Beware of elected officials driving in traffic

Here's a pop quiz: Which of these two things is most likely to result in increased traffic police scrutiny?

A. Statistical evidence showing that traffic accidents have increased at a rate disproportionately higher than the population? Or

B. A mayor or city council member having a close call?

If you answered "B" then you are correct. The Sunday newspaper contained an article describing a meeting the Midland, Texas, mayor and three council members had with the police chief and a traffic lieutenant. According to the article, they swapped anecdotes about traffic near misses, but as for statistics there was only this:

Robinson and Bogart said there have been too many vehicles and not enough cops here since 2006-07, when the traffic volume roared up by 30 percent and accidents by 16 percent.

So if traffic increased by 30% but accidents increased by only 16% shouldn't that count as a success?

Anyway, the reason for this particular rant today is the following paragraph from the article:

"The police are doing everything they can, but we probably need to step up enforcement. It bothers me to think about big brother looking down our throats, but I would like to know more about other communities that have put in red light cameras."

[Emphasis added.]

The council wanted to raise taxes recently, but the citizens objected, and the council voted to hold the rate steady. Are they now looking at new ways to raise revenue or perhaps a way to get back at the citizenry? If so, that might be why they floated the red light camera trial balloon as history shows that their primary function isn't to increase safety but to raise revenue. Check out these dollar amounts reported in the Rocky Mountain News last January:

Denver pays Redflex of Scottsdale, Ariz., $31,920 a month to run the system and, in return, the city's monthly ticket revenue has gone from $6,230 in August to $173,295 in November.

Increasing the yellow light duration would have a much greater impact on safety than red light cameras. See this and other articles at Motorists.org. Hopefully, our elected officials will be reasonable and explore real ways to increase safety and not mere revenue raisers like red light cameras.

In conclusion, let's review one safety rule. No one starts out the day with the intent of having a car wreck. But it takes the driver's constant attention to avoid them. Take a look at this paragraph from the above mentioned newspaper article:

Perry said he has learned to look both ways before going through intersections. "I was sitting at Midkiff and the Andrews Highway one day last week and a guy ran right through the red light," he said.

He has learned to look both ways before going through an intersection. We won't stoop to sarcasm here, instead let's just reiterate something we learned in drivers' ed: Look both ways before going through an intersection.

Comments

[cs]

Maybe not the best time to be considering red light cameras...

http://thenewspaper.com/news/29/2918.asp

[Geo]

Very interesting, CS. Thanks for the link. It will be interesting to see what the California Supreme Court does with it.