

Good, bad reasons to oppose traffic cameras

6:46 PM, Feb. 23, 2014  |  Comments

Unless one looks at the type of accidents increased, saying traffic light cameras increase accidents is meaningless. Studies sponsored by both the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and Insurance Institute for Highway Safety both confirm the types of accidents that are both the most injurious and costly actually decline at intersections with camera enforcement. And those studies have been replicated enough times to be reliable.

Compliance with signals also increases at intersections with traffic light camera enforcement, which makes everyone safer - pedestrians and cyclists are too often left out of the equation when opponents talk about accidents increasing at intersections with camera controls.

If you want to oppose traffic light cameras, oppose them for sound reason. The only financial model for such cameras that exists in the U.S. represents a privatization of law enforcement. Law enforcement that is dictated by the profit motivation is law enforcement where a door is left open to corruption.

It's not an accident that in cities that have traffic light cameras interest is lost in them because the revenues are high at installation and trail off after a year or so. The revenues go down because compliance goes up - this and the opposition of activists who opposed such cameras is more responsible for camera removal than activism alone.

Driving isn't an act covered by rights of privacy - driving is about the most public thing any of us do in a day. But still privacy rights advocates should be heeded when they talk about what's done with the information after those tickets are mailed out.

Will the system create a permanent long-term record of the movement of citizens, and if it does, who will have access to this information? Since the TLC installations are owned by private corporations, what might they do with the information they gather for local government?

Who else might have access to this information? Surveillance that was once only conducted by our government is now privatized as well - we have a right to know how that information is used and shared. Citizens should demand controls on who sees and uses this information.

I support traffic light camera installations because I believe they do improve traffic safety, but I also oppose them under the only model used in the United States: privatized law enforcement for profit.

Donald Baxter

University Heights

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