CCA Voices of Greed blast red-light cameras

Are red-light cameras a harbinger of “failed socialism?” Or are CCA followers just idiots?

By Will Collette

The Charlestown Citizens Alliance is cranking up its anonymous voices of greed again. This time, these faceless legions are attacking, of all things, the opportunity for Charlestown to install cameras at our red lights along Route One to bust people who run those lights and put all of the rest of us in danger of violent death.

These cameras would not only cost the town NOTHING, but would probably generate revenue as the town would get a percentage of the fines for the violation.

In this town, where Colin Foote’s family still mourn his death on May 16, 2010 at the hands of a reckless driver who ran the light at Route One and West Beach, how dare the CCA launch this tirade.

Sure, these are the anonymous “voices of the people” and far be it for the CCA to reveal the identities of these thoughtless fools, never mind comment on their misstatement of facts and callous disrespect for law and public safety. Since they won’t do it, Progressive Charlestown will.

Let me stress that the following anonymous comments are not ours – they were published and broadcast by the Charlestown Citizens Alliance in its e-bleats. The CCA does not correct misstatements or challenge any of the ridiculous statements their followers make. Here are the CCA’s Voices of Greed from their last three e-bleats:

He supports red light cameras

I have no desire to duplicate the failed socialist police state that is modern England. Anyone who does, [sic] can move there. Just where does this march to an Orwellian nightmare stop? When we are all under constant surveillance, even while we sleep? No thanks. No cameras!

Progressive Charlestown comment: Get a grip, take a deep breath and have a nice cup of tea.

I am in agreement with the writer about not having red light cameras. In this tiny town with what 6 lights, it seems overkill. I also think its [sic] too much of "Big Brother" I don't want our whereabouts tracked, just on principle. I saw a similar TV news story on them and that paying the fine isn't even mandatory, since they weren't actually legally binding. Thanks for the information stream.

Fight government surveillance!

PC comment: wrapping your head with aluminum foil will prevent the government’s tracking rays from scrambling your brain. Unless it’s already too late. Also, wearing a disguise and changing it regularly will help thwart the government’s tracking cameras. For example, on Talk Like a Pirate Day, we all wore pirate beards, eye patches and bandanas.

I know this issue is about red lights, but since John brought up the speed cameras in England, I was reminded of this Wired article about feedback loops at which mentioned "dynamic speed displays" (where your speed is measured and displayed underneath the speed limit as you drive by). They've proven effective, and the idea is that by giving people data about their behavior in context, where they have the ability to change it and get real-time feedback, most people will do the right thing.

PC Comment: A reasonable comment. How the hell did that get in here?

I stop before red lights, but I don't like the idea of being tracked either. Do they photograph everyone, weather [sic] you stop or not? I think reaction to this will depend on how much you trust government.

PC Comment: Yes, once you pass through an intersection monitored by a red light camera, electronic cooties attach to your car and track you wherever you go (see comment about “failed socialist state,” above).

My experience in a town where I used to live when they installed the system was that everyone was not happy and there was an initial spike of rear end accidents at yellow lights as people stopped quickly and unexpectedly. People wanted to avoid tickets and on yellow lights some folks who usually would go through the light now choose to stop. It led to accidents. What changed was the County lengthened the yellow light cycle and did a PR campaign that said they would not ticket folks who were entering the light at yellow and exited when it had turned to red. They were giving a distance and time benefit for motorists to avoid yellow light crashes. It seemed to work.

PC Comment: I lived in Montgomery County, MD and worked in Washington, DC for 25 years. For much of that time, both jurisdictions had red light cameras because red-light running was almost like a sport in the area. The cameras busted red-light runners, changed behavior and saved lives. There were some adjustments people had to make, including the changes to yellow light lengths as noted above.

The openness of Route 1 and the tendency for people to speed would certainly be a factor in sudden stops and run thrus.[sic] A short yellow light would certainly raise revenue, but probably make the citizens ballistic.

PC Comment: It’s only been a short time since Charlestown pushed RIDOT to install all those Route One red lights. The idea was to cut down on speed. Not everyone thought all those red lights were a good idea (like me). But to some extent, the lights did slow traffic a little (not enough) and we now have the red-light running problem. Motorists have an expectation that when they go through a green light, they are safe. I’m sure that’s how Colin Foote felt. When a person decides to run a red light, s/he is making a decision that it is better to commit assault with a deadly weapon than to suffer the inconvenience of stopping. And as for makes “citizens ballistic,” it’s actually their cars that are ballistic.

Certainly this would be taken into account by the vendor, but it pays not to assume. There must be different standards for urban intersections and rural highways. The folks I would like to see caught in the act are the left hand turners from the high speed lane. Apparently a few folks can't figure out the dog legs, or are too lazy to take them. That is a really dangerous practice now because nobody expects them to be sitting there at a green light. I've seen it a bunch of times at West Beach Rd. and once at Wildflower.

PC comment: Why should there be a different standard for obeying the law between urban and rural? Is this the same crap about how Charlestown is so different that we should be exempt from laws that bind other Rhode Island citizens? If you die at West Beach and Route 1 or at Westminster and Dorrance Streets when hit by a red light runner, you’re just as dead.

On the traffic cameras, I do not want our town spending the hard earned money of our people on red light TV cameras. This is similar to these ridiculous battery powered speed monitors towed around and left by the police cars. I believe this is inappropriate use of tax money. How ridiculous is it when we pay our tax dollars for an electronic speed monitoring device that says "Have a Nice Day". Absurd

PC Comment: Another brilliant comment from some CCA paranoid who hasn’t been paying attention. Hey, anonymous dummy, the cameras will not cost the town a nickel – and we will get a share of the fines for a net gain to the town.

How about we put cameras in police dept. fire dept and town hall. so we can have more accountability of what they do and where our money goes.

PC Comment: How about we put a camera in the CCA clubhouse where the real decisions about what happen in this town are made in secret?

Instead of red light cameras, why not just reduce the speed limit on RT#1 to 40 mph especially along the area of the new traffic lights. A reduced speed limit would improve safety especially when monitored by local police issuing tickets for violators.

PC Comment: Another one who hasn’t been paying attention. Chief Shippee has already tried to get RIDOT to approve lowering the speed limit on Route One and was turned down.  

Speaking of rear end accidents - I live in Delray in the winter and the drivers are terrible. I was traveling at 40 miles an hour when the yellow quickly light [sic] turned to red . I looked behind me and saw a man speeding and I quickly made a decision that if I stopped , he would not have time to stop and would rear end me with great force. As I had my two young grandkids in the car, I made a split second decision to go through the light as it turned red. The man behind me did not stop and completely went through the red light. I was visibly shaken all day over this. I would rather pay the fine then have my family hurt. As a matter of fact, most seniors do not speed and I never go through red lights. This experience still haunts me and it happened last year.

PC Comment: And this has to do with red light cameras, how? Have a safe trip on your way back to Florida.

Re the comment about the English Police State, all countries have positives and negatives about living there and one should tabulate them all when making decisions, not just give one factor the total influence. I suggest that all of us need to be sufficiently open minded to consider if good practices in other countries can be beneficial here. We have many examples of this on the food area (Italian, Mexican, Chinese etc) so why not in traffic areas also?

PC Comment: Deciding how to enforce the law or how to save lives is not the same as choosing a meal in a Chinese restaurant. It’s nice to get a range of opinions. That’s democracy. I know it’s a deep-seated CCA principle to think these opinions are all of equal value and weight. Except they’re not. Some are misinformed. Some are stupid. Some are bigoted. Some are nuts. Some miss the point that there is a clear and present danger of death or injury to all of us so long as red-light runners get away with it. If we’re going to have red lights, we MUST have a way to stop criminal drivers from running those lights. That’s not something I want to trust to a CCA survey of anonymous fools.

The Westerly Sun had a good story about this, but it's not in the free online section of the paper. Like the comments here, the Sun story said there were supporters and detractors. Police Chiefs like them, the ACLU is opposed. According to our police chief, they would not cost Charlestown money.

PC Comment: Almost right. There is a diversity of opinion, except here in the CCA e-bleats, where almost all of anonymous comments are anti-red light cameras. Count them for yourself.

This week we had a guest visiting from Florida for a week. The guest formerly lived and was in California and was a California Highway Patrol officer for 29 years. I mentioned to him that the Police Chief in Charlestown was recommending that we install Red Light Cameras in our town. His response to me was "you don't want them" when asked why he said "believe me you don't want them" I respect this person and have known him for over 50 years. My response to the Town of Charlestown and the Police Chief is "we don't need big brother watching us" Is there a red light problem in Charlestown that needs to be fixed? If not leave it alone, and to say it is not going to generate revenue is unbelievable from the Town Council and Police Department.

Fatal car crash in California -
guess how it happened

PC Comment: Thank you for sharing that intelligent, well-reasoned commentary from this anonymous guest who was supposedly a CHIP officer for 29 years. Did you ask him how many times he had to extract mangled corpses from the wrecks of cars t-boned by red light runners? "You don't want them" is not an argument. That’s what I love about these CCA e-bleats – anybody can blather away with no accountability for their remarks.

Regarding the red light cameras .... My wife and I visit England regularly and there they have speed cameras all over the highways, mounted on bridges, overhead signage etc, along with lots of signs warning you "speed cameras active". They certainly make people a lot more aware of their speed and careful not to go too fast. I think that Charlestown should have lots of similar signs if it does install the cameras. Our motivation should be to prevent accidents.

PC Comment: In Maryland where we lived for 25 years and DC where we worked, there were lots of signs posted warning of the red light cameras. These signs did change people’s behavior. If you listen to Chief Shippee’s remarks from the September 12 Council meeting on Clerkbase, he said several times that what he wanted from the cameras was a change in behavior.

Wow! Charlestown must be a BIG town to desire to install red light cameras. I assume the town is going to contract with a service to install and operate these cameras. So how much will the town get? Not a revenue raiser? You have to be kidding - its free revenue the town doesn't have to do anything to collect except turn a police function over to a private company.

PC Comment: Another CCA follower with a short attention span. We have the red lights. We have had a tragic fatality caused by a red light runner. The cameras will be free and will give the town some revenue. As Chief Shippee testified at the September 12 Council meeting, the town would put out a Request for Proposals or would work cooperatively through the state to ensure we got the best deal on a good system

You should look at the experience in Houston where during the last election a voter-initiated referendum overwhelming voted to turn off the cameras that had been in place for several years. A judge has just ruled that the referendum was done illegally because it wasn't a charter issue, but the city council and the mayor have elected to support the will of the citizens. The city now is in litigation with the camera vendor over the revenue they feel they were due under their contract. Traffic data collected since the cameras were turned off this spring show a DECLINE in accidents at those intersections that had red light cameras. All previous studies conducted by Rice University were either inconclusive or showed red light cameras contributed to accidents.

PC Comment: The 2008 Rice University study (click here to read it) is an interesting one. This CCA anonymous commenter misrepresents its findings. It is true the number of crashes at red-light camera monitored intersections in Houston climbed from 15 to 18 in the 12 months following the camera installations. But the number of accidents at intersections without cameras climbed from 20 to 56 during the same period! But many people in Houston read the study the same way as this CCA anonymous commenter and applied political pressure to end the red light program. Just goes to show that vox populi can be totally full of crap, whether it’s in Houston, TX or Charlestown.

I hope the Charlestown council looks closely at both the legal implications of installing red light cameras and the contract they will be signing with the vendor. They also need to understand how the revenue may ultimately turn the town into a cocaine addict.

PC Comment: Well reasoned argument. Red-light cameras = Cocaine addiction. I think this commenter must either be Dan Slattery or Bob Watson. Maybe