While other locales like Houston have chosen to shut down red light cameras, radical mayor Michael Bloomberg has chosen to play contrarian and expand their use in New York City.
In keeping with that very modern desire to find complex solutions to problems that don’t exist, New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg expressed his desire on Monday to put cameras on “every corner of the city” to enforce observance of red lights and, eventually perhaps, speed limits.
The panacea of technology to thwart the myriad dangers of modern society rears its ugly head, despite the scant evidence that it makes anyone safer, and greater evidence that it can actually be the cause of harm when people jam on breaks for fear of a inadvertent snapshot.
Around the country, cities and states are grappling with the questions of mechanical failures, public outrage at being under the watchful eye of big government and some very real constitutional problems. From the WSJ Law Blog :
At least a dozen cities and 9 states have banned traffic cameras, according to AP, which reports that opposition cameras is based partly on fiscal reasons (they can be money losers) and politics (voters are no fans of them.)
But opponents have also pulled out their trusty Constitutions, contending that red-light cameras violate due process rights and constitute an invasion of privacy, AP reports.
But New York City doesn’t learn from others.
“I think we should have ’em on every corner if we could,” the mayor said of the controversial cameras that trigger tickets to drivers caught running red lights.
“If people didn’t go through red lights, you’d save a lot of lives of elderly and kids,” Hizzoner told reporters Monday during a press conference.
True that people running red lights can be a problem, though saving “a lot” of people is bit of unjustified hyperbole since not “a lot” of people get run down without them. But even a billionaire mayor can take the logic one step farther, considering whether red light cameras stop people from running red lights. But is that really what’s on Bloomberg’s mind?
Bloomberg was responding to a Daily News report on the $52 million in fines the city issued last year to drivers caught by cameras – really a $55 million haul with penalties included.
One thing billionaires understand is money, and New York, like every other city, could use the money. Missing from Bloomberg’s pitch is any recognition of the constitutional issues at risk.
In 2007, the Minnesota Supreme Court struck down Minneapolis’ traffic camera program, concluding that it improperly presumed that the owners of vehicles were the ones caught on camera violating the law.
This National Review Online editorial today also argues that traffic cameras improperly presume guilt.
“There are certain questions that are germane to establishing the severity of an offense: Was the accused keeping up with traffic? Were the roads wet? Was the speeder reacting to a dangerous or reckless driver?” the piece states. “Machines cannot answer these questions, only people can.”
The argument, that it’s only money, maybe meaningless to Bloomberg, but isn’t necessarily so easily ignored by those who end up receiving the bill for something they may have had nothing to do with, or something that was lawfully justified but for which there is no opportunity to challenge.
Whether the red light camera is a step on the slippery slope of cash and carry criminal collections, or merely a one-off means of circumventing proof and constitutional protections in an effort to use technology to maybe cut down traffic violators and fill a city’s coffers, it’s fraught with flaws, Aside from the technical, the cost of operating and maintaining, the counterintuitive safety problems and the potential that they will cost more money than they will take in (as if all this isn’t enough), the price of constitutional rights can’t be so easily measured by a fine.
To add insult to injury, Bloomberg isn’t satisfied just collecting the lucre from the evil red light runners, but wants to use it as a weapon as well:
The mayor mused that the city could put up the cameras – then try to embarrass the rule-breakers.
A double-edged weapon, where he can not only humiliate the violators (remember, there is no due process, so they’re presume guilty from the outset), but humiliate lawmakers who, unlike Bloomberg, have a passing familiarity with the Constitution on the basic premise that the public can grasp a baby run down by a car easier than a constitutional right run down by a mayor.
A picture is worth a thousand words. It may be worth a thousand bucks as well if Bloomberg has his way. What are the chances Albany won’t give him the green light for this misguided plan?
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The other thing is that some cities have found that red light cameras have actually increased collisions due to drivers slamming on the brakes out of fear of getting caught running a red light. To be fair, though, it’s a dramatic increase in rear-end collisions as a trade-off for fewer major collisions that might happen when someone runs a red light.
But still, cities can dress it up as a safety issue all they want; it’s really about money.
You can’t do much about red light cameras except video the lights in operation and make sure the yellow lasts long enough. However it is possible to build a small device (‘calibrator’) which can send any ‘speed’ you choose to the radar cameras. You can sit in line of sight and make every city bus clock in at 120mph! Tee hee hee.
My objection to all such devices is the delayed notification of the alleged offense. It makes it almost impossible to defend.
I’m pretty sure that’s mentioned in the post.
So your objection isn’t that they shoot gamma rays at drivers’ heads? Because if it is, you can always protect against that by wearing a tin foil hat.
“… wearing a tin foil hat.”
And underwear. Never forget the underwear.
You’re growing on me. Like a fungus, but growing.
We’ve long had the red light camera problem here in . . .
[Ed. Note: Now, now, Joshua. I don’t like when marketers try to spam my blog with comments for their clients. And links are not allowed in comments, even if I was inclined to let you comment. You really don’t want to try to spam here again. Really.]
RLCs have much bigger problems than their constitutional ones. The National Motorists Association studied them, and found that in nearly all cases where the company operating the cameras makes a profit, it’s only because the yellow light time is too short for the actual speed of traffic (and when it’s set correctly, red light running drops to where the camera is no longer profitable).
They also found that the vast majority of RLC tickets are given to people turning right at less than 5 mph, a practice that isn’t unsafe and ought to be allowed.
Anyone touting statistics that “prove” RLCs save lives is almost certainly a paid shill for the camera companies, whether or not he or she is a politician.