The Tennessee ConserVOLiance

Ralph Bristol’s show this morning spent a fair amount of time on the issue of Metro considering the installation of cameras on certain traffic lights. You know the ones. If you run the light, the camera takes a picture of your vehicle’s license plate and they mail you a ticket. Murfreesboro and Gallatin already use the things and Nashville is considering it.

I think it’s a bad idea for several reasons.

First is the problems they say they are looking to address. The biggest one is safety. People running lights can cause accidents. But do we need cameras that issue tickets to solve the problem? Not really. Metro could reprogram their lights to not have the green light come on until 2 or 3 seconds after the red light came on for the cross traffic. Accidents would be reduced or eliminated and there’s no need for cameras as traffic cops. As it is now, the cameras actually have been shown to cause a decrease in the number of crashes due to red lights being run and a corresponding increase in the number of rear end crashes as motorists stand on the brakes at the camera controlled intersections to avoid the ticket and are hit from behind.

Secondly is the cost. Many cities are choosing to get around the purchase price by either leasing the cameras from the companies or by splitting the revenue from the tickets. You can see where this is going. In order for the city to afford the cameras, they have to get tickets from the cameras - LOTS of tickets. If it is a lease arrangement, the leases can be several thousand dollars per month per camera. At $50 per ticket, a smallish lease of $4,000 per month would require 80 tickets per month - almost 3 per day, every day - just to break even. In the event there is a revenue sharing arrangement, for the city to make up the revenue they are losing, they’ll have to write twice as many tickets as before. Finally, should the city choose to buy the cameras outright, there is the cost of the camera (tens of thousands of dollars), followed by installation and maintenance (thousands more). Think of the number of tickets needed to continue to break even. The camera companies sell the systems with the assurance the equipment is 100% violator funded. The almost universal objection to the cameras are the ease with which the number of violators can be manipulated upwards. A couple of tenths of a second shaved off the time the light is yellow creates more tickets which equals more revenue. What government will be able to resist?

Thirdly we have the Constitutional arguments against the cameras. Not only can the cameras be wrong, they cannot be in court to testify against you. Thus no violator gets the benefit of their right to confront their accuser as they do with officer generated citations. Further, the camera does not take pictures of the actual driver of the vehicle. It captures the license plate and the ticket is mailed to the registered owner of the car. Kids, employees, relatives, neighbors - anyone who has a chance to borrow a vehicle, even with permission, can earn the owner of the car a fine. That many states decline to put points on the driving record of owners so cited means they understand this problem but don’t care. The money is too good.

There are more arguments against the cameras. I’ve included some links that point them out at the end of the post. But the biggest argument against them is that the government is involved in administrating the program. If that doesn’t frighten you, consider this. Daylight Savings Time began here in Tennessee in the early hours of Sunday, March 9. That was almost 72 hours ago. The traffic lights in Hermitage that are on timers that turn them from cycling to blinking and are set to begin blinking at 11PM in the evening and stop at 6AM in the morning - you know, for traffic safety and convenience. Those lights are still not changed. Not in my neighborhood, at least. They’re still on CST. Remember? The government is involved.

Lights, Scameras and Government Action! Nashvillians, call your council members and tell them you don’t want red light cameras. You’ll be safer and wealthier for it.

Blue

For more information, please see:

On the Use of Surveillance Cameras
Curtailing Carnage at the Traffic Light: Are Cameras the Answer?
Police Want Millions for Red-Light Cameras