Column: Red-Light Cameras a Way of Producing Green

If you drive a car, you've done it many times. You approach an intersection and the light is yellow. Yeah, you know it's about to change to red, but you hit the gas pedal and zoom on through. 

Dangerous? Sure. But there are degrees involved. There is no danger if there are no cars coming the other way. But in some places—around here, Morristown may be one of them, and other towns have bandied about the idea—that time-honored practice could end up being costly.

The . As the name implies, the cameras photograph those running a red light; offenders get a ticket in the mail. And the company running the cameras gets a cut of the fine.

There is a lot wrong with this picture. Tickets are sent to the registered owner of the vehicle, who, of course, may not have been the one driving. The ticketed owner does not get a chance to confront his accuser in court. Also, the idea that the company overseeing red-light camera operations has a financial interest in racking up as many violations as possible should give a reasonable person pause.

Still, there remains the counter argument that red-light cameras enhance safety. One may be willing to forget about such things as fairness under the law if our crowded New Jersey roads are made a bit safer.

The Insurance Institute of Highway Safety recently said that red-light cameras save lives. It produced statistics that said intersection traffic fatalities in large cities with red light cameras were 24 percent less than they were in cities without them.

That's all well and good, but is comparing cities a good comparison? After all, traffic flow in New York City is different than it is in Orlando regardless of red-light cameras.

How about we go to the same city and compare intersections with red-light cameras with intersections without them? That would be a better measuring stick.

In truth, before we go too far with the safety argument, we must consider a few other factors.

Red-light cameras have been in use for awhile in the state of Virginia and here is what that state's transportation department said about them in a report. The cameras "reduced the number of crashes directly attributable to red light running ... (but) further analysis indicated that the cameras are contributing to a definite increase in rear-end crashes."

That makes sense. If people suspect they are being photographed, they're more likely to stop short as soon as they see a yellow light, causing their vehicle to be hit from behind.

Interestingly, the Insurance Institute admitted this was the case, but had a ready answer. Such rear-end crashes, it said, tend to be less severe than collisions between two cars moving through an intersection. So, if one can paraphrase Orwell, who often is quoted when government surveillance of any kind comes up, one can conclude that all accidents are bad, but that some accidents are "more bad" than others.

Common sense also deals a blow to the safety argument.

A red-light camera may "catch" a driver going through a red light, but simply recording the offense is not going to stop an accident from occurring. Furthermore, a maniac driving through an intersection at 100 miles per hour is not going to be detected at all if he flies through when the light is green.

Random police surveillance of dangerous intersections is a better way to go. That raises the issue of money. Many towns simply do not have the revenue to maintain current police levels, let alone expand them. That is the reality of a 2 percent property tax cap and a bad economy. So for those towns, cameras make financial sense.

And that is how municipal officials should sell them. They should forget about the phony safety issue and candidly say, "We need red-light cameras to make money."

Would that make motorists happy?

Probably not, but at least some of them would appreciate the candor.

Fred Snowflack is a longtime opinion writer and journalist in the Morris County area. He is the author of the Morris County Politics blog, and the former editorial page editor of the Daily Record. His columns appear on Patch Monday mornings.