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D'oh! Red-Light Cameras Come Down

Fri Mar 21, 2008 at 05:52:54 PM

Here's some interesting follow-ups to my March 5 feature story examining the use of red-light cameras in St. Louis.

thenewspaper.com
crash1.jpg
MSNBC reports today that officials in Dallas are removing more than a dozen cameras from intersections because they don't generate enough money to merit their cost. The news network reports that other cities -- including Charlotte and Fayetteville, North Carolina -- have also shut down cameras because the devices failed to raise enough revenue.

But red-light cameras aren't about making money. They're about public safety, right?

Tell that to officials in Lubbock, Texas, who last month shut down all cameras in their city after learning that the cameras actually increase the amount of rear-end collisions at intersections (a factoid my article pointed out.)

In St. Louis, meanwhile, the Board of Aldermen is expected to soon pass Board Bill 511 that would allow the city to jail and fine people who do not promptly pay citations generated from cameras installed at 21 intersections. As I reported earlier this month, city officials are effectively powerless -- as it stands -- to collect the $100 fines generated by the cameras and won't issue a bench warrant against people who simply ignore the citation or fail to appear in court.

-Chad Garrison

3 Comments:

Richard Pointer says:

That is exactly what the City needs. More criminalized behavior, because St. Louis doesn't have enough possible jailable crimes to lock up all of the citizenry.

Jack says:

The more cameras up, the better, damn the dollar cost. At most, rear-end collisions are a temporary effect as people change their driving habits from "homicidal" to "safe". It's not about the money, it's about the lives saved. We lose more people in one month in this country to car accidents than we've lost in the entire Iraq war, only our car "accident" victims include innocent babies and children.

Jack

Lenses in board cameras are pre-mounted and have a fixed iris. In most cases they have a short focal length (the distance between the surface of the lens and it's focal point) which results in a wide angle of view. Our board cameras have a lens between 3.6 and 6mm.

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