Yes, I have links. Let's see if they still work or if they have traveled to the memory hole. I posted them to the Cajun Clickers a few months back. Wikipedia still has most of them and a reasonable discussion about 20 years of overwhelming public opposition to them and other forms of automated traffic enforcement.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Road_safety_camera#Political_issues Another nice run down is here: http://www.beat-traffic-cameras.com/issues.htm Here is a link to the Virginia study showing an increase in injury accidents: http://vtrc.virginiadot.org/PubDetails.aspx?PubNo=05-R21 "Virginia localities are not generating net revenue. ... Further the data show that the cameras are correlated with a definite decrease in crashes that are directly attributable to red light running, a definite increase in rear-end crashes, a possible decrease in angle crashes, a net decrease in injury crashes attributable to red light running, and an increase in total injury crashes." Sadly, according to Wikipedia, Virginia put them back in. Corruption, triumphed over science there. The San Diego bribery link vanished and Google is crap flooded. Schneier lists six cities where officials were bribed to shorten yellow lights and compromise public safety for the sake of these cameras: http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2008/08/red_light_camer.html This article has lists the costs, up to $150,000 per intersection: http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2008/09/nj_tries_out_traffic_camera_pi.html Here's an article about how they've already been abused to thwart political opposition in the UK: http://www.schnews.org.uk/archive/news6252.htm Traffic cameras are the tip of an ugly police state. People don't want cameras but corruption brings them in. They reduces public safety but can be used for all sorts of abuse. It bothers me that money was wasted this way that could have been spent on electricity infrastructure, but that kind of thing should be expected. The less rights people have, the more they will find themselves in uncomfortable situations. On Saturday 13 September 2008, Edmund Cramp wrote: > Will - do you have references for any of these accusations? _______________________________________________ General mailing list [email protected] http://mail.brlug.net/mailman/listinfo/general_brlug.net
