Thanks to our intrepid city government’s ever-increasing thirst for tax dollars, photo radar has stumbled back into the local spotlight.
Now, before we get to the nitty-gritty of this, I have to explain that on strictly philosophical grounds that I would be opposed to photo radar and red light cameras even if there was evidence that they had a positive impact on traffic safety.
Governments owe us due diligence. Part of the effort of due diligence is determining why the citizens are disobeying the law. In this case, the law is a speed limit.
Before applying the big photo radar hammer to our civil liberties, have our governing elites looked into what are the root causes of speeding?
Have they asked if the citizens simply find the limits too low for reason?
If some 85 per cent of the populace is speeding on any given roadway, then the government is ethically compelled to act in a fashion that the citizens are clearly telling it to, which is increase the speed limit to a point at which only a small percentage of drivers are lawbreakers.
Is the local government failing to take into account societal changes in its’ enforcement regimen? As I’ve mentioned previously, you’re more likely to see Bigfoot than children in some of the playground zones haunted by our photo radar vans. Again, due diligence on the city’s part is in order.
Beyond that, photo radar promoters have taken unusual steps to ensure that the citizens are not able to compel their accusers to come forth. On that basis alone, photo radar has no legitimacy.
We would not countenance the idea of an accused shoplifter being denied the right to cross examine his accuser, yet the faceless bureaucracy gets a free pass when it issues a speeding ticket.
But let’s just look at the evidence at hand. Proponents of photo radar make the claim that it has a positive benefit by reducing the severity of traffic collisions.
Some opponents of photo radar claim that it has the opposite effect, as it has no immediate impact on the speeding driver while he’s in the act of breaking the law.
These arguments can be cut-and-pasted to the red light camera issue, as well.
But if you take the time to research the issue, you’ll find out that both sides are wrong.
Oh, there are studies that demonstrate the possibility that photo radar and red light cameras may have some modest benefits.
Those studies that are positively effusive in their support for enforcement cameras are the sole purvey of the law enforcement and insurance industries, or city governments looking for more revenue vans.
There are literally dozens of scholarly studies that can find no impact in either a positive or negative fashion.
Many cite and censure other studies for failing to do their own due diligence in statistical analysis.
For example, in spite of glowing claims to the efficacy of photo radar in reducing traffic fatalities, there simply isn’t a subset of blind numbers out there where one could reasonably pinpoint the time frame during which photo radar was introduced.
Conversely, if shown a 60-year graph of American traffic deaths, most people can accurately find the period during which seatbelt usage went from 10 per cent to 70 per cent.
For the record, you cannot find the time period during which cellphone usage exploded from near zero to nearly 100 per cent.
Virtually every study that is supportive of photo radar as a traffic safety device leans heavily on suppositions, the most glaring of which is that drivers exceeding the speed limit are more likely to be involved in collisions, which is not necessarily the reality.
So what’s the answer here?
Well, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: it’s blatantly dishonest or simply misinformed to state that photo radar saves lives. Any instances of supposed benefits can’t be definitively ascribed to the devices.
What we can have is some honesty. If the city is that desperate for cash that integrity be damned, then say so.
Better yet, just say we need the money from the cash vans, but we’ll use very penny raised to fix potholes and plow snow off the roads.
If the city did that simple and honest thing, opposition to photo radar would probably fade away.
Bill Greenwood is a local freelance columnist.