Red Light Camera Company Says It's Dying Of Coronavirus

from the putting-it-out-of-our-misery dept

Things change. And the stuff that used to work just doesn't anymore. We've covered a lot of this over the years, mainly focusing on how the rise of the internet was greeted with rent-seeking and protectionist policies meant to extend the upper hand that incumbent industries had enjoyed for years.

But things are changing elsewhere, outside of industries reliant on intellectual property protection and Congressionally-approved monopolies. Marijuana is being legalized (or at least decriminalized) all over the nation, resulting in an upheaval of sorts in the drug dog industry. According to a few law enforcement officials, drug dogs can't live full lives without sniffing drugs and marijuana legalization is probably just going to result in some mercy killings. A life that doesn't involve being run around a car during an illegally-extended pretextual stop apparently isn't worth living.

We are again being asked to shed a tear for a law enforcement-adjacent industry. Social distancing and sheltering-in-place in response to the coronavirus has led to a downturn in driving. And if there's fewer drivers on the road, proxy cops are seeing their revenue streams dry up.

Redflex, an Australian company that operates "traffic safety programs" in roughly 100 US and Canadian cities, warned that less traffic and suspended construction amid the pandemic will be a stress on its balance sheet.

"Approximately 15% of group revenue is dependent on volume-based contracts," the company said in a regulatory filing Monday first spotted by The Wall Street Journal, hinting at its business line that includes enforcement cameras. "We anticipate our revenue from these contracts will be impacted broadly in line with the reduction in traffic volumes as well as the duration of the disruption."

Yeah, that's a real shame. It's too bad a company that engaged in bribery to grab market share won't be able to weather this unexpected downturn in questionably-obtained income. There are several competitors in the crowded "worst traffic cam ever" field, but Redflex did everything it could to stay ahead of the pack. This behavior resulted in other unexpected downturns, like refunding millions of dollars of tickets in multiple locations due to the tech's inability to do the little things… like accurately judge vehicle speed.

Hope springs eternal at Redflex, even with COVID-19's wet blanket dampening the company's enthusiasm.

On a call with investors Monday, Redflex CEO Mark Talbot warned that further travel restrictions could delay new installations and therefore impact revenues.

Let's hope there are no more installations ever, even if drivers return to the roads to undo the environmental damage reduction they inadvertently contributed to by staying home. Redflex is a terrible company with terrible ethics and terrible products. Its tech remains unproven, years after deployment. If the virus manages to take out Redflex, we'll at least have one thing to thank the pandemic for.

Filed Under: covid-19, pandemic, red light cameras, tickets
Companies: redflex

Chicago Agrees To Make Red Light Camera System Barely Less Corrupt By Increasing Grace Period By 0.2 Seconds

from the yay? dept

It's been well-established at this point that red light cameras, those devices that issue tickets and blinding lights to drivers not stopping on red, have always been less about safety and more about the revenue produced by the tickets. That really should be enough a story of corruption for anyone to cast a wary eye at cities implementing these cameras, but you really have to admire the brazen committment to corruption the city of Chicago displayed when initially contracting with the company Redflex for its camera system. The CEO for Redflex was brought up on federal charges for bribing city officials, including offering some condos and cars, because why mess around? Yet, even once we move past the corrupt manner the cameras were put in place, Chicago saw tons of its tickets tossed by a judge who noted that the city wasn't even following its own rules for due process on those tickets. Furthermore, the cameras were set to have a "grace period," the buffer time for which a driver could run a red light and still not be ticketed, of .1 seconds, even as other major cities' grace periods were three times that, and it was laughably clear how this system was designed entirely to bring in city revenue.

Well, rejoice Chicagoans, because the city has been dragged into extending that grace period to the .3 seconds shared by other major cities, making the whole thing barely less nauseating.

Under the new policy, which was announced Monday, the grace period for Chicago’s red lights will move from 0.1 seconds to 0.3 seconds. This will bring the Windy City in line with other Americans metropolises, including New York City and Philadelphia. In a statement, the city agency said that this increase would “maintain the safety benefits of the program while ensuring the program’s fairness.”

Except it really doesn't. This is the same system, no longer operated by Redflex due to the company's corrupt practices, but still born of that same corruption and forever tainted by it. Unaddressed thus far are the city's failings in due process, nevermind any valid analysis showing a safety benefit to any of this. Instead, the city has basically agreed to collect slightly less revenue in its traffic camera revenue program. This, by the way, is the city with the largest red light camera program in the nation. So... yay?

Filed Under: chicago, corruption, red light cameras
Companies: redflex

Missouri Court Upholds Right Of Citizens To 'Vote' Traffic Enforcement Cameras Out Of 'Office'

from the the-unbearable-red-lightness-of-being-kicked-right-the-fuck-out dept

Citizens don't care much for red light/traffic cameras. These revenue generators do little more than turn moving (or parked) vehicles into ATMs for the governments that deploy them. Obviously, local governments love them. They love them so much they're willing to overlook badly-broken systems, crooked manufacturers and increases in vehicle collisions.

Sometimes the citizens win the fight against red light cameras. That's when the government's hate for the little people really shows through. Late last year, residents of St. Charles, Missouri, showed Redflex the door by voting for a ban on camera-based traffic enforcement.

In St. Charles, Missouri, it was the county council, not a petition, that put the question of a photo ticketing ban on the ballot. County Councilman Joe Brazil came up with the measure as a means of reining in automated ticketing in St. Peters. Len Pagano, the town's mayor, insisted it violates "local control" to allow voters to decide such an issue. They did decide by a margin of 72.6 percent that the cameras should be banned.

It's unclear if Pagano's relationship with traffic enforcement camera manufacturer Redflex is as close as his predecessor's was. The former mayor, Shawn Brown, was sentenced to 18 months in prison for soliciting a bribe from the traffic camera company -- threatening to withhold approval until it paid him off. Redflex's hands were clean in this incident (not so much in other cases).

Pagano hasn't been tied to any financial malfeasance. That doesn't necessarily make him a friend of the common man, though. Shortly before this measure went up for public vote, Pagano told constituents he would spend their money to prevent them from enacting the ban they clearly desired.

"There is the strong potential for litigation," Pagano warned in a letter to County Councilman Joe Brazil, the amendment's sponsor.

"You may be raising serious constitutional questions that may take several years and potentially hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees to answer."

Pagano said his city "and other interested parties at the local and state level and in the private sector" will carefully scrutinize any actions taken by the county that "restrict municipalities' roles and responsibilities."

The constituents of St. Charles County have been handed a victory by the court -- something that will slightly lessen the sting of having to fight a taxpayer-funded opponent just to be granted the ban taxpayers had already overwhelmingly declared they wanted.

The cameras will not return to St. Peters after Judge Pelikan decided that counties in Missouri do indeed have the power under the state constitution to regulate "any and all services and functions of any municipality" through the county charter.

"Plaintiffs incorrectly contend the charter amendment invades the province of general legislation involving public policy of the state as a whole, contending the public policy of the state of Missouri delegate directly and exclusively to the cities the authority to control traffic on municipal streets, including, as applicable here, the authority to use 'red light cameras' and other 'traffic control devices," Judge Pelikan ruled. "The county relies on its police power in conjunction with the police power of the municipalities to enact its charter amendment to serve the public good. The acts contemplated by the charter amendment are squarely within the powers granted to the county and the municipalities and are therefore valid and enforceable."

In essence, the government claimed the public couldn't tell it what to do through the use of charter amendments. The court says it can indeed do this and that the use of charter amendments to force the government to give the people what they actually want is perfectly constitutional. The public gets a win, but nothing is more bittersweet than the last sentence of the order, which ultimately means nothing in this context. A single party is footing the court costs for both sides, even if the wording in the order makes the situation seem far more equitable.

Each party shall bear its own costs.

If only.

Filed Under: joe brazil, len pagano, missouri, red light cameras, speed cameras, st. charles
Companies: redflex

'Revenue Generating' Traffic Cameras Forcing Governments To Refund Millions Of Dollars

from the not-working-out-quite-the-way-they-thought-it-would dept

Technology saves time and labor, but is as ultimately fallible as the humans it displaces. Thanks to the efficiencies of technology, mistakes can now be made faster than ever. Municipalities which have turned over traffic enforcement to cameras probably hoped to generate funds much faster than it could with an un-augmented police force. Instead, they're finding themselves issuing refunds, deactivating faulty cameras, fighting with contractors and investigating corruption. Not much of a payoff.

Two more stories have appeared (nearly simultaneously) showing the incredible number of tickets a set of cameras can rack up in a short period… and the amount of funds generated that no one will ever be able to claim.

The first comes from Nassau County, New York, where overenthusiastic speed cameras enforced school zone speed limits while school wasn't even in session.

Nassau County Executive Edward Mangano has dismissed $2.4 million in speed camera tickets issued over the past month, amid outrage from residents who received thousands of tickets from cameras at six school locations.

Mangano said cameras at five locations malfunctioned, spitting out tickets on days when school was not in session. Cameras at a sixth location -- in Elmont -- went operational prematurely.

Mangano went even further than this, declaring amnesty on all tickets issued this summer. Anyone who paid a ticket will be issued a refund and any unpaid tickets will be forgiven. Nassau County has contacted the contractor -- the infamous American Traffic Solutions -- presumably to ask it why its cameras can't be calibrated to issue school zone tickets only when school zone speed limits are actually active. The county officials declined to say whether they'd be asking ATS to refund its share of the "lost" revenue, which is 38% of every fine collected.

Of the $2.4 million the county will be refunding, only about $800,000 of it is for tickets issued while school wasn't in session. The other two-thirds is a good faith writeoff to help the county push through its installation of even more cameras.

In April, state lawmakers approved legislation allowing Nassau and Suffolk to install one speed camera in each of their school districts. Nassau will install cameras at 56 locations. Suffolk, which plans to roll out its program in mid-2015, will have 69 sites. Motorists that travel more than 10 mph over the posted speed limit receive an $80 ticket.

Not only will more static cameras be installed, but the county is also planning to send roving traffic enforcement cameras out on a tour of area schools.

Officials could not say how many districts will have mobile units, which can be moved to schools throughout the district at the county's discretion. The mobile units consist of an unmarked van with two cameras and a radar machine.

Nassau residents don't seem nearly as pleased with this expansion, especially not after having their mailboxes filled with bogus tickets. But I doubt the complaints of the citizens will be able to overcome the dollar signs in their representatives' eyes.

The speed camera program is expected to generate $25 million or more annually for [Nassau County]... Suffolk expects to generate $6.8 million from the 46 cameras in Western Suffolk, where the county provides police service, said county spokeswoman Vanessa Baird-Streeter.

Those are some pretty large numbers, provided the county isn't periodically forced to issue a ton of refunds. Given American Traffic Solutions' track record, it would behoove these county officials to cease counting their revenue before it's extracted by traffic robocops.

Meanwhile, over in New Jersey, malfunctioning systems installed and maintained by -- yes, you guessed it -- American Traffic Solutions have forced the state government to ask courts to throw out 17,000 tickets because drivers were never informed of their alleged infractions. (h/t to Techdirt reader Vidiot)

The state lawmaker who today brought the issue to the public’s attention — Assemblyman Declan O’Scanlon —said it's is just the latest example of why New Jersey’s red light camera should not be renewed when it reaches its December expiration date.

“This wasn't 5 or 10 or even a couple of hundred instances - this total breakdown affected almost 17,000 motorists,” O’Scanlon (R-Monmouth) said in a statement. "These companies incessantly tout the supposed accuracy and consistency of their systems - when the only thing consistent about the camera company representatives is their blatant misrepresentation of what the equipment does and how accurately it does it."

Winnie Comfort, a spokeswoman for the state Judiciary, said that the issue was brought to its attention by the company — American Traffic Solutions (ATS) — on Aug. 10. Under New Jersey law, Comfort said, drivers must receive notices of the infractions within 90 days.

Once again, the screwup is all ATS. Apparently, a "server configuration change" resulted in ATS sending out no violation notices from May 28 to June 30, turning 17,000 potential moneymakers into 17,000 potential dismissals, thanks to exceeding the 90-day notification window.

An ATS spokesman spun this as a "technical issue" that only "impacted" a small percentage of issued tickets. (Oh, and the automated revenue generator is apparently called a "red-light safety camera" in ATS jargon.) Two things: if 17,000 tickets is only a small percentage of tickets issued, then ATS is definitely firing off way too many tickets. Thing, the second: it's only ATS having problems with its servers.

Automated Traffic Solutions operates traffic cameras at about half of New Jersey's 76 intersections that are equipped with them. The other company, Redflex, did not have the same problem.

Of course, Redflex bribes local politicians to secure contracts, so it's not as if this company doesn't have its own issues -- ones that also negatively affect the citizens being policed by unreliable camera systems.

As noted above, Assemblyman Scanlon indicated he'd rather not renew the state's contract with ATS. Given Redflex's moral turpitude, it might be prudent not to renew its contract either. But this would leave the state with very few options for low-cost revenue generation -- and once localities become hooked on a source of income, there's very little chance they'll give it up readily, no matter how corrupt/incompetent/terrible it is.

Filed Under: failures, nassau county, refunds, speed cameras, traffic cameras
Companies: american traffic solutions, ats, redflex

Shocking: Red Light Camera Company CEO And Chicago City Official Indicted On Corruption Charges

from the the-chicago-way dept

We've long-argued that red light cameras, those little flashy things that ticket you for going through a stop light, have always been way less about safety and almost entirely about generating revenue for municipalities. And, while we've covered how corrupted the money-flow of these systems can be, you just have to admire the brazenly "Chicago-way" story of how the windy city got into bed with camera peddlers.

The former chief executive officer of Redflex, a major red light camera (RLC) vendor, has been indicted on federal corruption charges stemming from a contract with the City of Chicago. On Wednesday, in addition to former CEO Karen Finley, government prosecutors also indicted John Bills, former managing deputy commissioner at the Department of Transportation, and Bills' friend Martin O'Malley, who was hired as a contractor by Redflex.

Now, I can tell you as a native of the area that city officials getting indicted on corruption charges along with the company bribers barely registers as news here any longer. Hell, we send governors to prison like it was the official retirement plan for the office. The charges in this indictment, however, are a special brand of sleazy. Redflex sold the city on the cameras, hired O'Malley as a contractor for $2 million dollars, and O'Malley then sent much of that cash directly back to DoT official John Bills, like some kind of monetary boomerang. Redflex then got into the act directly, because why the hell not.

Via Redflex employees, Bills also acquired a Mercedes and a condominium in Arizona. A May 2014 affidavit written by an FBI special agent suggests that Bills likely used some of this money to purchase and store a boat, buy a car, pay for an addition to his Michigan cabin, pay for his girlfriend's mortgage, pay his own mortgage, pay his kids' schools, and hire a divorce attorney over the course of several years.

To be fair to Bills, it costs a lot of money to keep your side-piece living happily while you divorce the mother of your children and update that sweet cabin-pad. Oh, it should also be mentioned that Redflex employees sent Bills on a couple of vacations over half a decade, and by "couple" I mean seventeen. This all adds up to 23 counts of mail fraud, wire fraud, bribery, and some additional charges thrown in because screw these guys. And it's not as though these stupid cameras all this corruption paid for actually, you know, worked. The Chicago Tribune's reporting indicates that something like 13,000 bogus tickets were issued to city residents via Redflex cameras, which were dropped in 2013 due in part to this scandal.

But, hey, don't worry, guys. Redflex is all over this problem.

"Last year we announced aggressive leadership changes, industry leading compliance policies and procedures, and a distinction between our past and present," Jody Ryan, a spokeswoman, wrote to Ars. "Redflex Traffic Systems is moving forward. Since we announced these changes we have signed, renewed, or executed over 100 contracts. Redflex has cooperated fully with the investigative authorities while maintaining the integrity of our customer programs. Our focus is on making a life-saving difference in the communities we serve across the country."

Except their cameras don't do any of that and nobody is going to trust anything coming from the company or city officials about the effectiveness of the cameras, either, what with the details on how the Chicago bid was won by Redflex being revealed. It turns out that Bills actually coached Redflex on how to win the bid, rigged the voting order so that members of the evaluation committee Bills had convinced to vote for Redflex would vote first (indicating broad support to other members), and then had the company hire his buddy, O'Malley, as the Chicago account manager for Redflex.

When it comes to Chicago politics, contracts, and the like, this is as Chicago as it gets. However, given that the whole red light camera thing is a money-making scheme to begin with, the whole concept reeks of corruption. Kill these things off now, please.

Filed Under: chicago, corruption, john bills, karen finley, martin o'malley, red light cameras
Companies: redflex

Speed Cam Contractor Redflex Accused Of Bribing Government Officials In 13 States

from the nothing-goes-faster-than-greased-wheels dept

Troubled and infamous traffic cam company Redflex is headed for even more trouble and infamy. In its relatively short history, Redflex has so far done the following:

• received an innovation award from the state of Arizona even as the state considered dumping the contractor
• pretty much admitted it ran cameras from 1997-2008 without proper FCC certification
• spent the first six months of 2013 removing more cameras than it installed, for a loss of $3.5 million in revenue
• had its camera systems in San Mateo and Santa Ana, CA declared to be in violation of California laws
• had to refund several thousand fines in Australia after clocking a woman driving at over 100 mph in a vehicle that couldn't reach those speeds
• failed to deliver any data (not just "some" data -- Redflex delivered nothing at all) on its cameras' effectiveness to Denver city officials, thus violating its contract with the city

Given its history over the last half-decade or so, it should come as no surprise that Redflex's ability to secure new contracts allegedly relies on illegal tactics.

A fired executive from a national red-light camera vendor claimed in an Arizona lawsuit that the company provided lavish gifts and bribes to government officials in 13 states to secure new contracts.

The New Jersey Star-Ledger reported Saturday that the bombshell allegations made a 13-page counterclaim by Aaron Rosenberg, former nationwide lead salesman for Redflex Traffic Systems of Phoenix, claimed that the firm “bestowed gifts and bribes on … officials in dozens of municipalities within, but not limited to the following states: California, Washington, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Colorado, Massachusetts, North Carolina, Florida, New Jersey, Tennessee, Virginia, and Georgia.”

Rosenberg claimed Redflex bribed local officials with meals, golf outings and tickets to professional football and baseball games, calling the expenses “entertainment” or “celebratory tokens.”

Rosenberg lost his job after Redflex was banned from competing for contracts in Chicago by Mayor Rahm Emanuel. Apparently, even notoriously corrupt municipalities have their limits.

“Redflex was fired in Chicago for corruption. Nobody gets fired for corruption in Chicago,” said Assemblyman Declan O’Scanlon (R-Monmouth), an outspoken critic of the cameras in New Jersey, who called for an investigation.

(Chicagoans should note that the contractor being considered for new speed cams, Xerox State and Local Solutions, is technically no better, albeit less tainted by outright corruption. Xerox's cameras in Baltimore had a 10-26% error rate when audited, meaning the contractor issued up to 70,000 erroneous tickets in 2012 alone.)

Redflex has, of course, denied this and vows to "aggressively defend" itself against these claims. But this latest claim won't do much to salvage its almost completely destroyed reputation. Redflex isn't alone in its troubles. Contractors and camera systems are facing intense backlash across the nation, especially as evidence of faulty cameras, backroom deals and general incompetence continues to surface.

The accusations against Redflex can hardly be considered a surprise, considering the symbiotic relationship between contractors and city governments that tends to form when a new source of revenue is spotted. As long as the cameras issue tickets and the tickets continue to be paid, no one involved at the city level has much reason to examine the inner workings very closely. And if they've been plied by tickets to sporting events and rounds of golf, it makes it that much easier to drown out the complaints of constituents.

Filed Under: arizona, bribery, california, colorado, fcc, traffic camera
Companies: redflex, xerox

Red Light Cameras On The Decline, As Everyone Realizes They Don't Make Roads Safer, They Just Make Money

from the good-riddance dept

For many years we've written about the problems of red light cameras. Installed over the past few years in many cities, the public statements supporting them were always about increased safety on our roads. However, as we've noted, plenty of studies showed that the cameras actually tended to increase accidents, showed little to no safety benefit, and were almost always driven by monetary incentives. Because of this, there were numerous reports of various municipalities actually deciding to decrease the time on yellow lights, thereby getting more money from tickets, but massively increasing the safety risk. Multiple studies have shown that the one way to make intersections safer is to increase the yellow light time -- but in order to make more money, many were decreasing it (often below legal limits).

The anger over these tactics has been increasing quite a bit over the past few years and a variety of cities decided to cancel their programs, causing the leading company providing these systems (who takes a large cut of every ticket), Redflex, to face some financial difficulties.

It appears that the trends are definitely against red light cameras. Cyrus Farivar has a great article (though, annoyingly paginated) about the decline in red light cameras, noting that 2013 was the first year where more red light camera systems were turned off than turned on.

Redflex's US operations took a hit in 2013 as the company installed 54 new systems—but removed 101. Redflex’s recent fiscal report (PDF) shows that its after-tax net profits in a six-month period have dropped by half: plummeting from $7.1 million in the first half of 2012 to $3.6 million in the first six months of 2013.

Meanwhile, the article also takes on the various "competing studies" concerning red light cameras, and pointing to one study that compared a whole bunch of the studies, evaluated their methodologies, and found that the ones that showed benefits to red light cameras, almost invariably had dreadful methodologies that didn't take into account the basic variability in accidents at any given intersection, and the likelihood of a return to the mean (in short: intersections with an abnormally large number of accidents frequently see that amount go down the following year -- and red light camera makers and the studies supporting them rarely took into account that variability, but assigned such a decrease to the cameras). When correcting for such problems, the study of studies found the data showed that red light cameras are a problem, not a solution:

The meta-analysis concluded that, when only the best studies were considered, "The results of the meta-analysis are rather unfavorable for RLCs... According to the results from these studies, right-angle collisions are reduced by about 10 percent, rear-end collisions increase significantly by about 40 percent, and the overall effect on all types of crashes is an increase by about 15 percent. Only studies with weaker study designs yield results that are more favorable for RLCs."

The study which those researches said had the best methodology also found significant negative impact overall:

the increase in costs from the increase in rear-end crashes more than offset the reduction in costs from the decrease in red light running crashes.

Hopefully, this is the beginning of the end for red light cameras. We're all for making intersections safer, but the way to do that is to increase the time on yellow lights -- and for places that still don't have this: have a brief interval where lights in both directions are red, rather than switching simultaneously to red in one direction and green in the other. And yes, every time I make that last point, people who don't live in places where that's the case marvel that any place in the world has this, but it's true in many, many places. Switching that to having an interval with both directions red, plus a longer yellow light, will actually make people safer, and yet... it doesn't make any more money, so very few have been willing to make this simple switch.

Filed Under: red light cameras
Companies: redflex

68,000 Speeding Fines May Need To Be Refunded In Australia Due To Faulty Cameras

from the where's-that-brick-wall-heading dept

For many years, we've noted that speed cameras were notoriously unreliable, with stories of brick walls traveling at high rates of speed, a car being clocked at an astounding 420 mph and another story where a parked car was given multiple speeding tickets, all while remaining blissfully stationed at the curb.

One of the main traffic camera providers is the company Redflex, which has been having trouble lately, as many governments are ditching the cameras. And it looks like things may be getting even worse. Reader midofo points us to the news that the government in Victoria, Australia is now realizing that its Redflex speed cameras were faulty. There's now an investigation into just how many fines will need to be refunded. Of course, the only reason they figured this out was because a woman got a ticket for traveling nearly 100 mph in a car that simply could not go that fast. That resulted in an investigation and the discovery that the cameras weren't working properly (of course, some might argue that since the cameras are really just about revenue generation they were working just fine...).

Filed Under: australia, faulty, speed cameras, speeding tickets
Companies: redflex

Speed Camera Company Admission May Mean Tickets Issued From 1997-2008 Weren't Valid

from the details,-details dept

Redlight and speed camera provider Redflex is not having a great year. The company's revenue has taken a hit due to massive opposition to these cameras, leading it to lose a major contract in the state of Arizona, while having many of its camera programs declared illegal. But things may be getting even worse. Reader Pwdrskir points us to some news coming out of a lawsuit that Redflex is dealing with from competitor American Traffic Solutions (ATS). The details of that aren't all that interesting. However, as a part of that lawsuit, Redflex had to admit that its radar/speed cameras, despite claims to the contrary by Redflex were not certified by the FCC until 2008. That calls into question every ticket issued by those cameras from 1997 to 2008. And, as the article notes, it sounds like a lawsuit is already being planned in response to challenge the validity of those past tickets.

Filed Under: certification, radar, speed cameras
Companies: redflex

Anger Against Red Light And Speed Cameras Going Mainstream

from the people-don't-like-'em dept

A bunch of folks have submitted this recent Washington Post article about the growing anger and resentment towards red light and speed cameras. We've posted similar articles in the past, but this is one of the first times I've seen the topic discussed in a major mainstream paper. The discussion basically hits on all the high points, showing that people really hate the devices and that the reason they're so popular is not safety, but revenue. It also looks at the stats, talking about a few different studies. It does mention one study claiming that the cameras have decreased accidents and fatalities, but then notes numerous other studies that disagree, and digs into the details of the original study to find that it does not account for multiple other factors. At best, the studies seem to indicate that red light and speed cameras do not decrease accident rates (in one damning study, a town that got rid of its cameras saw a bigger decrease in accidents than a neighboring town that installed them). In the end, it's quite clear that the cameras are entirely about money, and have nothing to do with safety -- and it's nice to see more people recognizing this issue.

Filed Under: anger, red light cameras, speed cameras
Companies: redflex