To the honorable Forest Park officials:
Are you aware that a high percentage of the $545,000+ collected from red-light cameras came from safe drivers who endangered no one? [A street paved with gold, News, Jan. 11]. Federal research for Congress showed that only 6 one-hundredths of 1 percent (0.06% or 0.0006) of crashes involved a right on red turn, including those with or without a full stop. (http://www.nhtsa.gov/About NHTSA/Traffic Techs/current/The Safety Impact of Right Turn on Red: Report to Congress)
Yes, a slow rolling right on red turn is a technical foul in every state, but in almost every case the drivers looked carefully enough to avoid conflicts of the right of way with pedestrians, cyclists, and other vehicles.
What is the moral justification to fine safe drivers for the “terrible crime of driving safely”? Isn’t this a perversion of the very purpose for traffic enforcement — fining mostly safe drivers with the only actual result being the collection of revenue? The public is increasingly aware that using traffic enforcement against safe drivers for profits is 100 percent wrong, 100 percent of the time, and they despise it.
Red-light cameras are a hated and dying industry that should be illegal in every state, as they are in some already. They produce profits only by giving most tickets to safe drivers who endangered no one. Forest Park should end the use of the predatory red light cameras, as many cities nationwide have done.
James C. Walker
Life member
National Motorists Association
Board member and executive director
National Motorists Association Foundation
Ann Arbor, Michigan
www.motorists.org
