Since January 2009, accidents increased at 11 of 17 monitored intersections, and fatal crashes increased at 13 of those locations. Kansas City is not the first to see this happen with its red light camera program. The Star interviewed University of Illinois at Chicago Assistant Professor Rajiv Shah, who studied a red light camera program in Chicago:

“I’d say [Kansas City’s results are] very consistent with what cities across America have found . . . There’s really not a hard connection between reducing accidents and red-light cameras.”

The results of this study should have red light camera proponents reevaluating their positions. As we have pointed out before, red light cameras have many problems: they invade privacy and create a constitutionally suspect presumption of guilt. They are also prone to mistake. Brenda Talent, executive director of the Show-Me Institute, was fined for a violation she did not commit in Kansas City last year, and 1,000 lucky drivers were falsely accused of running red lights in Arnold, Mo., just two weeks ago.

Not surprisingly, American Traffic Solutions, the company that runs the program, publicly criticized the police department’s findings. ATS identified weather patterns, impaired drivers, and cell phone usage as the cause for increased wrecks. In other words, ATS identified anything but the red light cameras, which the company receives $1.6 million a year to operate, as the culprit for the increased crashes.

Despite the police study, it is likely that camera proponents will not rest. The Star editorial focused on a study by city engineers that found a decrease in total violations at monitored intersections. The Star praised the decrease in violations and declared that “red light cameras are working in Kansas City.” Fewer people running red lights, maybe; but if more accidents are occurring at monitored intersections, it is a stretch to conclude that red light cameras improve safety just because total violations have dropped.

Much to the dismay of proponents like the Star, the police study just confirmed what we already knew. Red light cameras are not about public safety, they are about generating revenue through traffic enforcement. The program has been very lucrative in Kansas City. The police study reports that officers have written nearly 200,000 tickets at $100 per ticket — adding $20 million to the city coffers.

The post Red Light Cameras Fail To Improve Safety In Kansas City appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

• A reminder call for the repeal of the earnings tax in Saint Louis and Kansas City.
• Executive Director Brenda Talent summarizes the trajectory of proposed Aerotropolis tax credit legislation.
• A summary of the Show-Me Institute’s recent policy study on the Saint Louis land bank, the LRA.
• A warm introduction for the Show-Me Institute’s new director of development, Elizabeth Lanier-Shipp.
• An invitation to attend the free-market book clubs sponsored by the Show-Me Institute, held in Saint Louis and Columbia.
• A look at the Show-Me Institute’s 2011 summer interns: who they are and where they’re headed.
• Recent and upcoming events hosted or sponsored by the Show-Me Institute.
• A profile of the Show-Me Institute’s new communications director, Rick Edlund.
• An article opposing the use of red light cameras.

The post Show-Me Newsletter: 2011, Number 2 appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Motorists driving along roadways maintained by the Missouri Department of Transportation could receive fewer red-light camera tickets if preliminary reports from Arnold ring true statewide.

Beginning in February, MoDOT began changing the yellow-light signal times throughout Arnold, where all the city’s red-light cameras happen to be along state-controlled roads. In general, the change to the signals has lengthened the amount of time for yellow lights.

For example, motorists traveling southbound through the intersection of Highway 141 and Astra Way now have 1.6 seconds more yellow time — from 4 seconds to 5.6 seconds. MoDOT has also changed the length of time that all signals at an intersection appear red, generally giving intersections a bit more time to clear all cars before changing lights.

In so doing, Arnold has experienced an unintended consequence — the number of red-light runners has plummeted since MoDOT made the changes.

In January, the city issued 691 red-light camera citations, according to information obtained from a city council member. By March, the number of citations had dropped to 263. Last month, the vendor that operates Arnold’s red-light cameras — American Traffic Solutions — confirms that it issued just 198 citations. That’s a drop of 72 percent from the number of citations issued in January.

The Show-Me Institute has a long history of opposing red light cameras, particularly given the cameras’ questionable effectiveness in preventing accidents yet prodigious aptitude for raising money for cities. Lately, though, Missouri’s red light camera industry has been traversing rocky judicial and legislative roads. Earlier this month, policy analyst David Stokes astutely reviewed one court ruling in Saint Louis that could very well cripple the use of red light camera systems in the city. His analysis:

It will probably take an act of the legislature to declare unequivocally that red light camera programs are invalid as a matter of state law, but the red light camera issue may, for all practical purposes, be resolved by adjusting the signals where the cameras sit. The roads in Missouri may be getting a great deal safer, just by adding a little more time to yellow lights — a simple, nearly costless solution to an important issue of public safety.

Cities must be elated. After all, “safety” was the driving purpose behind their use of these cameras anyway, right?

Right?

The post Could a Longer Yellow Mean Less Green in City Coffers? appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Brenda disagreed with the charge that she had run the red light for four reasons:

1. She tries very hard not to run red lights, and to obey other traffic laws.
2. Neither she, nor any member of her family, was in Kansas City on Feb. 16.
3. The car in the video was not her car.
4. The license plate in the photo was not her plate.

Outside of those four reasons, Kansas City had a really good case. Brenda, as the head of a free-market policy organization with a history of opposing these red light cameras as a money-raising device ineffective policy, was in a unique position to enjoy this letter. For just about every other Missourian, something like this is a major pain. Even if you are wrongly accused, the prospect of losing more time and money may well mean that it’s more worthwhile to make it just go away by paying the fine than to fight it. More offensive to me than the mistaken fine, though, is the assumption of guilt implicit in having a camera decide that you are guilty and need to pay a fine. If I ever had any faith in the fact that a police officer is “supposed” to be “reviewing” these tickets, I’ve lost that faith after seeing that an officer signed off on a ticket for the wrong car with the wrong plate. Brenda admits that the plate looked similar — they confused a “V” with a “Y” — but the car wasn’t all that similar.

From Brenda’s perspective as a responsible adult, the story has a happy ending. From my perspective as a blogger, it has a terrible ending. Brenda called the customer service line of the red light camera company, and was able to discuss all of the above issues in a call that took about 20 minutes. The customer service representative — Kyle from Tempe — promised that the company would put this ticket into their review category. The Show-Me Institute is in a pretty unique situation, so we might be the only people in Missouri who would hope for the bureaucratic nightmare, so we’d have something even more interesting to write about. Sure enough, though, the evidence was so bad that they rescinded the ticket, so our nightmare did not emerge. Still, it took Brenda about 20 minutes of her time to work out the situation.

(I wonder whether Kyle’s father-in-law set him up in a starter home in suburban Tempe.)

The post Red Light Camera Tickets Strike the Show-Me Institute appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

A online shout-out to former intern Phil for bringing this story to my attention.

The post You Are Now Free to Move About Franklin County appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

MoDOT’s current director cuts through the canard that cities advance suggesting the cameras are there for safety purposes (parentheses in the original):

“Whether speed or red-light running cameras, they are taking this and using it as a moneymaking, revenue-generating activity, and that’s not fair,” [interim state Transportation Director Kevin] Keith said. “I can’t say everyone is doing it. We have enough indications that there are (communities) doing that. It gives us pause.”

If anyone out there actually believes what the cities say about safety, I have a toll bridge over Lake of the Ozarks to sell you. It’s the only one in the state, so it’s pretty valuable.

There are benefits to having a large number of small governments in Missouri, and particularly in St. Louis County. There are also costs. The primary benefit is the difficulty of enacting comprehensive government planning in an area with so many separate governments. The two primary costs are the fiscal cost of redundant services and the consistent abuses of traffic regulations for revenue purposes by small cities. I commend MoDOT for attempting to halt some of those abuses.

The post Progress on Red-Light Cameras appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Politicians and policemen coming. The nanny state has its official new dawn. This August I saw the traffic stops. Seat-belt checkpoints in Pine Lawn.

Gotta just face and accept it. Red-light tickets being sent in the mail. Should have used cameras long ago.

Speed cameras placed on the Inner Belt. Seat-belt traffic stops in the towns. You’re under surveillance, didn’t you know?

In most of Missouri, the police are not authorized to use a seat-belt violation as the primary reason for pulling you over. The Missouri Department of Transportation (MoDOT), should stick to doing what they do well — and it does a number of things well. That doesn’t include using tax dollars as part of an argument to limit our freedom. However, St. Louis County has had the audacity wisdom to enact its own primary seat-belt law, along with bike helmet laws and any other excuse they can find to protect us from ourselves.

So, that is the state of liberty in St. Louis County. We can get stuck in a seat-belt checkpoint any time the police in some tiny municipality feel the need.

(Just to be clear, attempting to run over a policeman is not an appropriate form of civil disobedience, and the shooting itself appears to be entirely justified.)

The post Shooting at a Seat-Belt Checkpoint … I Repeat, a Seat-Belt Checkpoint appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

As if on cue, today’s Post-Dispatch has a story about a disagreement between St. Charles County and MoDOT regarding bicycle restrictions on state roads within St. Charles. One councilman, Joe Brazil (I have had the pleasure of meeting him, and we have praised him here in the past for his stances against annexation and TIF abuse), wants to ban bicyclists from certain state roads in the county. MoDOT is opposed. My purpose here is not to discuss this specific issue, but rather the process. Nonetheless, I don’t support banning bicyclists from any roads other than interstate highways, and I have to point out one comment in favor of the proposal to ban bikes by someone who, understandably, has a personal interest in the matter:

Among supporters was Stephen East of Cottleville, whose 16-year-old daughter was seriously injured in a 2003 accident on DD when the vehicle she was driving topped a hill and encountered a bicyclist in her lane. East said she swerved, ran off the road, hit a tree and was thrown from the car.

“Public safety trumps personal rights,” East said.

No, sir, it doesn’t. And it is exactly this far-too-common belief that our safety is more important than our rights that is causing us to lose our rights to safety zealots via death by a thousand cuts. I give you helmet laws, seat belt laws, closed swimming pools, and the fact that organizations can no longer just have a bake sale or parish pot luck because health regulations forbid food cooked at a home from being sold or given away elsewhere. Because, you know, that’s “dangerous.”

But I digress. MoDOT says St. Charles can’t enforce the ordinance because the Highway Commission won’t approve it. MoDOT says it simply won’t post the signs telling people about the law — making it invalid under state law, which specifies that traffic rules must be properly posted for people to see. So, if St. Charles passes the ban and MoDOT won’t allow the county to enforce it, there will be some sort of court challenge. That might be the only way to answer the question of who has final say about roads — the governmental jurisdiction that owns it or the governmental jurisdiction it passes through.

In my opinion, the final say on traffic laws should belong to the jurisdiction that builds, maintains, and “owns” the road, if for no other reason than consistency. Hopefully, this will be further clarified soon, and hopefully in a way that does not allow cities like Charlack to do whatever they please on state or county roads.

I’d be delighted to see a statewide ban on things such as red light cameras and speed cameras on all roads. As the laws are currently written, though, I don’t think there is any doubt that cities can do whatever they want on city roads. (Thanks to Combest for the link.)

The post More on MoDOT and Local Control of Roads appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Despite criticism that cameras are aimed at generating revenue, [the city’s mayor] said Charlack passed a budget that did not count on camera fines. He said the ultimate goal is to phase out the photo program once motorists regularly drive more slowly through town.

The idea that the city will phase out the cameras once people drive more slowly is perhaps the most unbelieveable statement I’ve heard a politician say in a long time. And who cares if they passed a budget that did not count on camera fines? All that means is that they can spend the money however they want once it starts flowing in.

I have argued that the many small cities in St. Louis County should continue to exist as long as the citizens want them to. Here is the conclusion to my Government in Missouri study:

Missourians have chosen to have a large quantity of smaller government units. They have also chosen to have a large number of elected officials, representing smaller areas than the national average, so that the citizens may be in closer contact with those officials and monitor them more effectively. Economies of scale can be exploited in larger governments, as shown in the graph of per-capita spending for class three counties, but the efficiencies and benefits of larger government are less common and less significant than often supposed. The assumption that larger, less fragmented government is a more capable and efficient provider of services does not stand up to initial analysis and is not supported by the research.

But behavior like installing speed cameras, which is nothing more than a technologically advanced version of St. George–style speed traps, makes me question that once again. I would certainly favor legislation at the state or county level to forbid these types of cameras on the road — at the very least, on state or county roads.

I believe that speed cameras, just like red light cameras, are nothing more than a giant scam. I also believe they violate our rights — most importantly, the right not to be tracked by cameras every moment of your life. I am confident that would have been the Eleventh Amendment included in the Bill of Rights, if cameras had been invented yet.

The post Speed Cameras Are Detestable appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Policing by Camera, a panel Q&A – Show-Me Institute
from Show-Me Institute on Vimeo.

French has spent nearly a year trying to get surveillance cameras installed in some of the high-crime areas of his ward. He maintains that the cameras will help police officers identify criminals, while deterring crime.

Lembke has argued against the use of red light cameras. The cameras, he says, violate due process because the owner of a car seen running a red light is presumed guilty — even if the camera cannot identify the driver.

If you are interested in how our local elected officials view the trade-offs between liberty and security, I encourage you to watch this video. Both the moderator and the public asked probing questions, which Lembke and French answered thoughtfully.

I hope that we can host similar, engaging discussions in the future. You can check back on this blog, join our email list, or become a fan of the Show-Me Institute to get updates about future events.

The post Red Light Camera and Surveillance Camera Discussion Now Online! appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

The discussion will begin at 7:00 p.m. on Wednesday, June 9,
at the Show-Me Institute Office at 4512 W. Pine.
Please RSVP either by email, to info@showmeinstitute.org,
or by phone at (314) 454-0647,
or by commenting on this blog post.

Sen. Lembke, who represents part of the city of Saint Louis and Saint Louis County, has spoken out against the use of red light cameras, on the grounds that they entail the presumption of guilt. As he said in a Post-Dispatch article, “[the use of red light cameras] takes liberty away in that there’s no other crime that I know of on the books where I as a citizen am guilty until I prove my innocence.”

Alderman French, who represents the 21st ward, has been campaigning hard to have surveillance cameras set up near high-crime areas in his ward. In the Riverfront Times blog, French explained that the crime is coming from a small group of people, and that surveillance cameras might deter that activity. From the RFT:

“It’s the same group of bad guys doing bad things,” French says. “We’ll advertise the hell out if it, that there’s cameras. One of reason people do things is because they think that can get away with it. If they know somebody is watching it’s very likely they’ll go somewhere else to do drug activity and violence.”

One of the most interesting aspects about the use of both red light and surveillance cameras is that the cameras will likely soon be able to identify, without a doubt, the individual committing a crime. At that point, although camera surveillance seems to be a particularly un-American activity, is there any constitutional argument against it? Do cameras really infringe upon our liberties if they are placed in public places where any police officer could also be placed?

French and Lembke will have the opportunity to answer these questions, and others, on June 9. If you are free, please drop by. The discussion will be informal; it our hope that attendees can ask the elected officials questions directly, and be part of an engaging conversation about the trade-offs between liberty and security.

Liberty on the Rocks is a nonpartisan, nonprofit, social organization that seeks to unite individuals, regardless of political affiliation, who desire liberty. With the goal of facilitating networks, friendships, and intelligent conversation, Liberty on the Rocks seeks to initiate the energy and dialogue necessary to move America from the grassroots up, toward the constitutional principles of freedom used to found this nation.

The post Policing By Camera: A Discussion of Red Light and Surveillance Cameras as a Tool of Law Enforcement appeared first on Show-Me Institute.