Wednesday, February 15, 2006

SA suburbs may install red light cameras

The San Antonio Express News has a story this morning about two SA suburbs installing red light cameras at area intersections. As it happens I was quoted in the story:
"It's just a way to soak the taxpayers, and it doesn't benefit public safety in practice," said Scott Henson, director of the Police Accountability Project for the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas.
One of the reporters, Patrick Driscoll, also has a good blog post providing lots more resources on the topic, including a link to a Texas Transportation Institute study (pdf) which he said was cut from the article. That analysis found adding one second to yellow light times would reduce red light running by 40%.

I've always wondered why, if cities like Houston, Garland or these SA suburbs are so concerned about traffic safety, they don't try lengthening yellow light times first. The only reason I can think of is that they're doing it to generate new revenue, not really to make the roads safer.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Cleveland's new mayor (Ohio not east Tex) just installed a bunch of new red light cameras. The trick is that they are mostly placed at the borders with the suburbs. So not only do the commuters have to pay an income tax on money made in the city (no taxation without representation and don't give me that crap about upkeep of streets and other city services if you saw the pot holes)but the commuters also pay for their parnoia that if they stop on the sudden red after that really short amber that the car behind them is going to plow into their car's rear end (and they will). So the only way to end this madness is for SA to pull a Houston and annex the suburban asses before All SA drivers fear to leave the city and the Hill Country business base withers from lack of patronage.