Money Making Red-light cameras on Austin council agenda

The Statesman reports that

"the Austin City Council will consider a 15-year, $15.8 million contract with Redflex Traffic Systems that would put — in the beginning — camera systems on 15 intersections."

Slippery politicos say that Red Light Cameras create safer roads and they are not for revenue purposes, but numerous studies across the country prove they cause MORE accidents and they give cities lots of additional revenue.

A 2001 report by the Majority Leader of the U.S. House of Representatives found:

"The changes in the yellow signal timing regulations have resulted in the inadequate yellow times. And these inadequate yellow times are the likely cause of almost 80 percent of red light entries."

Thenewspaper.com states this:

"There's a hidden tax being levied on motorists today. In theory, this tax is only levied on those who violate the law and put others in danger. But the reality is that the game has been rigged. And we're all at risk.

We are told to accept the idea that our laws should be administered by machines-not human beings-because it is a matter of safety. We must accept this expansion of government and this Orwellian threat to our privacy because cameras are the solution to the so-called red light running crisis."

But why have so many people become wanton red light runners all of a sudden? The answer seems to be that changes made to accommodate camera enforcement have produced yellow light times that, in many cases, are shortened to the point that they are inadequate. And when people come upon an intersection with inadequate yellow time, they are faced with the choice either of stopping abruptly on yellow (risking a rear end accident) or accelerating. The options for those confronting such circumstances are limited and unsafe. But each time a driver faces this dilemma, government increases its odds for hitting the jackpot.