


When governments are engaged in sleazy new forms of taxation, sleaze happens. In fact, speed cameras were the mayor's consolation prize—which he hopes will generate $20 million a year in revenue—when Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn nixed his plea for casino gambling in the city.

And sleaze has happened, not unlike the scandals that two decades ago engulfed the private companies that run state lotteries. Last week three executives of Redflex Traffic Systems, an Australia-owned company that operates Chicago's cameras, were fired over an alleged $2 million graft campaign aimed at the local official who oversaw the city's camera contract, including gifts of Super Bowl tickets and trips to White Sox spring training.

Then again, the reputation of this disguised form of taxation has been plunging everywhere. Los Angeles, amid public outrage, suspended its camera program when it came out that most tickets went to harmless perpetrators of the "California roll"—failing to stop completely before making a legal right on red. Even more so when it was discovered that, in keeping with maximizing profits, the city wasn't chasing down those who didn't pay. Why bother when it's so easy to click off a few more photos and dun those citizen who pay up the moment a ticket arrives in the mail?

Route 1 in Lawrence Township, N.J. Associated Press

Baltimore's camera program has been in turmoil since a November Baltimore Sun investigation revealed that misfiring speed cameras had been allowed to issue tickets to non-speeding and even motionless vehicles.

"If the goal of employing red-light camera systems is to improve driver safety, the data suggest that the program has failed," New Jersey state Sen. Michael Doherty wrote in the Trenton Times in December.

New Jersey's experience shows that revenues fall off sharply once drivers become aware of the cameras—but accidents don't. Serious T-bones at intersections occur not because a driver willfully ignores a red light but because he's not paying attention—which cameras don't help.

Meanwhile, numerous studies, including an in-depth federal report, confirm that red-light cameras are associated with an increase in rear-end collisions as drivers slam on the brakes.

Virtually all now understand that the best way to decrease crashes at problem intersections is a longer yellow. In Tampa, hundreds appear to have received tickets because a busy yellow was set at three seconds when the state minimum is 4.5. In Georgia, after a new state law adding a second to the yellow, several towns canceled their camera programs as no longer profitable.

Highlighted too is the most insidious form of taxation of all: speed limits themselves.

The authoritative National Cooperative Highway Research Program recognizes that "the vast majority of drivers will select a speed that is reasonable, safe, and prudent for a given road." That speed is typically faster than the posted speed limit, so the organization recommends timing yellows for a traffic speed 6.5 miles per hour faster than the posted limit. Most jurisdictions—New Jersey is an exception—still prefer to time their yellows by the posted speed limit. Why? More money for jurisdictions and firms like RedFlex, which often are paid a per-ticket bounty.

All this may seem passé, since robotic cars supposedly soon will be able to drive safer, faster and obey all traffic laws. In fact, traffic will slow down intolerably if robotic cars are programmed to obey speed limits that were originally designed to be ignored except when local governments need to raise money.

A 2008 Detroit News investigation found cops cheerfully acknowledging that they had quotas to fill. In Massachusetts, large sums were spent to widen and re-engineer Route 3 to allow speeds of 68 miles per hour, which drivers promptly adopted by driving at 68. Yet at the insistence of state police, the posted speed limit remained at 55, presumably to facilitate ticket writing.

Chicago's scandal will likely end up just protecting the larger scandal. Many of Mayor Emanuel's new speed cameras won't go in school zones, after all. For the sake of cheaply and quickly getting the cash register ringing, the first speed-detection equipment will be attached to existing red-light cameras.

Chicagoans have nothing on the rest of the country, of course. In New York, traffic-enforcement cameras aren't just about money but about the anti-car agenda of Mayor Mike Bloomberg. But a bigger picture is also becoming clearer: Ticket-racketeering has been, let's just say, a contending motivation with safety since the automobile age was born.