Quote:
Originally Posted by gweeks
Unfortunately that's not true. The reason the red light cameras have such a bad reputation in the U.S. is because many of the cities that put them in use them as a revenue source rather than enforcement of the law.
Greg Weeks
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Yeah, this is the problem in the US. But it's not so much that the cities are using them as a revenue source but that the red light camera companies are.
How it usually works is that a company approaches a city and offers to install 10-20 red light cameras, for free, and also offers to pay the city, say, $200,000. In exchange, the company gets to keep the fines from the cameras.
The problem is that the cameras were placed by the companies not at the most dangerous intersections, but at the intersections that were most likely to generate revenue. And, at least in one well-known case, they did shorten the yellow.
All of this has tainted the red-light camera idea in the US (not that the idea was that popular to begin with). My state has tried to pass authorizing legislation for the past 5 years of so, but even with safeguards (yellow must run for 5 seconds; camera location must be at the most dangerous intersections with respect to red light runners as determined by the department of transportation, etc.), the bill has not been able to pass.
So while I do like the idea in principle, it has been severely compromised in practice.