I am a Conservative and a very strong one.
I believe in individual liberty, economic liberty and small government. America would be a far better place with much less government entanglements.
Amongst conservatives “red light cameras” are almost universally demonized as a horrible, overreaching improper government intrusion.
I have quite the different view. Youtube is full of videos showing people running red lights and the carnage that happens because of it. Because the police can’t be at every intersection, to me, red light cameras are a way of punishing bad drivers that accidentally run a red light and asshole drivers that deliberately run through red lights just because they are assholes.
Below is a video from my dash cam. This guy was speeding up on my rear and when I started to brake he swerved around me (cutting off a driver in the other lane) and ran the red light. Thank God there was not an accident.
NO EXCUSE !!!
I can’t express enough how serious a safety issue I think running red lights is.
BONUS FOOTAGE !!!!!
This post was in que and I captured another red light running douche bag:
I am certainly by far not a perfect driver, but because of a driving issue when I was 16, automotive safety is one of the most important daily issues for me. (I drive 70-100 miles daily)
There are a lot of reasons people argue against red light cameras. I disagree with almost all of them.
Generally, if you don’t want a red light ticket, drive correctly and don’t run red lights.
I once received a red light ticket. I contested it as a legal “right on red” and won.
My only concern with red light camera use:
CHICAGO GRIFTS DRIVERS WITH SHORTER YELLOW LIGHTS
The Chicago Tribune released findings from their ongoing investigation into the city’s red-light camera program on Thursday, revealing that with the city’s transition to a new camera vendor came a “subtle but significant lowering of the threshold for yellow light times.”
The new vendor, Xerox State & Local Solutions, took over the program in 2013 after Redflex Traffic Systems Inc. was alleged to have paid $2 million in bribes to city transportation official John Bills.
But it seems as though Chicago has simply traded one suspect vendor for another, as disputed tickets issued by the Xerox cameras are 50 times more likely than those issued by Redflex to have resulted from a yellow light shorter than the three-second legal minimum, according to the Tribune.
That is a major problem and my biggest concern.
But it shouldn’t mean that there should be no red light cameras.
