Thursday, February 19, 2009

Diana Vice and Red Light Cameras

I wanted to write on red light cameras, but being short of time today, I scoured some other blogs to find material I could copy rather than write original material. Found Diana Vice's excellent research on red light cameras. I totally agree with Diana Vice that it is an embarrassment to the GOP that a Republican would sponsor such legislation. I likewise am troubled by the fact that Republicans are leading the charge on the DNA database bill, which would require felony arrestees to submit their DNA for a national database. Since when are Republicans supposed to be for this Big Brother nonsense?

But back to Diana Vice and her blog. Diana writes:
As a registered Republican, these types of Republican-sponsored measures make me cringe. The Republican-controlled Indiana Senate passed a bill 28-22 yesterday that would allow cities and towns to install cameras at intersections to catch drivers running red lights.

C'mon, guys and gals, we all know that this is less about public safety and more about increasing revenue by extorting fines from Hoosier citizens. It's also an example of why more and more Republicans are abandoning the Party of Lincoln to join their Libertarian friends.

This is not only bad public policy, but it smacks of a Big Brother mentality. Republicans simply should not be supporting these types of intrusive measures.
Absolutely. These types of Big Brother measures could not be more opposed to Republican philosophy of limited government.

Diana goes on to provide some research on red lights cameras around the country. If the members of the General Assembly aren't reading her blog, they should be.

4 comments:

Diana Vice said...

Thanks for the endorsement!

Sean Shepard said...

Excellent to see Diana was all over this issue, great job.

In Arizona there has been considerable backlash by activists against their photo-radar and red light cameras.

Apparently, it was all outsourced there and they did not have police officers manning the equipment. The following video shows how brave the activists got and they have been successful in getting cameras removed in at least one county.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nGPt-AzyTcg

It's a little slow going but the important part kicks in around 1:10. Earlier than that a police vehicle with no lights on goes by and triggers the photo radar which was kind of humorous (wonder who pays that ticket - LOL).

Paul K. Ogden said...

Interesting, Sean. I could see the City privatizing the red light cameras and then politicians, blinded by campaign contributions, turn a blind eye as citizens get raked over the coal in tickets.

Downtown Indy said...

Seems to me that right-turn-on-red-when-there-is-oncoming-traffic cameras might be bigger revenue generators.