Count me as one of the "not fans" of the cameras the city is planning to install at six intersections.
But apart from that, let me correct some of the errors in the editorial about the cameras. ("Red light cameras ultimately will stop the truly lawless" Manteca Bulletin, 6 Sep 08)
If the system is really "not costing anything," why did the chief of police ask for $189,000 to be transferred to a fund? We don't know, the chief didn't address the issue in any comprehensible way. His only comment in response to my question was "it was to make it... uh.. revenue neutral."
Next, no one is complaining about the $189,000. All I asked was what was it for? And furthermore, this is not the cost of the system. The editor is confusing this amount with the separate cost of installation. The "cost of installation" could be anything, we don't even have an estimate yet. And yes, this is the thing that we don't have to pay back so long as we keep the contract for three years.
(Three year contract? What could go wrong? Ever sign up for a contract for a cell phone? No chance of any regret there!)
Another mistake the editor makes is assuming that the council would have to cancel the contract to be responsible for the money (and they wouldn't be "that boneheaded"). Well, not so. Nestor can also cancel the contract at any time and demand immediate payment.
If you look on page two of that fine print, it lists a bunch of things that will permit Nestor to consider the city to be in breach of contract. I won't list them all, but one example: If someone contests a traffic ticket issued by the red light system and the City of Manteca doesn't present a "good enough case" in court or "do enough to prosecute" the case, then Nestor can cancel the contract and demand full payment immediately. In other words (if they want to be strict), if the police officer is 15 minutes late to court (or doesn't show up) just once then Nestor can demand immediate payment of perhaps millions of dollars! The contract has other provisions that make it possible for Nestor to cancel any time (and demand that huge payment immediately).
Although I never made the "Big Brother" argument, others have. But far from poo-pooing it with "get real," the editor should consider that the argument is much more than simple "invasion of privacy" or simply taking pictures of people who might be camera shy.
No, the real problem (we're getting real) is that now law enforcement will be taken from the public street, from public view and instead done in a Star Chamber, perhaps a single man reviewing evidence in secret.
The camera company doesn't actually issue any "citations." They refer all the pictures of the red light violations to the police department. Where the police then do ... something. That's where the big brother aspect comes in. What if the picture shows one of their friends? Another "police officer?" What if the picture is just a little blurry. Is it a nice car? Does it look like the person has money? What about the race of the driver? How about a driver that's on the list of known "problem people" that the Manteca Police admits keeping? (the one with 300 or 200 or 1000 names on it depending on who you ask).
You can use your own imagination. But there was a reason why this country was founded on the notion that laws are executed in the open in a process that's open to scrutiny by any person. The red light camera citation decisions will be made in the proverbial darkened room by some unknown guy in some unknown place for secret reasons. That is, unless they agree to oversight but I'm not holding my breath on that.
The editor then claims that it's not a cash cow because the city only gets 20 percent of the fines. That's only $80. Can someone explain to me the logic of that? Like, does it become a "cash cow" if it's $90? $150? $174.50? Is there some line somewhere above $80 called the "cash cow" line?
There's some nonsense about some extraordinary costs of writing traffic tickets, so it's not profitable. Let's not even discuss that because the editor is mixing two different accounting schemes, one for a human writing the tickets and another for the automated system. But he does let it slip out that a Manteca "police officer" makes about $110,000 per year. No, that's not "equipment" or "fuel costs" that's the Measure M sales tax increase being funneled into the lavish pay raises. For some reason, I've noticed the city never wants to say how much their policemen are being paid -- I think wisely because the average resident would probably be appalled at the greed of their public servants' union bosses. (No disrespect to the public servants) But I digress.
The most deceptive part of the editorial is at the end, where he asserts that the law will eventually "catch up" to all those who are exempt from the red light enforcement.
Let me go back a minute 'cause you're probably asking yourself, "there's people exempt from getting traffic tickets for running red lights?" The answer is yes. Because of recent court rulings, the picture of the driver taken by the red light camera must match the DMV records for the vehicle. Notice I didn't say match that person's drivers license. In other words the vehicle is registered to someone. That someone has a picture on file with the DMV. That file photo must match the driver that the red light camera photographs. Now, I don't know how much they have to match, but they have to somehow resemble each other.
The practical upshot of this is that only people driving a car registered themselves can be cited by the red light camera system. And only those where you can get a clear picture of the driver. Notice who this leaves out. Anyone driving a motorcycle with a helmet that covers their face. Anyone driving the company car or truck. If you want to get clever, a husband and wife can register each other's cars then they can run red lights all day long and be immune from the cameras. Also exempted is any of the many people who don't bother to get drivers licenses.
Now this is where the Manteca Bulletin editor is completely wrong. There will be no "eventual catching up with" those people who are exempt. There will be no "bench warrants" issued for failing to pay traffic tickets. There will be no eventual confiscation of vehicles! The reason is simple: There will be no tickets issued! No tickets, no court records, no bench warrants, no confiscations -- no penalties whatsoever for those in the "exempted class" which includes criminals or illegal aliens driving without licenses.
And by the way, the editor misstates how the "collision avoidance system" works. It doesn't hold the green light -- it holds the red light on the cross street. If it held the green light, then all you'd have to do is to gun the engine and the Nestor system would hold the green light for you. No one would ever get a traffic ticket! Because if the system held the green light they'd never get the red light and they can't get a ticket for "red light running" can they?
Sure, we each have our own opinions as to what "sounds like an effective system" but here's where science gets in the way. It doesn't matter what I think, it doesn't matter what you think or what the councilman thinks or what the newspaperman thinks. What matters is what the science actually tells us -- what there is actual evidence for. And so far, neither the company, nor the council nor the police nor the newspaper has provided one tiny scrap of evidence that the system is effective in any way in actually preventing accidents or improving safety. In fact, they haven't even shown by any study or evidence that their system of fiddling with the lights doesn't cause other hidden dangers or more accidents than it's supposed to prevent.
Maybe asking for scientific evidence is asking too much.
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