Post Mortem On The Red Light Cameras

At the end of the Boer War (1899-1902) in South Africa there was a group of Afrikaners who wanted to continue the war against the British until the bitter end. They were consequently known as the “Bitter Enders.” As regards Albuquerque’s red light cameras and camera program, put me down as a bitter ender. I’ll continue to insist that the cameras were a positive for public safety, reduced accidents and deaths, and changed the driving habits of Duke City residents for the better. Furthermore, it would be a mistake to view the vote to remove the cameras as a big victory, or even a mild one. In fact, some who voted to get rid of the cameras were already phoning Bob Clark’s program on 770 KKOB last week; they didn’t realize that the speed vans around school zones were slated for removal along with the cameras.

The 53-47% vote to rid the city of the red light cameras was far from convincing. Bob Clark and Jim Villanucci, the morning and afternoon drivetime hosts on the city’s 50,000 watt blowtorch, had both railed against the program for years. That’s A LOT of free advertising, say $100,000+ worth. Consequently, those who opposed the cameras were highly motivated. They’d received a tremendous amount of positive reinforcement for their position for YEARS and naturally these two local heavyweights are capable of instilling and reinforcing opinion. Still, even after this onslaught, the vote was fairly tight, and, importantly, many who voted to get rid of the program did so because they objected to the revenue from the program going out of state (Arizona) and not redounding to the benefit of the City and local economy, NOT because they objected to the red light cameras. Calls to Villanucci echoing this point of view were legion before the vote. Had the money been going to Albuquerque, the camera program would probably have been approved by the voters.

We’ll go on the record here that red light running will naturally increase once the cameras are inactive. Longer yellow lights, better line of sight, yada yada. . . those who believe themselves above the traffic laws will believe themselves to have won a victory, and unfortunately here in Albuquerque a significant portion of the population cares not a wit for traffic laws and/or safety. I recall reading an article in the Albuquerque Journal which reported that 17,000 cars ran the red light at one Albuquerque intersection in just one month after it was widely known that the intersection was no longer monitored by camera. This was up dramatically from the prior months when the camera was operational. Caller after caller to Villanucci’s show, and importantly a lot of younger people, said the cameras HAD changed their driving habits for the better; they were no longer the cowboys they once were, i.e. they weren’t the danger they previously posed. This is/was reason enough to continue the program.

I myself have had many close calls but have never received a citation. I probably should have stopped on a few occasions, but even when I pushed the envelope I was not ticketed as I did not enter the intersection on the red. The fact is that THE ONLY WAY TO GET A TICKET FOR GOING THROUGH A RED LIGHT UNDER THE CAMERA PROGRAM IS TO CONSCIOUSLY AND PREMEDITATEDLY RUN THE LIGHT.

As for speeding tickets under the camera program, avoiding such tickets isn’t rocket science. All one needs to do is OBEY THE LAW. And, the truth is one doesn’t really need to obey the law, for we all know that the cameras are set to only ticket when one goes 11 miles above the speed limit, say 46 mph in a 35 mph zone. So, one can speed to the tune of 5-10 miles and still be untouched.

The sad fact of the matter is abolishing the red light cameras rewards those who will break the law. Their chances of getting caught speeding or red-light-running, and thus endangering the law abiding, are miniscule each time now. The cameras were able to identify those individuals in a second; a traffic stop will take 10-15 minutes. The miscreants are laughing all the way to the next signal now and we could be only a couple of months away from tragedy. Should a high profile red-light-running accident occur the voters may prove quite changeable; a vote taken afterwards would turn the cameras back on. Those that overturned our representative democracy, championed the program’s dismantlement, demonized a private company, Redflex, and applauded the vote to abolish the cameras may find the winds of fame equally fickle.