You’re driving in your car, minutes away from being late to work, and suddenly the traffic light you’re approaching switches from green to yellow. It’s going to be close, but there are no police cars nearby, and so you decide to push your foot down on the accelerator anyway. You speed through the intersection, but no accident occurs and after a brief moment wondering if the light was actually red or not, you move on with your day without thinking twice.
Until a month or two later, when you get a $100 ticket in the mail.
Maybe you should challenge it. But then again, there is pretty good evidence that you broke the law (in some states, red-light camera tickets actually come with a photo of the incident). And anyway, red-light cameras are no different from other traffic enforcement programs that may be inconvenient, but are meant to ensure our safety, right?
So why do you feel like you somehow just got fleeced?
Do red-light cameras make us safer?
There’s no shortage of controversy around the country when it comes to red-light cameras.
Their avowed purpose is to deter drivers from engaging in reckless and dangerous behavior that leads to accidents. According to the red-light camera industry group, American Traffic Solutions, 22% of all crashes are caused by drivers running red lights. These collisions lead to around 750 deaths each year and cost $7 billion in property damage, medical bills, lost productivity, and insurance hikes. If drivers know they might be ticketed, they’re more likely to slow down.
While this reasoning sounds good in theory, a number of recent studies appear to cast doubt on this initiative’s effectiveness in preventing traffic accidents. Many tickets are issued for harmless, technical infractions, such as failing to come to a complete stop before turning right.
And while it’s true that in some jurisdictions, highly dangerous right-angle or T-bone collisions are down, rear-end crashes have actually increased as some motorists are slamming on their breaks to avoid tickets while drivers behind them try to speed through the yellow light.
Lots and lots of revenue
But there is another angle to this controversy: the revenue generated from red-light tickets.
Nowhere has the controversy between safety and revenue been played out as publicly and vociferously as in Chicago. As the Chicago Sun-Times reports, the city “needs to find $754 million in new revenue to erase a 2016 budget shortfall,” which means it “cannot afford to kill the cash cow that red-light cameras have become.” Since Mayor Rahm Emanuel took office in 2011, the nation’s largest red light camera program has issued over 2.2 million tickets and generated more than $285 million in traffic-fine revenue for the city.
The program has been marked by a bribery scandal, peculiar spikes in tickets issued at certain intersections, and the Emanuel administration’s decision to “quietly” shorten yellow light times, which led to $7.7 million more from related tickets.
Three-fourths of the residents of Chicago are not too happy with how things are playing out. Earlier this year, after Emanuel was forced into the city’s first-ever mayoral run-off, he removed 50 cameras at 25 intersections in an attempt to put out the political fire.
Taxing the Poor?
Opponents argue that the real intent of red-light cameras is to raise revenue—and that they do so at the expense of the poor. Red-light camera proponents counter that the cameras protect the economically disadvantaged, noting that poor people are more likely to be killed by cars and that there are more accidents in low-income areas, and thus a greater need for safety enforcement in those communities.
But that argument fails to hold water if all those studies claiming that cameras are not deterring accidents are correct. Many see red-light camera fines as a sneaky way to shift more of the tax burden onto the poor; a regressive tax that disproportionately harms low-income and minority communities, much like the money generated by sales of lottery tickets.
You might be thinking: The cameras take photos of any car that runs a red light, so how is that unfair? But a $100 fine is a very different punishment for a wealthy person than an individual with a fixed low income.
If you live or work in downtown Chicago, it is relatively common to see the mayor’s black SUV motorcade running red lights. When asked about it, Emanuel usually responds something along the lines of “nobody is above the law” and that he will pay the fine. But the 40 to 60 percent of Chicagoans living below the poverty line in a number of neighborhoods on the south and west sides may not have that option.
With conflicting statistics on their effectiveness as a safety measure and concerns over their economic impact on the poor, red-light cameras are likely to remain a hot-button issue in the Windy City and beyond.
Related articles on AvvoStories:
