Seeing Red — and Stopping
For the second time this week, Plain Dealer columnist Sam Fulwood has come out fulminating against Cleveland Mayor Jane Campbell’s proposal to install red-light cameras.
Tuesday’s column amounted to “I bet the cameras won’t improve safety, installing them as a source of revenue makes the city look pathetic, and besides, I don’t want to get even more tickets!”
In today’s column, he expresses some remorse for having betrayed his real motivation for opposing the cameras, and interjects a threat about how the private companies installing and monitoring the cameras will rig them to maximize their profit.
Well, I’m against that part, at least.
But I’m also pretty disappointed that someone in Fulwood’s position gives such short shrift to the actual danger imposed by the increasing tendency of Cleveland drivers to all but ignore traffic signals.
How many times have you driven under a light as it turned yellow, only to see five cars behind you follow you through? Stopping at red lights is increasingly viewed as optional. Fulwood dismisses the safety aspects associated with red-light cameras by saying that some critics claim they don’t help.
But since he decided to spend two entire columns on this subject, why not use at least one of them to scold the bad guys? And by bad guys, I do not mean the city administrators who thought maybe they could kill two birds with one stone. I mean the bad guys and gals for whom saving themselves thirty seconds by running a red light is more important than the possibility of running down a pedestrian or slamming into a car passing legally in front of them on the green.
Maybe improving traffic safety wasn’t first on the list of reasons for considering this plan. Maybe other cities have encountered glitches when introducing the cameras, making it essential that Cleveland officials do plenty of research before buying. Maybe generous people who lend their cars to red-light-running friends will get burned when they receive tickets in the mail.
None of these “maybes” suggests a compelling reason not to try it.