Score One For All Those Who Are Really Annoyed With Hidden Cameras

Last week, Colorado Springs Police Chief Pete Carey discussed his intention to drop the city’s sneaky red-light camera program. The reason? The red-light cameras haven’t been successful in reducing the amount of accidents at the four intersections where the cameras are located; they’ve actually gone up. Thousands of tickets have been issued, however, providing the city with an abundance of rolling red-light ticket revenue.

This is likely an economic decision rather than a mere philosophic issue with photo surveillance. Colorado Springs employed two full-time officers to monitor and assess red-light photo activity. Instead of having these police academy graduates sift through time-stamped pictures to determine just how long a vehicle was stopped at an intersection, the department thought it a better use of municipal monies to have these officers on the street serving and protecting. There was also a sergeant spending half his payable hours on the red-light photo beat.

The camera vendor, American Traffic Solutions, sold the program as a self-sustaining one.

A company by the name of American Traffic Solutions markets a program meant to ticket unaware American citizens, in an America that is (supposedly) as transparent a nation as there is in the world. I guess Colorado Springs failed to see the irony during the sales pitch.