I'm all for this equipment and think the ethical arguments are bankrupt,
but I am biased perhaps.
Decades ago in another state, I appeared in court for a speeding citation
and was given traffic school at my request. The class and the police sergeant
who taught it, all gave up a Saturday to all brush up on traffic laws. On the
specific subject of running red lights, I learned a rule of thumb from the
sergeant: if a yellow light turns red before you reach the limit line at the far
side of the intersection, you have run the light. I put the rule into
practice and have seldom run a red light since.
It is a good rule, but after dutifully stopping at a big intersection as
the light was about to turn red, I found that few knew it. Some guy in an old
Ford panel van with some sort of animal cage in the back ran the light in the
opposite direction and a woman in a Dodge Dart slammed her accelerator peddle
as her light turned green (suggesting another rule we had learned: look
before you leap). The Dart lightly broadsided the Ford as it came through and the
woman slammed on her brakes, put her hands to her face, and began screaming.
The upset Ford flipped one and a half times as I watched the cage bouncing
around inside of it and skidded on its roof to a rest about a foot from me and my
left front fender. The guy in the van climbed out as the woman continued
screaming and I would have loved to have had a photo cop shoot this one instead of
me. I can still hear the screaming.
My point, I suppose, is that if photo cops can teach a lesson that way
too few drivers learn well enough and if government recovers the cost or even
profits, it is a good thing. When you consider payouts after signal running
accidents for all the related expenses, let alone the lost lives, you might say
it is the right thing as I do.
Bill Kahn
Prospect Park
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