Traffic Spies: Red light cameras coming back to Colorado Springs
Red light cameras are coming back to Colorado Springs, but the systems don’t come without controversy.
Seven states have already banned them and others have been trying to for years.
Four intersections in Colorado Springs are set to receive a red light camera by the end of the year.
North Carefree Circle & Academy Platte & Chelton Dublin & Academy Lexington & Briargate Blvd.
“Red light running and intersection crashes are the most dangerous that happen in Colorado,” Lt. Cari Graves, manager of the City of Colorado Springs Red Light Camera Safety Program said. “We’re not here to harass drivers, the purpose is not to do that, the purpose is to hold people accountable.”
But it’s that idea that some have an issue with.
“It’s unfortunately become an industry that’s a little bit rife with fraud,” Republican Arizona State Representative Travis Grantham said.
Grantham has tried to pass a bill for two years straight to ban red light cameras in Arizona because he believes the cameras strip drivers of their basic rights.
“Unfortunately when a machine issues a ticket and it gets mailed to you, and an employee of the firm who issued the machine is the only one who reviewed it and stamped ‘yep, this person’s guilty of this crime,’ that’s not due process and the presumption of innocence,” Grantham said.
“You know you’re being watched, you behave better,” Chuck Farmer, VP of Research for the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety said.
Farmer said he and his team have looked extensively at the effects of red light cameras.
Including, one study on fatal crashes in cities who had the cameras versus those that didn’t.
“When you looked at fatal crashes at signalized intersections, the ones that had the red light cameras went down by about 14 percent,” Farmer said.
Graves also gave an example of a home security camera. If someone burglarizes a home, homeowners generally want police to use security camera footage as evidence of who took their stuff, even though no one was physically there to see it taken.
“It really isn’t different, it just feels different because it’s stationary,” Graves said.
Do these cameras make intersections safer?
Research in other states like Florida shows accidents like rear-end crashes increase.
Many in support of the cameras agree, but their thought is fewer people are dying.
“I think that’s a reasonable tradeoff – you’re getting a fender bender, rather than a fatal crash,” Farmer said.
Sgt. Howard Jackson, the traffic sergeant with the Pueblo Police Department, said they’ve seen fewer severe accidents with their program over the last seven years.
“They can come up with all kinds of reasons not to have them, but it’s a proven fact they have reduced the number of serious accidents,” Jackson said.
Another argument against the cameras is they just bring in money for the city.
But Jackson tells KRDO NewsChannel 13, that’s not the case in Pueblo.
“We don’t make much, if at all, on these red light cameras,” Jackson said.
Graves is hoping the cameras just get people to stop, and keep deadly wrecks off the roads.
“If we do such a good job with this program and it makes no money, I am thrilled. So will my boss and so will the mayor,” Graves said.
