Speed Cameras & Photo Enforcement Cause Crashes/Accidents: The Other Side of the 'Safety' Campaign

Photo Enforcement & Speed Cameras Cause Crashes & Increase Accidents

Not withstanding my long campaign against the profit-driven motives of photo enforcement companies like RedFlex and ATS (among others) to co-opt willing cash-hoarding and due process, civil rights destroying administrations such as that of Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano, I have also expressed concerns about the negative effects of photo enforcement itself which create additional hazards from their use (stemming from asymmetrical situational awareness) for drivers on the road and the inability of supporting administrations to be truthful with their voting constituencies.

Case in point, just recently, a story (demonstrating speed cameras cause crashes) has surfaced on the Internet suggesting that the internationally acclaimed BBC squashed a story that they prepared which addressed a European speeding crackdown which is utilizing speed cameras (in this instance, photo lidar-based speed cameras).

BBC Report: Speed Cameras Cause Crashes & Increase Accidents

A segment of their story also included some real video footage, taken by these photo-lidar systems, in which inattentive speeding drivers (and their poorly maintained vehicles) crashed as a result of their over-reaction to their approach to these systems.

Instead of giving its viewers a balanced look into the resulting circumstances, the BBC (under what I assume was undue pressure from camera proponents) killed the report.

Even more disturbing is another UK-transport department report that suggests that "panic" braking is a common driver response and that crash rates have increased by a whopping 55% along corridors where photo enforcement speed cameras are implemented.

Speed Cameras Cause Crashes & Increase Accidents

But what is most disturbing are the reports that the department attempted (unsuccessfully) to prevent their report's findings from becoming available to the public.

Arizona would be wise to consider this, as they embark on a most "ambitious" photo enforcement program to saturate certain highways with an unthinkable level of both fixed and mobile speed cameras to augment an already exorbitant amount of red light cameras and speed-on-green cameras, which are not only inefficient/ineffective systems for improving traffic safety, but actually create the same kind of dangerous safety hazards—which stem from asymmetrical situational awareness—which results in the cyclical disruption of normal traffic flow (traffic porpoising).

Unfortunately, I suspect the power of greed will continue to overwhelm sensibilities.

When greed is combined with a false (falsified) ideology, truth is often the first casualty.

In a time when we're all experiencing a global economic crisis and the likely expansion of government involvement and control in our daily lives, I can only hope the day will soon come when these administrations see the error of their (fascist/totalitarianistic) ways.

Freedom is not defined by safety. Freedom is defined by the ability of citizens to live without government interference. Government cannot create a world without risks, nor would we really wish to live in such a fictional place. Only a totalitarian society would even claim absolute safety as a worthy ideal, because it would require total state control over its citizens' lives. Ron Paul, Aug 04.

I wish PBS Frontline would conduct a thorough examination of photo enforcement...

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