What's Driving The Backlash Against Traffic Cameras

22.05.12

Have you ever opened your mail and found a traffic ticket sticking you with a not-so-small fine? If so, your reaction might well have been, "What the [expletive]?"

Then maybe you looked carefully at the enclosed photo and realized the vehicle shown (allegedly) running a red light or speeding was, in fact, yours.

Join the outrage coming from hundreds of communities using red-light and speed cameras, which, to many an angry driver, seem to be lurking everywhere. Automated photo enforcement has gained wide support among local officials as a proven method of reducing collisions and enforcing traffic laws, freeing officers to respond to more serious crimes.

Since their broad introduction in the late 1990s, the devices are now used in 661 cities and towns across 24 states, according to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.

But if enforcement cameras are all the rage for roads, blowback from drivers is the new road rage.

Motorists bemoaning an intrusion of Big Brother have filed lawsuits claiming that photo enforcement is unconstitutional because it shifts the government's burden of proof to drivers who must prove they are innocent. They cite mechanical failures that produced erroneous tickets in San Francisco and elsewhere. And some hostility has boiled over and led to the vandalism of cameras in cities across the world.

Source: NPR