorneys.
Before Palm Beach County traffic hearing officers, those attorneys and some drivers have exposed flaws in the system. Drivers weren't in the intersection - or even in the country - when the camera caught them. Cameras weren't calibrated correctly. When camera photos were enlarged to identify the license plate number, the time and date stamp got fuzzy.
None of it surprises Susan Haynie, a Boca Raton council member who opposes the city's plan to install cameras, a plan that will wait until the legal issues are resolved - if they can be. "It is crazy to abdicate a law-and-order function to private industry for this 'supposed' revenue stream," Ms. Haynie said. "I continue not to be convinced."
Ah, but the true believers - most of them motivated by money - won't give up. A representative of American Traffic Solutions, which installs the cameras and gets paid to operate them, blamed some ticket dismissals on a single Palm Beach County hearing officer. The acting police chief of Palm Springs, which has a camera program, told Ms. Musgrave that Palm Beach County Chief Judge Peter Blanc should advise the county's 18 traffic hearing officers - all of whom are paid $50 per hour to hear the cases, and all of whom must be lawyers - what standards to use when ruling on camera violations.
In an interview, however, Judge Blanc - correctly - said, "I don't perceive it as my role to tell traffic hearing officers how to rule, any more than I would tell judges how to rule in criminal or civil court." Red-light camera law is "a developing area," and "the problem is with how the statute is written." And the problem is that the statute was written to generate money, not to promote safety.
When local governments began installing the cameras, they created, in essence, local traffic courts. Florida's new constitution, approved in 1968, abolished local courts. Traffic regulations and fines must apply statewide.
Last year, though, the Legislature created statewide standards for the cameras - in exchange for the state getting almost half of the fine. Cities and counties presumably figured that the money would start flowing.
But the inherent flaws of the system remained. Because police officers don't issue the tickets, cities and counties must train the employees who review the photos. No amount of training, though, will turn them into certified police officers, who also make errors in traffic cases. "I keep hearing the police department say that this gives us more eyes on the street," Ms. Haynie said, meaning that departments can assign officers to higher-priority work. "It just doesn't ring true."
Because it isn't. Every analysis of a red-light camera program comes with a revenue estimate. If safety rather than money were the priority, private companies like American Traffic Solutions wouldn't have a dozen lobbyists in Tallahassee. If safety rather than money were the priority, this lust for cameras would not have begun big-time in 2008, as local governments in Florida realized that their budgets weren't going to stop shrinking for some time. It would have begun big-time in 1999, after a driver west of Boca Raton ran a red light and killed three elderly couples.
Ms. Haynie also believes that even a camera system wouldn't have stopped Robert Carratelli from blowing through that light on Yamato Road 12 years ago. "Truly reckless and impaired people," she said, "won't pay attention to a sign saying there's a camera. Law-abiding people will jam on their brakes and cause a rear-end collision."
If red-light running at certain intersections is a serious, documented problem, cities and counties could station police officers. They could lengthen the all-red time at traffic lights, the simplest solution but one, of course, that would produce no money. In West Palm Beach, Mayor Lois Frankel and the police brass remain true believers in the cameras. But they don't send the city's legal staff to traffic court against the private lawyers. They send lower-level community service aides. Even the true believers won't try to defend the indefensible.
Randy Schultz is the editor of the editorial page of The Palm Beach Post. His e-mail address is This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
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