Not loved by everyone, but red light cameras save lives.
What’s that feisty billionaire mayor of New York done now?
Why, only pushed a bill that would make his city’s streets safer by installing more red light cameras. But – not surprisingly – he’s pissed a lot of New Yorkers off. The city already has 150 of the devices bearing their doppler eyes down on speedy scofflaws. And they certainly are catching a lot of people red light-handed. Last year fines from New York City red light cameras brought in revenues totaling $52 million. Mayor Michael Bloomberg doesn’t mention the money but focuses on the lives the additional cameras would save.
Of course, the extra cash wouldn’t hurt.
A state bill was introduced this past April that would add an additional 75 cameras and bring the city total to 225. In June the bill was passed by the senate, but was later stopped in the Assembly. That didn’t sit too well with the Mayor. In an interview on CBS he suggested the names of the assemblymen who voted down the bill be published in the newspaper. “Every time there’s somebody hit, it would be nice to say okay, assemblyman and senator so-and-so didn’t think that person’s life…these are the lives of our people we’re talking about.”
And apparently he thinks the $50 fines handed per offense out to the drivers who run red lights isn’t enough and their names should be published in the papers as well. Maintaining order through public humiliation.
Instead of going to Yankees games like his predecessor, Mayor Michael Bloomberg's out spreading the gospel of red light cameras.
The Mayor seems to be in a sort of camera craze this summer. This past June the Bloomberg administration sought approval to have the cameras installed on city street cleaners to sweep up – that is, take license plate pictures of – illegally parked vehicles. By handing over some of the patrol duty to the cleaners, the administration argues, police are freed up to do more important things like fighting crime. The administration also got approval to use cameras to catch motorists who use bus-only lanes.
Red light cameras, however, are the biggest of the big brother cameras, and Mayor Bloomberg wants them bad. “I think we should have ‘em on every corner if we could,” he told the New York Daily News.
I can’t say that I blame him. In 2009 New York City had 100 red light cameras. A big part of the reason they made their $52 million last year was the addition of 50 new cameras. The additional cameras fine revenues were up $15.5 million, or 29 percent over 2009 revenues. Given the fact that the cameras are a cash cow, one has to question if public safety is behind Mayor Bloomberg’s dedication to the cameras. The question is, are the streets really safer with them than without? That may sound like a silly question. I mean, how could red light cameras be dangerous? The people who complain about them complain because they got caught, not because they’re dangerous. Right?
A study released by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety this past February compared traffic fatalities at intersections in cities with red light cameras to those at intersections without. Comparing 14 cities in the US equipped with cameras to 48 cities without them over a five year period. To ensure the cities in the two groups were similar they only included cities with populations of at least 200,000. The report showed that the yearly rate of fatal red light running crashes decreased for both groups over the five year period, but while fatalities decreased 14 percent in cities without cameras, cities with cameras showed a 35 percent decrease. That amounted to 159 fewer people dying in the cities that use cameras. Based on these numbers, the Institute projected that, were all cities in the US with populations above 200,000 to have used the cameras during the same time period 815 lives would have been saved.
As if to send a word of encouragement to Mayor Bloomberg, the report concludes “…cameras remain controversial in some communities where opponents raise concerns about ‘big brother’ government tactics and claim that violators are victims of revenue-generating government schemes. In the current study, the cities that implemented red light camera programs had higher baseline crash rates, suggesting that government officials were motivated by safety concerns.”
Despite saving lives, cameras are not the ideal answer to red light running. While the cameras cut down on the more deadly right angle crashes they’ve led to a spike in rear-end crashes. Motorists become familiar with the locations of the cameras and become very brake-happy when the light turns yellow. But I think most of us would trade fatalities for fender-benders, even if the city’s all the while making millions in revenue. The fact that fatalities are down means the red light cameras are making us safer drivers. I disagree with Mayor Bloomberg on many issues, but whatever his motives, I’m with him on this one.
[image credits: ABC and TRANSPORTATIONNATION]
image 1: Red Light Camera
image 2: Bloomberg
Comments
“Actually, the argument is that there’s good evidence showing that lengthening yellow times is a far better way to prevent intersection accidents than red light cameras. It’s more effective, and doesn’t come with the creepy surveillance state vibe. Somehow, that doesn’t seem as appealing a policy to city governments. Another reason we critics have impugned the motives of public officials is that several cities have been caught shortening yellow times at intersections after they’ve been outfitted with cameras. That would seem to be a pretty good indication of a government that values revenue more than safety.” — Radley Balko
“Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”
-Benjamin Franklin, Historical Review of Pennsylvania, 1759
US author, diplomat, inventor, physicist, politician, & printer (1706 – 1790)
100% for this.
Do not do the crime, if you can not do the time.
$50 for braking a basic rule of the road. First rule of driving is red means stop, green means go.
If you speed up to run through a light paying $50 is the last of your problems, you could kill someone, maybe yourself.
Hell, I am for these in every traffic light in America, if they could film all the accidents at all intersections, the court system would be less hr said/she said and be based on truth.
Um, they do NOT necessarily improve safety. For example, in many jurisdictions they result in more rear-ending of vehicles.
And in many jurisdictions they play with yellow light timing to enhance revenue.
I will add that the technology behind those red light cameras isn’t exactly very robust. I’ve seen the one nearby just randomly blinking it’s strobes with no cars in the intersection.
Peter,
You should be ashamed of your self qouting the Insurance for Highway Safety Study. They are nothing more than a mouthpiece for the industry. I am surprised that New Yorkers put up with these cameras. If I had someone up there who wanted to run a ballot initative I could put it to a in New York city and let the citizens decide. I assure you that New Yorkers would throw out the cameras. Let your buddys at Goldman Saohs know I might be coming. Shame on bloomberg selling his sole to Goldman Sachs and lying to the public. In Houston we didn’t put up with it. Cameras gone.
Paul Kubosh
Houston Texas
(281) 850-0171
I must say I was a little hesitant when to quote a study from a group with “Insurance” in its name, and I’m aware of the “selective data” and accusations of the sort. But they seem to be the gold standard. This study is the most comprehensive to date, according to the Wash Post. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/02/01/AR2011020100021.html
The IIHS study has never been the gold standard, they just release more press releases than any real research organization does. The closest you are going to get to a Gold Standard for a red light camera study is the Virginia DOT study from 2007. It is truly the most thorough study done on the subject, and it has very few holes in it, unlike the IIHS study which has several huge gaping holes, like the unexplained 7 year gap in their data collection… Looking at the article you linked to, the author only used information that was included in the IIHS Press Release that was put out, and most likely never even read the actual study.
Virginia DOT 2007 RLC study:
http://www.stpetecameras.org/home/rlc-studies/virginia-trc-va-usa-2007-rlc-study
IIHS 2011 RLC “Death Study”:
http://www.stpetecameras.org/home/rlc-studies/iihs-usa-2011-rlc-study
Seems that a lot of the time people are happy with a law so long as they know they can break it with impunity, once you start to enforce it the screaming starts.
You should take the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety “death study” results with a grain of salt(or maybe a pound of it). The IIHS member organizations make millions every year off of red light cameras, and this study assumes that red light cameras are the only reason for the decline in intersection deaths. In other words, intersection engineering changes and changing traffic volumes are completely ignored by their study so they can promote red light cameras. They also chose a very small percentage of red-light-camera-installed-cities, and they cherry-picked the time periods for their study to fit their desired results. This study is about as valid as when the tobacco industry claimed that cigarette smoking increases lung capacity.
Right and safety technology didn’t change at all in that five year span of time that might have possibly saved some of those lives?
Well, in about 20 years when just about everybody has self-driving autos, that revenue stream is going to dry up. They’ll be lucky if they bring in a couple of thousand.