Traffic camera debates heat up
| • | Cameras capture red-light runners |
By Larry Copeland
USA Today
ATLANTA — State Rep. Barry Loudermilk recently introduced a bill to ban red-light enforcement cameras in Georgia. Among his objections to the traffic control devices: the absence of human involvement.
"If you run a red light and a police officer witnesses you running it, he walks up to you and checks your identification. He's citing you, not your car," says Loudermilk, a Republican from northwest Georgia. "He's a witness. He sees you commit the act. He conducts something of an investigation.
"With a red-light camera, it's like convicting a gun for murder. You have to prove your innocence instead of the government proving your guilt. That might seem trivial to people, but it's a slippery slope with the Constitution."
Loudermilk, a third-year legislator and businessman, says another concern is that a red-light camera violator is treated differently from a driver nailed by a police officer for running a light. The first simply pays a civil fine. The second is charged with a criminal misdemeanor. He acknowledges that his bill probably won't pass, although he says support is growing.
"A lot of people do object to red-light cameras," he says. "There's as many opinions about why they shouldn't be here as why they should be."
Loudermilk's complaints are part of a nationwide debate about whether the cameras are an appropriate tool to discourage drivers from running red lights and endangering other motorists and pedestrians:
Oral arguments in the Minnesota Supreme Court over Minneapolis' suspended camera program are scheduled for next month. In North Carolina, Charlotte and several other cities ended their camera programs this year after the state Court of Appeals upheld a lower court's ruling that most proceeds from signal violations must go to local schools. The case is being appealed to the state Supreme Court.
He says Albuquerque has issued 80,000 $100 citations in the past 18 months. Those fines went directly to the city as civil fees rather than to the state as motor vehicle violations, he says. Payne, a third-term Republican from Albuquerque, says he's also concerned because of studies showing that rear-end crashes rise when traffic cameras are installed, although more deadly side-impact crashes go down.
An increase in rear-end crashes in some communities immediately following the installation of red-light cameras is usually temporary, says Jeff Agnew, spokesman for the National Campaign to Stop Red Light Running, an advocacy group funded by traffic-camera firms.
Public opinion surveys repeatedly find about 75 percent to 80 percent support for cameras, says Richard Retting, senior transportation safety engineer at the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, an industry group. But he acknowledges, "This is a very contentious issue because there are very strong opponents of red-light cameras."
Aaron Quinn, communications manager for the Waunakee, Wis.-based National Motorists Association, which defends drivers' rights, is one of them. He says there are "more appropriate" ways to reduce red-light crashes, including having traffic lights at all corners of intersections show red for one second, creating a margin of error in case of red-light runners.
"We feel municipalities put in the cameras basically for revenue-generating purposes," says Quinn, whose group helped repeal the federal 55-mph speed limit.
