Red light cameras are a money grab and not a safety feature

Here's more proof that the red light cameras are a money grab and not a safety feature.

[Cleveland Mayor Frank] Jackson says losing the cameras will cost the city about $6 million a year in annual revenue, which will have to be made up with budget cuts.

If the cameras were for safety, then a city would expect or want the revenue to be zero.

But the cities become dependent upon red light camera revenue, which means those cities need people to drive dangerously.

2008 TT post that showed how some local officials viewed the red light cameras as a money grab.

• Toledo's money problems ... and revenue from traffic enforcement cameras have fallen short.

• The new agreement with Redflex Traffic Systems Inc., of Culver City, Calif., which operates the cameras, would generate an additional $2 million next year for the [Toledo].
  • Councilman Frank Szollosi said the proposed agreement is "good news for the budget," but bad news for traffic violators.

• "No one likes to raise [red light camera] fees but, quite frankly, we are trying to balance the budget," [Toledo city council president] Mr. Sobczak said. "It's not out of the range of acceptable fees, and the administration is counting on increased fees to help balance the budget."

• Mayor Carty Finkbeiner would not say what departments may be affected [by layoffs] ... he blames the shortfall on lower than expected red light and parking fines

In February 2008, Lisa Renee wrote on her Glass City Jungle blog:

The City is counting on the increased revenue to help the budget which means, they are counting on residents of NWO to run red lights and to speed through intersections.

After all, if you all slow down and follow our traffic laws by driving safely then imagine the horrible affect it would have on our budget.

Nov 4, 2014 Cleveland.com story

Cleveland voters approved -- by a three-to-one margin -- a city charter change that bans using the cameras "unless a law enforcement officer is present at the location of the device and personally issues a ticket to the alleged violator at the time and date of the violation."

Former Cleveland Mayor Jane Campbell unveiled the camera plan as part of her 2005 budget, saying it would help plug a deficit.

But [Cleveland city] council eventually agreed to the plan, with the expectation that it would mainly target suburbanites, rather than residents.

Councilman Kevin Conwell said at the time that he told city administrators that certain streets in his ward were off-limits because he didn’t want poor residents in his Glenville neighborhood to be slapped with fines.

The city proposed cameras at Euclid Avenue and Mayfield Road, in University Circle. “I didn’t have any objections” to that location, Conwell said. “It would just get the people coming from the suburbs.”

So it was okay for "poor" people to drive dangerously.

Even though some Cleveland money-grab cameras were targeted at suburbanites, it was Cleveland voters who chose to ban the cameras.

#politics - #moronism