A Cop Tells Me . . .

[Mr 5 0]

PKRWUD:

I agree that the 'stoplight camaras' can be useful to cut down red-light running and free up police for real crime investigation and prevention.
I know a few people who were hurt (and my former boss was killed on the way to work one fine morning) after being involved in intersection accidents caused by 'red-light runners'. I have no strong objections when this technology is done fairly (timers remain constant) and it's well known that it exists.

You see the problem: when some cities (this seems to vary) use the cameras to play games with the light timers and run up ticket revenue, it's simply an abuse of police and court power, in my opinion. I'm suspicious of any 'deal' that allows the manufacturer of the cameras to retain a 'cut' of the fines beyond what it may cost to pay for the cameras. Sounds like a scam hiding behind 'the law'. This kind of scamming by some greedy city authorities simply breaks down the respect for the law we must have to maintain an civil, livable society, so I object to it when implemented in this manner.

Eric:

You ask a good question: Where does it end? How far will we go?

The short, simple answer is that it will end when we want it to end. We still live in a democracy, not a dictatorship. When we finally refuse to continue electing politicians who see this kind of thing as 'good for us', 'a safety issue' and that sure winner with the 'Soccer Mom's': 'For the Children'.

It will 'go' as far as possible as technology increases and we, the citizens - who pay the taxes that keep the government running - go along with it.

By the way; the 'Zero-Tolerance' (zero common sense I call it) anti-drug policy that makes Tylenol a 'drug' and interrupts a child's education and labels her a 'problem' for having one in her possession is driven - in part - by fears of lawsuits. If schools don't crack down on drugs in schools, when and if some druggie/nutcase kills someone, the victim's parents can sue the school district for not 'doing more' to protect the kids from drugs. Parents themselves partially bring on these asinine regulations with their fears. However, the school administrators use no sense at all in handing out punishments and a backlash is building against this kind of mindless 'zero-tolerance' stuff that call a Tums or a Tylenol 'drugs' and screws up a young, innocent kid's school record for nothing at all.
Sometimes it takes this kind of over-reaching by authorities to wake up people to the abuses inherent in zero-tolerance and other originally well-meaning but effectively harsh and negative policies that hurt mostly innocent people, like a schoolgirl with a Mydol pill that they call a drug and punish her for simply having it in her purse, as if it was cocaine - or a gun.

Liberal politicians want to micro-manage every aspect of our lives and do in far too many areas, including how much water can flow through your toilet bowl and your shower head. Every new regulation is always for some worthy cause (save water). The stoplight-camera issue (saving lives) is just another in a very long line of government intrusion into our lives under the cloak of 'helping us'. Yeah, right, Officer.

In England, they do have cameras on the street, 'watching' everyone who walks by and monitored by police-types looking for illegal behavior. No joke. The justification is preventing crime, of course, and even our constitution doesn't give you privacy rights when walking down a public sidewalk so yes, it could happen here and probably will. Feel safer yet?

As I said, this kind of Orwellian intrusion and control of our movements and our lives will only cease when the public, the taxpayers, the citizens say 'Enough!' Unfortunately, in this Soccer-Mom dominated society that gave us an immoral, lying, cheating clown like Bill Clinton as a President twice elected, I'm not holding my breath waiting for the early reversal of this trend.