[Politech] Another report from red light cam fight in Chapel Hill [priv]

From: Declan McCullagh (declan@private)
Date: Wed Feb 04 2004 - 05:59:15 PST

  • Next message: Declan McCullagh: "[Politech] Reason's Ron Bailey on alarmist scientists... and reality"

    ---
    
    Date: Wed, 04 Feb 2004 08:56:11 -0500
    From: Ben Brunk <brunkb@private>
    User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.6b) 
    Gecko/20031205 Thunderbird/0.4
    To: declan@private, James W <jsuberw@private>
    Subject: another account of the Chapel Hill stoplight cameras fight
    
    Declan,
    
    Hello from Chapel Hill.  I thought your readers might like some of the 
    inside scoop on what just took place here with regard to the vote to remove 
    the stoplight cameras.  It is true, the Town Council voted 5-4 against 
    continuing their "Safelight" system.  I sent many letters and e-mails in 
    protest of the cameras and there were several local activists (notably, a 
    man named Will Raymond) who worked very hard to get this done.  The turning 
    point came with the election of two new council members who campaigned on a 
    promise to put an end to the system and actually carried through on that 
    promise.
    
    One thing that really bothered me about this whole process was how sourly 
    politicized the issue became.  The pro-camera people could not win on the 
    facts so they resorted to the typical forms of misdirection.
    One of the Council members as well as the company (ACS) pulled out all the 
    stops in an attempt to sway the debate away from facts and logic and into 
    the realm of emotionalism and hand-waving (which is how the cameras came to 
    be in the first place).  The Saturday before the vote, ACS had a "question 
    and answer" forum at the local library which included a representative from 
    ACS handing out all kinds of schwag.  Also present was a woman named Ann 
    Sweet from the National Campaign to Stop Red Light Running who spoke about 
    how her daughter, Shawnee who died after being hit by a red light runner 
    (no one from ACS attempted to explain how a stoplight camera system would 
    have prevented this tragedy).  ACS is a major contributor to the National 
    Campaign to Stop Red Light Running. No bias there, really--only an entirely 
    phony grassroots lobby, similar to Americans for Gun Safety.  I think that 
    if an investigative journalist were to peel back the layers some more, they 
    would uncover a sophisticated public relations and marketing scheme at work 
    whereby the companies who want to get cameras installed come to a city and 
    blitz the media with pro-camera propaganda, including editorial page 
    comments.  If one were to believe media reports during the months leading 
    up to the camera vote, one would conclude that red light running was an 
    epidemic and people were dying here every day because of it.  Of course, no 
    such epidemic existed.  Nothing was any different than before.  Before the 
    cameras were voted on the first time, opposition to the cameras was 
    virtually shut down.  Every television segment and print article was about 
    how cameras increase safety and save lives, but offered no evidence to back 
    up those claims.  The original council meeting that took place was 
    ridiculous--the vote was already a done deal and concerns of opponents such 
    as myself were paid only lip service.  The anti-camera editorials I wrote 
    never saw daylight, yet many "local" residents wrote editorials that were 
    printed.  I was never able to contact any of those "local" writers, 
    however.  I suspect that the council had ACS as a vendor lined up 
    beforehand, although the council was ostensibly voting to "seek a vendor to 
    implement the cameras."  I wonder how closely the company worked with the 
    council and other town employees before the original vote?  The sell job 
    was very tightly managed and coordinated.
    
    I find that many of the arguments against the cameras such as privacy, 
    privatization of law enforcement, and related matters, are valid but easily 
    shot down by cameras supporters.  What camera opponents might better focus 
    upon is the unassaible fact that stoplight cameras do not create a 
    measurable improvement in intersection safety.  Think about it:  If an 
    intersection is already working so that there is only one accident in ten 
    thousand crossings (or better), then there is almost no room for 
    improvement there.  100% safety is a laudable goal, but not an actual 
    physical possibility.   By using that  argument, you throw it back to the 
    camera people to defend their proposal.  They will spit out many numbers 
    and figures, none of which describe exactly how the cameras supply that 
    extra magical  .0001% improvement.
    If one bothers to read the NC State study referenced in the articles, the 
    author states that cameras should be used as a last resort after all other 
    potential fixes have been exhausted (this was never attempted in Chapel 
    Hill).  The author's eloquent verbiage attempts to conceal the hard facts 
    but his devotion to the scientific method betrays him in the end.  Traffic 
    safety literature is rife with this subterfuge--for some reason these 
    researchers are unable to come right out and say things like "this 
    system  does not lead to measurable improvements."  Whether their funding 
    depends on a certain candor, I cannot say, but it is certainly a problem 
    when policy makers come to rely on these reports.
    Anyone with any background in performing cost-benefit analyses would 
    quickly conclude that there is enormous cost with little to no benefit.
    
    Some truly unbelievable rhetoric flew around during that meeting as well as 
    at the council meeting.  Accusations such as "Chapel Hill is now sending 
    the message that it is okay to break the law" and "it is absolutely 
    imperative that the town do something to improve intersection safety" 
    (this, despite there being no evidence of a red light running epidemic or 
    abnormal number of accidents in Chapel Hill).
    
    Another matter that occurred to me recently is that one reason stoplight 
    cameras may have become popular in North Carolina is because the state 
    legislature passed a law requiring all speeding ticket revenues to revert 
    back to the general fund.  That law was highly successful at shutting down 
    speed traps and the subsequent abuse of motorists by small town cops whose 
    primary job is to raise revenue.  Without the incentive of quick, nearly 
    unaccountable cash, the speed traps were scaled back.
    Stoplight cameras are their direct replacement, unfortunately.  The 
    remnants of the speed trap mentality persist--speed limits in Chapel Hill 
    appear to be designed around 1940s automobile technology, ensuring that 
    practically everyone is speeding all the time unless their car is 
    parked.  Ridiculously low speed limits are a national problem, there is 
    nothing special about Chapel Hill in that regard.  One wonders if there is 
    any reliable, untainted highway research literature at all.  I mention this 
    because low speed limits appear to be a major factor in intersection where 
    red light running is common.  Since the yellow light times are calculated 
    based on the posted speed limits, their duration is too short for the 
    intersection to clear when the light changes.  Today's posted speed limits 
    have about as much in common with reality as Lord of the Rings or Star Wars 
    do.  That unreality has not prevented municipalities from taking advantage 
    of the free money.  By now, Americans have been bilked out of trillions of 
    dollars through unfair traffic enforcement practices.  That represents a 
    whole lot of money flowing into government and a whole lot of financial 
    choices and personal time taken away from the people.  I doubt the current 
    victims will see a refund from the town.
    
    My take on the whole terrible experience is that once policy is in place, 
    it is very difficult to roll it back.  The underlying reason for the 
    council canceling the program was because they weren't making enough 
    money.  The negative public reaction is a distant second place after the 
    revenue aspect (and according to the media, there was *overwhelming* public 
    support for the cameras).  The other concerns got big play in the media, 
    but only so they could be shot down by camera supporters.  As I write this, 
    neighboring cities such as Charlotte, Greensboro, Raleigh, and now Cary all 
    have stoplight cameras installed or about to go in.
    The cash is rolling in.
    
    And there you have 1100 words on stoplight cameras in Chapel Hill!
    
    
    Ben Brunk
    
    _______________________________________________
    Politech mailing list
    Archived at http://www.politechbot.com/
    Moderated by Declan McCullagh (http://www.mccullagh.org/)
    



    This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Wed Feb 04 2004 - 06:21:45 PST