Voting is on my mind because, well, I voted yesterday (yay me!). So today I hear about these red-light cameras that our City Council is going to be considering.
Argh. Red Light Cameras coming to Austin. At least, they probably are.
Now, THIS is something that should be put to the public as a vote. There is absolutely no incentive for the City Council to do what “the people” want. In fact, as far as they’re concerned, the red light cameras mean the following things:
- More revenue for the City
- No impact to them personally (I’m sure they’re exempt from the tickets, or there’s some system that would stop them from getting it)
- More control
- Nobody votes, really, so it’s not like people will actually remember this the next time their term comes up.
Since when do politicians NOT choose something that gives them more money and more control?
From my perspective, this move means the following TO ME:
- A platform for more control by the Government later on.
Sure, NOW they just want to do speeding tickets. But don’t you think more intrusions are going to come, maybe 5, 7 years down the road? What’s to stop them from doing the following?
- Excuse me, is that a beer you’re drinking?
- Your inspection sticker is expired, maybe we should fine you now since we have you on camera.
- Hey, that looks like a joint you’re smoking!
- That car seat doesn’t look buckled in…
- Your car has been spotted with 13 Mexicans, so we’ll assume they’re all illegal.
- Your seat belt isn’t on, MISTER!
- Hmm, you’re normally across town at this time of day, but here you are downtown. Why is that? And who is that you’re with? We’ve never logged you with that person before.
- You look stressed, like maybe you killed your wife. We haven’t seen her on any cameras for the last 3 days. Where is she? Is everything ok?
Why isn’t this up for a vote?
I seem to remember reading that many cities had to take them down again after the false positives and errors, and especially once accidents increased at those intersections.
Avi, yup, DC is a stat maker. Some of the stats say increased accidents, but other stats say reduced. The reality is that “serious” accidents went down, but other accidents went up. Also, there’s a stat that says their violations reduced 250,000 in a year and they say it’s because of the cameras. I just don’t think it’s worth our freedom.
And as an update, Austin passed the resolution (or whatever) to have the cameras installed. 3 months from now, 15 cameras will be up and running.
Must be nice to be able to print money!