Thursday, December 18, 2008

Red light cameras coming to a halt?

A judge in San Diego, CA issued a ruling today essentially making certain contracts for red-light ticket systems illegal. Not ALL contracts...just certain ones.

Specifically, contracts where operators (read: greedy corporations) were paid based on the number of tickets generated through the system were found to violate some tiny line of California Vehicle Code.

A couple of years ago, the adjoining city (Roseville) installed red light cameras at a major intersection a couple blocks away. Although technically in another municipality, the red-light cameras (and adjusted yellow/red times) have resulting in traffic backing up into neighboring Citrus Heights. It's made the intersection in question (Cirby and Sunrise Blvd) all but unnavigable during most daylight hours. Bad weather makes the situation worse.

Yet municipalities persist. Highly focused sales teams overwhelm hapless, uncreative city managers into deals that profit corporate entities at whatever cost they can socialize (congested streets, lost time and productivity for all citizens), and we're all the poorer for it.

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