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March 15, 2008
More traffic cameras on the way
According to Friday's Times Free Press (page B3), the City of East Ridge is the latest local municipality to move toward using cameras at traffic intersections to help enforce driving laws:
The council approved an ordinance Thursday night that paves the way for cameras at intersections to cite those who run lights or make illegal turns as well as others to ticket speeders. “This is a safety issue,” said Mayor Mike Steele, who along with Councilmen Tom Card, Denny Manning and Larry Sewell supported the measure.
Michael Silence has been blogging about traffic cameras in Knoxville for some time now, and has taken great care to illustrate that the safety gains from these implementations are at best nonexistent, and at worst negative (despite his own paper's reporting of irrational claims to the contrary). (Oh, and his latest post on the subject features a story from right here in River City.)
What do you think? Are we more safe with the cameras? Or are they merely means of increasing revenues without those pesky, albeit low, police officer salaries as offset?
By the way, if you think Chattanooga police officers aren't required to meet "quotas" for traffic citations, you might want to think again. And you might want to stay tuned.
Government | By joe lance | 12:21 PM