D e s e r t E x p o s u r e
March 2010
Red Light Cameras
Page: 2
The argument continues whether this program is for public safety or for increased city income. The program was heralded as one for public safety when it was first thrust upon a somewhat indignant citizenry, but according to an editorial in the Las Cruces Sun-News in late January, none of those funds had yet been used to help with public safety.
But that doesn't mean the red-light cameras' mere presence hasn't had an effect. A few months ago, I received a love letter in the mail from the city of Albuquerque, replete with a picture of my Yugo (Peugeot was in the shop, again) and its license plate making a left turn on a red light. I don't recall the incident, but the picture does show that I was in the intersection (waiting) for the oncoming traffic to pass (and hopefully not run the light) before I turned. I did not barge out into the four-way, but I guess it was a situation that I would have had to prove otherwise. It was easier to send them $75. I'll write it off on taxes as "research" for this article.
After that, I made a decidedly renewed effort to watch my driving habits. No longer do I exit on an entrance ramp from the Interstate, drive the wrong way down a four-lane highway and not move when someone comes straight at me with flashing lights and honking horn, nor switch lanes at a stoplight to gain one car length — all things I have actually seen on New Mexico streets and highways.
Albuquerque's new mayor has said that it is time for an "independent review" of its Redflex program. Albuquerque has 20 cameras at various intersections, under a program that started in 2005. A pilot program that started in 2004 at two intersections shows a nearly 3,000-citation decrease over six months, a small drop in "right angle" wrecks, and another small drop in rear-end collisions. (So much for the red-light runners' defense that they don't think the guy behind them will stop, so it's "safer" to run the red light and breeze through a busy intersection.)
Las Cruces' camera system is based on the Albuquerque model, and will probably be increased by 2011.
Norman Fleeman of Las Cruces had a similar experience to mine, but with the Las Cruces cameras. In a recent letter to the editor of the Sun-News, he describes his experience, after which he paid his fine, and questions the $304,742 paid to Redflex by the city. He suggests that that money could be used to hire additional police officers and "improve public support."
Fleeman does have a point, and perhaps he was at the recent Las Cruces City Council meeting that I attended. Officials outlined the use of the funds that are collected, all of which will eventually be plowed back into traffic safety or equipment for the city police department.
Another wave of outrage by the citizenry of Las Cruces was inspired by the revelation that those who make an otherwise legal right turn on red while going more than 12 mph are also getting nailed.
But if you do get caught, you can also think of your being fined-by-mail experience in a different light. The Redflex system has made these types of traffic violations civil offenses, thus eliminating them as notches on your driving record, which otherwise at some point would cause you to lose your license, assuming you have one. You can compile 3, 5, 10 tickets this way, and pay only through your pocketbook, not by loss of driving privileges.
All in all, most drivers will have an opinion on the Redflex system. The company's website (www.redflex.com/html/usa/index.php) provides some interesting figures on the increase in safety.
My advice, whether you want it or not, is to put down the stupid cell phone, pay attention to the guys and gals around you who don't, stuff parking meters with chewing gum, and slow down. Perhaps the only excuse you should have to run a red light is to be color blind.
That's what I'm going to say next time.
Senior writer Jeff Berg casually ignores all parking fees anywhere he goes.
| Getting a Green Light
Traffic signal patents date from 1910 on and were numerous prior to the version patented by Garrett Morgan in 1923. But his version was probably the first designed by an African-American inventor, and it's essentially the design still used today. Morgan, who also invented an improved version of the gasmask in 1912, owned a tailoring shop in Cleveland. After a successful if unplanned demonstration of the gasmask in 1916, in which he used the device to enter a construction tunnel to save the lives of several men after an explosion, Morgan took a more active interest in developing safety devices to help humankind. (Predictably, some fools were hesitant to use a device invented by a black man.) While out and about one day, Morgan witnessed a traffic accident between a horsed carriage and a horseless one. The driver of the auto was injured, and the horse had to be put down. But this became an incentive for Morgan, who set out "to develop a means of automatically directing traffic without the need of a policeman or worker present." He patented an automatic traffic signal, which he said could be "operated for directing the flow of traffic" and "providing a clear and unambiguous 'visible indicator.'" It's unclear whether Morgan's device was electric or hand cranked. But every time you see (or run) a red light, you can thank Garrett Morgan. Traffic-light invention competition appears to have been fierce about this time, as a Detroit policeman, William Potts, developed a different version, which was in use at 20 Detroit intersections within a year. And as early as 1912, a Salt Lake City police officer, Lester Wire, decided to do something about the traffic in that city, creating the first red/green signal. Even though it has yet to be installed in Las Cruces (try driving through the lights on University Avenue over I-25 at any time of day), the first interconnected traffic signal system was also originated in Salt Lake City, when six connected intersections were controlled simultaneously from a manual switch. England was way ahead of the game, however. There, a gas-powered, manually triggered traffic signal was designed by railway engineer, J.P. Knight. The device was installed in 1868 outside of Buckingham Palace. Ironically, that was also the scene of the first traffic-light fatality, when the contrivance exploded in early 1869, killing the operator
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