FISH STORIES FROM THE OPERATORS OF TRAFFIC SCAMERAS.

We are constantly beseiged by Traffic Cameras... and they're becoming more and more popular by the day... especially by money hungry cities. In it's entirity, please find below an article from Car & Driver magazine by one of my favorite authors there... and read HIS "take" on these cameras. And click the banners to learn how YOU can fight back and WIN!



BY PATRICK BEDARD – Car & Driver Magazine
July 2006


Have I got this right? We’re mad at our government for monitoring a few calls to or from suspicious foreign numbers? We’d rather blind ourselves to a terrorist attack, never mind that 3000 died in the last big one? If we treasure privacy so much, then why do we embrace government snooping when nothing is at stake? Why do all the surveys say we love photo radar?

Let’s be clear about this. If traveling a few mph over the limit were a prediction of mayhem, the readers of this magazine would all be dead and so would I.

But here I am, minutes away from my golden years and still trying to understand why our love for privacy grinds into reverse the instant we buckle into our cars. The Arizona Department of Transportation did a study late last year in anticipation of Scottsdale’s plan to set up speed cameras on a local freeway. A part of the study asked 13 other photo-enforcing cities around the world about results.

Did the public approve? “More than 8 in 10 Canadians (84 percent) support the use of photo radar.” In Washington, D.C., 51 percent favored cameras. In Australia, 40 percent thought there should be more cameras, and 71 percent wanted more in Scottsdale.

Did the cameras improve safety? Hong Kong reported a 23-percent reduction in injury crashes. Queensland, Australia, estimated 45-percent-fewer fatals within two kilometers of cameras. But most of the cities simply claim less speeding and hope we’ll believe that’s the same as safety.

Usually, local police run the cameras, and they also report the safety benefits. The only city I know to say, “Oh, yeah?” when its police reported the effectiveness of its own program was Winnipeg, Manitoba. It sent in an auditor.

The police had claimed that right-angle collisions had dropped at 12 camera intersections, from 37 in 2003 to 15 in 2004 and 12 in 2005. The auditor did an end run around police numbers by checking insurance claims for the same intersections. The findings: Collisions increased 58 percent after camera installation. No rash of fender benders, either; injuries rose 64 percent, property damage claims jumped 60 percent in the under-$5000 category and 113 percent in the $10,000-to-$15,000 bracket. Moreover, camera sites worsened at a rate greater than in the rest of the city, which saw a seven-percent increase in crashes during the same time.

By one measure, however, the scameras were highly effective: They ginned up 317,385 tickets worth $17,661,636 (Canadian dollars) in fines while allowing the police to cut 46 officers from traffic patrol. That sort of productivity looks great if you’re running a widget factory.

Winnipeg’s scamera contractor is Affiliated Computer Services, the same company that’s been charged with bribery in its efforts to lock up the photo business of Edmonton, Alberta. ACS’s fees are so high on the Winnipeg job, according to an audit report linked in thenewspaper.com, that the city netted only $1.8 million over two years and will run $49 million short of anticipated revenues over the five-year life of the contract.

So here’s the bottom line from Winnipeg: The private business running the scameras hauls in about $6.5 million a year, the city is crying because it was counting on $49 million that won’t happen, and, oh, yeah, the streets are more dangerous.

What if this is about money and nothing else?

It’s certainly about the money if you listen in on the investor briefings from Redflex Holdings, Limited. This is an Australian company whose wholly owned subsidiary, Redflex Traffic Systems, is the 800-pound gorilla of scameras in the U.S. with 70 cities under contract and about 540 camera systems.

So the scameras are being outsourced, and Redflex is telling its investors there’s really big money ahead. The red-light-camera business is now only two percent of where it will be, it says. The potential market is 70,000 systems in “3000-plus” U.S. cities. It sees potential annual revenues of $1 billion to $3 billion.

It says the photo speed business is small now but wider community support is emerging. It estimates the U.S. market will be $4 billion to $10 billion.

Net profit after taxes grew 171 percent last year.




Redflex crows about its “BOOM” business model in which it builds, owns, operates, and manages camera systems under contract. It runs the cameras, processes the data, and sends out the tickets. No messy police involvement. Judge, jury, and executioner in one box.

BOOM is a smoking-hot widget factory. City politicians love it because they have no risk. Redflex owns the factory and takes care of every aspect of ticket manufacturing. For its efforts it takes a cut of the fine, $42.48 from the $157 basic photo ticket on Scottsdale’s 101. Redflex even brags about the reliability of your payments: “30 days, generally.”

Think of Redflex as a commercial fishing company. Cities have streams running through them. Redflex is in the business of contracting the fishing rights on those streams for a share of the catch. That means making deals with governments, both local and state. In its report to stockholders, Redflex said it increased its sales staff — it added five “lobbyists.”

Here’s the deal. The government gets money, the fisherman gets money, and the fish get tickets. So the government and the fisherman have to get together on why photo enforcement is a good deal for the fish. Governments always tell the fish the streams are safer. Easy to say when the only auditor is busy in Winnipeg.

The fisherman needs to be more clever. Imagine a safety advocacy group with the catchy name of the National Campaign to Stop Red Light Running. It exists to make us think there’s a nationwide outcry over wanton intersection carnage. It has a slick Web site with nifty graphics and polls showing how much we approve of scameras (www.stopredlightrunning.com). It has three sponsors. Probably the insurance industry, you’re thinking, or Mothers Against Drunk Driving. Surprise! They’re all fishermen in the business of running photo enforcement: Redflex, ACS, and Peek Traffic Corporation.

So what should we fish think when the fisherman insists we have a problem only he can solve? We should think it’s about the money.