Red Light Cameras Everywhere...For Safety? or Revenue? (Gurnee, Lake Zurich: sales, neighborhoods)

[Avengerfire]

Lake in the Hills is moving one of their cameras because they are no longer making money off of it.

[At1WithNature]

How about safety, revenue, and to desensitize the population to being filmed by the government? How long before every corner has a "red light" camera that is capable of viewing 360 degrees? sounds like London to me!

[ccjarider]

Originally Posted by Drover

The yellow lights in this city have always been moronically short even before the red light cameras went up. But it never occurred to the city that this might be part of the problem. As for how much revenue these stupid cameras generate... they are now clipping along at $50 million per year. Yeah, go ahead and try tell me this isn't about revenue. Bonus points if you can do it with a straight face.

When a few people run red lights, then fine, catch 'em and deal with 'em. But when enough people are running red lights to generate $50,000,000 in revenue per year from cameras that are posted at only a small fraction of the total red-light interesections, then there's clearly a traffic engineering problem. But addressing the actual problem would cost money rather than make money, so naturally the city chooses to make money on its own shoddy engineering.

One could argue that if there is $50,000,000 income being generated; the only real problem is gov't deciding to ticket and raise revenue from normal human behavior. If this # is true then the behavior is not a problem, otherwise everyday there would be dozens of wrecks at these interesections. Clearly that is not the case. This is about revenue, revenue revenue. Unfortunately the Chicago lemming population does not seem to care.

[cubssoxfan]

Strictly MONEY!! Car & Driver magazine had an article about how red light cameras actually caused an increase in accidents at corners that had them. Now they are aiming at Speeding Cameras, all I can think of is: what happened to "land of the free"?!! Why can't they take this technology and have it prevent drunk driving or harassment of bicyclists by cars (or unsafe bicyclists)?

[Humboldt1]

Is there a camera light at halsted and madison? I slid on a yellow and may have run the light in the rain tonight? If so, that will be 90 dollars I owe.

[ajolotl]

A guy walked right up to my car screaming at me like a lunatic very late at night at a red light in Englewood. I didn't like the whole scene so I drove through the intersection (it was pretty dark and empty). I figured if a cop saw me that it would be a good thing. Anyhow, none did, but I got one of those tickets in the mail a few weeks later. Unfortunately neither of the two photos show the person -- just a plate closeup and a picture of my car going under a red light. How damn annoying.

Still, I'd do it all over again if I were in that situation. Always a small chance of getting jacked around there at that hour of the night.

[supernerdgirl]

I saw someone deliberately run a red light last night in Lombard or one of those other suburbs along north ave. that all look alike. EVERYONE else was smart enough to stop, while this idiot actually sped up. I wished there would have been a camera at that light. I have no sympathy for people that deliberately drive like morons.

I also got far enough out in the burbs to get to where there weren't any sidewalks anymore, which makes absolutely NO sense to me...

[Drover]

1) Sidewalks cost money.

2) Developers are cheap.

Make a little more sense now?

[supernerdgirl]

Originally Posted by Drover

1) Sidewalks cost money.

2) Developers are cheap.

Make a little more sense now?

Those factors alone, sure it makes sense in that way.

But discouraging walking and giving suburbanites reason to live in their cars has been one of the dumber ways we've developed in this country, IMO.

[Drover]

And it's partly an aesthetic issue too. A lot of new developments are out what was farmland until about last Wednesday afternoon, and some developers are selling the "peace and quiet away from the noise and traffic of suburbia" angle. Sidewalks don't fit with that image -- it would be a tacit acknowledgment that there's enough traffic to require sidewalks.