Extremely Lame

In news that pretty much everyone here in Dallas already knew but couldn’t prove,  Ars Technica has an article up that shows that red light cameras that ticket people for running red lights have not reduced traffic accidents. It seems that quite the opposite is the case. They, in fact, actaully cause more rear end accidents because people are slamming their brakes on yellow lights to prevent getting ticketed.

Since these cameras went up around Dallas, people were complaining that the preventing wrecks was a front and it was really just a way to earn revenue. Well, it turns out that those people were right.  Cities have been intentionally cutting their yellow lights short in an effort to net more fat cash, often cutting them below the legal limit. From the Ars Technica article:

“In Dallas, yellow lights at the city’s revenue generators camera-enforced intersections were timed for just 3.15 seconds, or 0.35 seconds less than the Texas Department of Transportation minimum. In this case, a third of a second may make a substantial difference in revenue—theNewspaper reports that most (80 percent) red-light tickets are issued less than one second after the light has turned to red.”

Most people are lamenting the fact that these aren’t really preventing accidents, but rather they’re causing them. While that is unfortunate, I’m actually more concerned about this from a civil libertarian point of view. It seems to be yet another indication that we are living under a government that treat its citizens more of a threat than something that they need to protect, be it local, state, or federal. These fines aren’t going back to the citizens, they’re just going to maintain their over-inflated budget.It’s like how nearly every tax increase is claimed to go towards education. What happens is they cut funding for education for the same amount that the tax is for and then use the money they cut from education for whatever the hell they want, so the net result is no increase for education, but everyone’s taxes go up anyway.