http://heraldnet.com/article/20110706/BLOG48/707069765/-1/blog48

By Scott North
 

To the person responsible for the People's Republic of Lynnwood blog:

Thanks for the kind words about our recent Need to Know report on traffic accidents at Lynnwood intersections with red-light enforcement cameras. Thanks even more, though, for taking the time to examine the data we received from the city and offering your own take on what the numbers may mean.

Part of what we are trying to accomplish with Need to Know is to gather information and then get out of the way. You raised issues and questions we didn't address, and you directed readers to other relevant information.

Of particular value was the reminder about the December 2010 report from KING TV's Robert Mak regarding Lynnwood's traffic camera program. It still can be found here. About 4 minutes in is an interesting exchange with Lynnwood City Councilman Ted Heikel. It is even more relevant now given the city's recent analysis of accident data and its conclusion that it is too early to say what -- if any -- effect the cameras are having.

In December, Heikel told Mak that Lynnwood's red-light cameras give police new technology to make Lynnwood safer.

"The overall traffic accident pattern in the city is lower now than it was in 2007-2008 after we started the program," Heikel told the reporter.

When pressed for details about how much safety is happening, Heikel said he wasn't sure, but he thought the decline in crashes could be 30 percent.

A seemingly nice guy, Mak politely pointed out that's "not quite true."

I'm not so nice. The city's own numbers show Heikel was flat wrong. The decline in Lynnwood accidents in recent years is nowhere near 30 percent. Moreover, traffic accidents in that community were rising and falling for years, long before red-light cameras were doing their thing.

The city hasn't yet provided The Herald with total accident numbers for 2010. Here are the total crashes in recent years:

2001: 1,509

2002: 1,343

2003: 1,449

2004: 1,557

2005: 1,534

2006: 1,346

2007: 1,637

2008: 1,456

2009: 1,402

In pulling those numbers from the Lynnwood Police Department web site, a stat caught my eye. The department reported that in 2009 officers reviewed 30,974 camera-generated tickets "which accounted for nearly 1,035 review (manpower) hours." That is the equivalent of 25 weeks of fulltime police work.

{People's Republic of Lynnwood: Red-Light Cam "Analysis," Lynnwood-Style}

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