Red light traffic cameras serve as a deterrent to motorists traveling on the streets of many cities. During tough economic times, they can be a source of revenue as well. For the most part, local governments love them and motorists hate them. But Boulder, Colorado is going against the trend to add more cameras with legislation aimed and eliminating them altogether.
“I think when you look at the role of government within this, we should be about safety and not about generating revenue,” Colorado Republican Sen. Scott Renfroe, sponsor of the bill, told the Durango Herald. “And I think the data is really starting to fall out that red-light cameras are more of a revenue source than increase of safety.”
The new bill going through the Colorado state legislature would prohibit municipalities from using “automated vehicle identification systems to identify violators of traffic regulations and issue citations based on photographic evidence.”
Its an ongoing issue nationwide that commonly brings criticism and the argument that automated enforcement programs should be geared to promoting safety, not simply generating revenue.
“You would decrease safety on the streets if (photo enforcement) was something that was prohibited,” said Mike Sweeney, the Boulder’s transportation planning and operations coordinator. The city is fighting the bill, saying they are worried about making intersections more dangerous, losing revenue and undoing years of work training driver behavior.There is a lot at stake in Boulder too. Using the photo technology, 20,783 tickets for red-light violations and 13,000 tickets for speeding violations were generated in 2011 bringing in $1.45 million in revenue and caught 924 scofflaws (people that fail to pay fines owed), a record for the city that resulted in $208,000 in fines.
But its not all about the money-making capability in Boulder. The system which includes red light cameras and mobile radar devices only made a net profit of about $140,000.
If approved when voted on February 21, the bill would have Boulder removing red-light cameras and photo radar vans to catch speeders.
“Our concern would be that you’re taking an effective tool out of the toolbox,” Sweeney said. “Public safety will be impacted if you don’t allow the use of the cameras.”
Nationwide, just 25 cities had installed permanent red-light cameras in 2000. In the past decade, that number has surged to 550 in 2011. The National Institute for Highway Safety has a list of camera’s in use and the fines associated with them. At the top is Illinois with a $250 fine or 25 hours community service as a penalty for running a red light.
In traffic-congested Los Angeles, California the debate is raging as well as we see in this video.
Flickr photo by Horia Varlan