Red Light Camera News Texas Town Sees Accidents Skyrocket After Red Light Cameras Installed
http://warondriving.com/post/12338105558/texas-town-sees-accidents-skyrocket-after-red-light
Texas Town Sees Accidents Skyrocket After Red Light Cameras Installed
photo courtesy of PortLavacaMainStreet.com
Port LaVaca, TX has some serious issues surrounding their red light camera program. The latest news, in the form of accident figures, further proves what a terrible choice the mayor and town council have made for their citizens. Let’s start from the beginning.
January 2009: Port LaVaca, a town of around 12,000 which is located between Corpus Christi and Galveston on the Gulf Coast of Texas, installs red light cameras, with no justification, after a decision by their town council who had been heavily lobbied by Redflex http://warondriving.com/redflex. Accidents were not a problem at any of the intersections where cameras were installed according to a report just released. [Report http://digitalrevaz.com/wp-content/uploads/7-25plgreenlight.pdf]
January 2011: After months of collecting signatures on a petition circulated throughout 2010, which garnered enough to put the red light camera system to a vote they were turned in to the town recorder.
March 2011: Port Lavaca town council chooses to ignore the petition, which has now been validated by the town recorder. This was a ploy to keep the red light camera referendum off the ballot, because the council members, who were in the pocket of Redflex, knew they would lose. http://thenewspaper.com/news/34/3424.asp
April 2011: Revelations surface that a powerful Chicago political machine with direct ties to Rahm Emanuel created a front group which filed a lawsuit to stop the vote on the initiative, “even though no court order was issued in the case” http://thenewspaper.com/news/34/3445.asp and the referendum on photo enforcement did not violate the town charter. In violation of state law, the vote never took place.
October 2011: Money grubbing Police Sergeant Kelly Flood fraudulently signed a photo ticket for a motorist who passed through an intersection on a green light. Port Lavaca refused to turn over the info on the ticket. According to TheNewspaper.com,
Byron Schirmbeck, director of SaferBaytown.com, filed a formal complaint with Calhoun County District Attorney Dan Heard over the city’s refusal to comply with the terms of the state open records statute that generally requires the disclosure of public documents within ten days.
November 2011:
The green light ticket along with accident numbers have been released to Schirmbeck, which prove that not only was the ticket issued illegally, but also accident numbers have gone from near zero, prior to camera installation to 350% increases in some intersections.
[REPORT HERE http://digitalrevaz.com/wp-content/uploads/7-25plgreenlight.pdf]
In review, what the town of Port Lavaca town council and mayor have done in the past 33 months is install fraudulent red light cameras with no justification, attempted to hide accident numbers, suppressed a citizens’ initiative illegally and have a police sergeant signing off on tickets for motorists who drive through green lights.
The worst part, for the citizens of Port Lavaca, is that all this has accomplished is to increase accidents, including those with injuries in intersections that didn’t have any collisions prior to camera installation.
On a smaller scale, the town leadership is about to learn some very tough lessons that the city of Houston spent valuable time and taxpayer money learning:
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