City Council’s 6-3 vote last night to get rid of red-light cameras followed a long and sometimes testy debate between some members of Council and Mayor Lovely Warren at a committee meeting before Council met.
Council members Carolee Conklin and Matt Haag were the most vocal. Haag said that Warren was taking a “baby-bath water” approach by throwing out the entire program when the city’s studies show that the cameras have significantly reduced accidents at some intersections.
The city should tweak the program to eliminate the problems but keep the benefits, he said.
Warren said that she voted in favor of starting the program years ago because she believed it would improve safety on the city’s streets. But since accident rates stayed the same or actually increased at some intersections with cameras, she couldn’t accept that argument, anymore, she said.
“I couldn’t stand before the community with any credibility and say this is for safety when the study doesn’t show that,” she said.
The program also has a disproportionate effect on the poor, Warren said. The $50 fine for running a red light may not seem like much, she said, but for many city families, it’s catastrophic; they may have to choose between paying the fine and paying the electric bill.
But some people at a public hearing held the day before the Council vote said that every fine disproportionately affects the poor, and that shouldn’t be a reason to get rid of the program. The comments were largely divided along racial lines, with the African-American speakers universally against the program.
Many speakers asked the city to explore other alternatives to improve traffic safety, such as a reduced citywide speed limit and road redesigns.
City residents owe more than $8 million in outstanding fines from red-light tickets.
Warren also pointed out that since the ticket goes to the owner of the car and not the driver, that some people owe money for violations they didn’t commit.
The red-light camera program ends on December 31. The city may sell the outstanding debt to an agency so that it gets out of the red-light camera business entirely, Warren said.
This article appears in Dec 21-27, 2016.
Well lookie here, a link to the study that shows how the cameras were placed. And where were they placed? Targeting poor people? Noooooo, as expected, they targeted trouble intersections. But hey, lets keep saying poor people were unfairly targeted.
The study shows the placement of each camera, and their pre and post installment accident rates.
http://www.cityofrochester.gov/WorkArea/li…
Even if that study is correct and the red light cameras were placed only in trouble intersections, let’s ask ourselves why. Is it because many more people in low-income neighborhoods walk and bike on unsafe streets that were designed for cars only? We should control traffic by design and not through a ticketing system that disproportionately affects people in poverty.
OK, this was the solution to a re-election need. Now, what are we going to do about the insane number of bad drivers who run red lights every day?
It was always an unethical approach with the emphasis on creating and maintaining a stream of revenue.
They won’t be missed.
While we’re at it, better look at repealing annual inspections and insurance because I am sure people in poverty cannot afford those expenses.
Here is another quote from the report you site above: “Evidence captured by the red light cameras is reviewed by the camera vendor and potential violations are forwarded to the Rochester Police Department where a swornofficer determines whether a violation has occurred.”
Anyone who has ever run a business or knows how “vendors’ work, they are not going to create data that indicates their product is unnecessary. Think for one second about this without your “oh poor people are against this, so it must be actually a good thing” blinders… No actually, the vendors can adjust what threshold of violation occurs per camera, so as to produce whatever number of quotas they need per camera…The vendor then hands the data over to the police…. That is why in certain areas, just an inch of your front bumper can be over the line and they give you a violation, whereas in other intersections, you can run straight through a stale light and get nothing… So yes even before the data arrives to city council and the police, it is already cooked by the vendor…
“So yes even before the data arrives to city council and the police, it is already cooked by the vendor…”
Rajesh, proof? Or ASSumption?
The council made a wise decision to get out of the red light camera money grab racket that seriously hurts lower income ticket victims. Small inexpensive engineering changes to the lights and intersections will almost certainly reduce violations and crashes by MORE than the cameras can achieve. Red light cameras are always a money grab racket and should be illegal in every state, as they are in some now.
James C. Walker, National Motorists Association
If a bill collector tries to harass a vehicle owner about a ticket, remember that the three national credit bureaus will NOT accept a report about an unpaid camera ticket. They do not consider them to be valid debts that were voluntarily signed up for by the vehicle owner.
James C. Walker, National Motorists Association
There is supposedly technology currently available to disable cell phones in cars. Shouldn’t we adopt that technology and get rid of the money grab cell phone law?
A poor person and Bill Gates both know that you don’t run red lights. It’s a cop out, an excuse so she can have this on her list of reasons to retain the poor, black, inner-city vote for the next election. She’s a hack.
$8 million owed, 115,000 outstanding tickets. How will this be collected. How can this city afford to leave $8 million on the table? How much other fiscal irresponsibility is going on in the city?