The public rejected the use of photo enforcement in five more municipal referendum elections Tuesday. America’s fourth-largest city, Houston, Texas, was home to the most hotly contested vote. The group Citizens Against Red Light Cameras, run by brothers Paul and Randy Kubosh, gathered enough signatures to force the issue onto the ballot against the wishes of the city council and in spite of a legal attack from camera operator American Traffic Solutions (ATS).
Outspent by a factor of ten to one, the group nonetheless won a majority of the 335,778 votes cast on the measure. According to campaign finance disclosure documents, ATS poured $1,746,000 into the race, in a desperate attempt to salvage one of the company’s most important accounts.
“Despite the opposition having every conceivable advantage the people saw through the hype and the emotional blackmail and saw the cameras for what they are, a money making scheme that violates our constitutional rights and risks driver safety for money,” Citizens Against Red Light Camera spokesman Philip Owens told TheNewspaper.
Another ATS account was canceled by citizens in nearby Baytown, where 58 percent voted to terminate the red light camera program.
“Despite being far outspent, sued and harassed we ultimately prevailed because the truth was on our side,” initiative sponsor Byron Schirmbeck said in a statement. “We are hopeful that the legislature will take up a statewide camera ban this next session so citizens won’t have to rip the cameras out city by city. We also urge the Baytown council to abide by the will of the people, no matter what the outcome of any future lawsuits by the camera company they partnered with… The people have spoken, bring the cameras down.”
On the west coast, the vote in Mukilteo, Washington was 70 percent against the automated ticketing machines. Tax-cutting initiative guru Tim Eyman organized the effort which earned astate supreme court order denying the attempt of ATS to block the people from voting. In Anaheim, California there was no camera vendor defending the program because the mayor and city council decided on their own to add a charter amendment prohibiting the use of red light cameras. The measure passed handily with 73 percent of the 45,000 votes cast.
“I am pleased with the outcome of today’s red light camera ballot issue,” Anaheim Mayor Curt Pringle said in a statement. “Anaheim’s voters recognized that red-light cameras are not a proven deterrent to traffic violations or traffic accidents, and I happen to agree with that assessment. Other cities have chosen to use red-light cameras as revenue producing tool, but the city council disagreed so we (city council) took the vote to the people, and they have spoken.”
Garfield Heights became the fifth Ohio city to ban red light cameras and speed cameras, with a majority of the 9,194 votes cast insisting on the termination of all automated ticketing.
Earlier this year, 61 percent of Sykesville, Maryland voters overturned a speed camera ordinance. In 2009, eighty-six percent of Sulphur, Louisiana rejected speed cameras. The November elections included three votes: 72 percent said no in Chillicothe, Ohio; Heath, Ohio and College Station, Texas also rejected cameras. In 2008, residents in Cincinnati, Ohio rejected red light cameras. Seventy-six percent of Steubenville, Ohio voters rejected photo radar in 2006. In the mid-1990s, speed cameras lost by a two-to-one margin in Peoria, Arizona and Batavia, Illinois. In 1997, voters in Anchorage, Alaska banned cameras even after the local authorities had removed them. In 2003, 64 percent of voters in Arlington, Texas voted down “traffic management cameras” that opponents at the time said could be converted into ticketing cameras. Photo enforcement has never survived a public vote.
[Courtesy: Thenewspaper.com]
Nananana, nananana, hey hey hey, goodbye…
It is impossible to overstate the value of self-determination in how people are governed.
The Houston city council really doesn’t know better than the citizens what is good for them.
It’s nice to see that, in a world of politics dominated by “defensive voting” and choosing the lesser of two evil candidates, there are actually ballots that offer such a cut & dry choice as this.
My faith in our system of government is back.
Sajeev, you should be additionally proud of your hometown.
Mine almost was….til I saw they passed C.O.H. Prop 1, a mandatory flooding improvement “fee” on every homeowner’s water bill monthly constituting an AD VALOREM tax with no accountability on the backside,…unbelieveable…
Another note, these Red Light Cams got voted down on top of the local Houston news stations being in the tank for them, watched a nauseating story on one of the local TV news broadcasts two weekend ago about a mother who lost her child to a red-light runner and how a camera would have stopped it…..with no opposing viewpoint BTW.
Funny thing how free people prefer not being under surveillance.
Redflex payola. Has this been discussed here?
http://www.nola.com/politics/index.ssf/2010/01/red-light_cameras_in_jefferson.html
“The council approved a resolution from member Chris Roberts to suspend the program amid disclosures that the contractor, Redflex Traffic Systems of Phoenix, Ariz., plans to direct about 3.2 percent of its share of the traffic fines to lobbyist Bryan Wagner, a former New Orleans City Council member who helped Redflex get the contract.”
“Redflex won the contract in 2006, after using Wagner and a business partner, Julie Murphy, who is married to 24th Judicial District Judge Robert Murphy, to help make its case to the Parish Council. Since then, automated cameras have been installed at 11 intersections to issue tickets that have generated almost $20 million in fines, revenue to be split among Redflex and various local government agencies.”
Now Redflex has sued the Parish claiming that the suspension of the program violates the terms of their contract in that they have stopped getting paid.
By margins usually exceeding 60% (up to 86% in Sulpher, Louisiana), the public has voted the traffic cameras out. We’ll probably never see the margin of victory exceed 90% (as it would with fully informed voters) as the camera companies can throw millions at the election to sway the uninformed, misinformed, naive, and the dim among us.
Why are cameras being given the boot? When you find a camera in an intersection, you also find no decrease in red light violations, no decrease in unsafe driving practices, and no decrease in accidents.
Voters have gotten wise to the fact the cameras are being installed as a revenue grab from drivers instead of the stated reason to improve traffic safety. Traffic safety is the first victim when traffic cameras are installed.
If the city is making money, the green and yellow lights are too short and in some cases the intersection is poorly designed. There should NEVER be a yellow light less than 4.5 seconds anywhere in the United States.
They’re all over New York City; the Mayor and City Council would NEVER allow a vote on them, with their outspoken anti-private automobile policies. No outside cont6ractor runs them, either.
Clearly, the average voter in Houston is much smarter than the average voter in So. Cal.
Interesting. For a period of a couple years, I had a business interest in “historic” downtown Sykesville, where we rented an office/storefront/workshop on the main boulevard.
All four of us who had a stake in the business got dinged multiple times in a few months for red light camera running, all for right turn on reds. I remember I was sitting in the office paying yet another one of those damned things online when we decided to start looking around for another location.
Sykesville lost quite a bit of tax revenue from us in exchange for hitting us with a couple hundred in red light camera tickets.
You never evaluated “not running red lights” as a solution to the ticket problem?