As someone who has been rear-ended at a camera-monitored red light, I’m highly suspicious of the value created by red light cameras. A new study by Rice University argues that although accidents have increased at camera-monitored intersections, that increase is almost entirely attributable to increases in the unmonitored directions. The mayor supports this argument by claiming that there’s been a spike in accidents at all intersections across the city, although there’s no data to support this claim.
One question I have is how are these accidents reported? Are they based on police reports? What percent of read-end collisions are reported? Were the police reports cross-checked with insurance claims for accuracy? I would expect that a lot of rear-end collisions aren’t reported simply because it takes less than five minutes to exchange insurance information and drive away.
Then I want to call attention to the graph in the report titled “Monitored vs. Unmonitored Approaches by Implementation Month”. The accident spike in unmonitored approaches seems to begin at the same time that the cameras went into production. Now correlation is not causation, but it’s highly suspicious. It’s incumbent upon the researchers to explain this divergence.
photo credit: j-e-m-s (dos chicas)
{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }
Texas private investigator legislation is causing problems for robo-cop traffic enforcement. A Texas judge said the company running a red-light camera was acting illegally because it did not have a private investigator license. On the basis of this ruling, motorists are challenging traffic tickets. The problem started when the legislature said computer forensics experts needed to be licensed like private eyes. See deails: http://legal-beagle.typepad.com/wrights_legal_beagle/2008/12/e-discovery-forensics-private-investigator-license-for-computer-data-collection-and-assessment.html –Ben