Red Traffic Light by Theen Moy licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0
Red Light Camera (RLC) enforcement is an aspect of many Americans’ lives. In many municipalities in California, intersections have third-party vendor-installed RLC enforcement systems in place, each issuing thousands of USD $470.00 traffic tickets to those who run red lights under certain circumstances. The local government agencies assert the cameras are being used to increase public safety and prevent fatalities, but the value gained through tickets and the monetary penalties associated with the tickets appear to outweigh the importance of actual timely enforcement. Removing the cameras and engineering better intersections will make great strides towards increasing the public trust in local government and, more importantly, make the roads safer for all drivers in my opinion. As a solution to the contentious use of RLC enforcement systems, I propose local governments remove the camera systems and focus on engineering better intersections. The police officers assigned to maintaining the systems, watching the videos, and issuing the citations can be reassigned to traffic enforcement and the money saved from paying the RLC system vendors can be utilized for specialized enforcement of red-light-running violations. Alternatively, the money saved from paying the vendors and officers could be used to install larger traffic lights, improve markings at intersections, and invest in more sophisticated traffic signal systems with variable light timing based on traffic conditions. A relatively free alternative would be to extend yellow-light timing to give drivers more time to make the stop/go decision when faced with a yellow light. The government’s job is to promote public safety and regulate traffic on the roadway, not use RLCs as a source of revenue while not engineering improvements to intersections with high crash rates. As residents of the cities and county affected by this issue, we can call upon our local government representatives to stop camera enforcement and engineer our way to better, safer roadways. At any rate, any combination of removal and engineering would make great strides to increase public safety, reduce crashes and injuries, and protect the motoring public. What do you, the reader, think about RLC systems?
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