Grassroots anti-camera activists in Missouri yesterday charged that a photo enforcement firm was creating fake advocacy groups to promote the use of red light cameras and speed cameras. Wrong on Red and the Jefferson County Tea Party blasted American Traffic Solutions (ATS) for hiding its involvement in a slick advertising effort designed to persuade the legislature to allow photo ticketing to continue uninterrupted in the state.
“I think it’s clear that ATS is afraid of us,” John Burns of the Jefferson County Tea Party said in a statement. “ATS has good reason to fear us. We’ve been building a statewide grassroots effort to ban the cameras. People are mad as hell. We’re in the middle of an economic recession, and these traffic cameras constitute a regressive tax, hurting the poorest among us, the most.”
In March last year, the photo ticketing industry turned to the Washington, DC-based Storm King Strategies LLC, a lobbying firm that focuses on the transportation sector, for help. Storm King is headed by David Kelly, who was chief of staff of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration during the latter half of the Bush administration. Kelly used funding from traffic camera firms to set up the Partnership for Advancing Road Safety (PARS) as a platform to gain media attention on the photo ticketing issue without disclosing that he was speaking on behalf of his clients.
The strategy backfired when Kelly testified June 30 before a meeting of the US House Transportation Subcommittee on Highways and Transit. The chairman at the time, Peter DeFazio (D-Oregon), and the ranking member, John J. Duncan (R-Tennessee), both dismissed his testimony as that of a hired gun, questioning why Redflex and ATS refused to appear before the committee openly. The PARS website, which was set up by the public relations firm APCO Worldwide, has been disabled.
ATS has replaced PARS with the National Coalition for Safer Roads, through which Storm King has conducted media interviews and created an advertising campaign to promote camera use in Missouri without identifying the group as a creation funded by the camera industry. Kelly’s other current clients include the Coalition of Ignition Interlock Manufacturers which wants Congress to require installation of expensive breathalyzer devices installed in all cars, the National Safety Council which wants more ticketing through distracted driving laws, and Jaguar-Land Rover which wants lower CAFE standards. According to congressional lobbyist disclosure records, these clients have paid about $380,000 for Kelly’s services. WrongOnRed founder Matt Hay doesn’t think Kelly’s effort will work.
“This is ATS’ last frivolous attempt to fool the Missouri public,” Hay said in a statement. “To fool residents just like they do thousands of times a day with the unauthorized systems they use to generate millions of dollars off Missouri taxpayers, while encouraging cities to help them profit off poorly engineered intersections and shortened yellows.”
[Courtesy:Thenewspaper.com]
“People are mad as hell. We’re in the middle of an economic recession, and these traffic cameras constitute a regressive tax, hurting the poorest among us, the most.”
Do poor people not maintain their brakes, or are only poor people driving in areas where red light cameras are set up? The logic here is kind of weird no matter the worthiness of the goal.
“To fool residents just like they do thousands of times a day with the unauthorized systems they use to generate millions of dollars off Missouri taxpayers, while encouraging cities to help them profit off poorly engineered intersections and shortened yellows.”
How would the tea party react to taxes needed to fix those intersections?
1. It hurts the poor more because the fines and possible insurance rate hikes are less easily absorbed by a poor person than a more wealthy person. Clear enough?
2. I don’t know what a poorly engineered intersection is. But I don’t think adjusting the yellows is an expensive proposition.
3. Red light camera not been shown to reduce accidents, and in some cases the opposite has been true. Some municipalities have shortened the yellows to increase revenue. This has made the intersections even more dangerous.
4. This latest gambit by ATS is a deceptive campaign designed to counter the backlash against red light cameras by citizens, courts, politicians, and traffic safety advocates.
How would the tea party react to taxes needed to fix those intersections?
The tea party reaction would be that if there isn’t enough money in the intersection fund then some should be reallocated from the pensions for 52 year old state retirees fund, the paying deadbeats to breed fund, or the free emergency room care for illegal immigrants fund.
Cutting one tax does not need to be accompanied by raising another one. State spending is not sacrosanct no matter how much the ticks sucking on that teat would like it to be.
“1. It hurts the poor more because the fines and possible insurance rate hikes are less easily absorbed by a poor person than a more wealthy person. Clear enough?”
I see; it’s a flat tax for people who don’t stop.
There’s more to a properly engineered intersection than a yellow light; space for left and right turns and left turn arrows are only scratching the surface of why cars may be delayed at an intersection well into a yellow light.
The other two points are what critics should be focusing on, though I’d love to see towns start to care about intersection design and pay what’s needed to make them work smoothly. That’s part of what local government is supposed to do.
“The tea party reaction would be that if there isn’t enough money in the intersection fund then some should be reallocated from the pensions for 52 year old state retirees fund, the paying deadbeats to breed fund, or the free emergency room care for illegal immigrants fund.”
I almost threw in a joke originally about the tea party thinking they could make up the difference with no taxes by cutting food stamps, but I forgot public employees are the new welfare queens these days.
Let the Tea Party answer for the Tea Party.
Consumer disclosure: I’m a slightly-active Tea Party participant. Meetings in my area are open to all to attend; the platform is simple and it advocates responsibility in government.
The Tea Party might say something about how the government used tax money to build the intersection in the first place, so “Why did you waste our money on a lousy intersection that had to be fixed later, instead of doing it once, correctly?”.
Now as for how to get out of the pickle, hmm … well, that’s a pickle.
I liked how Sweden levied the speeding fan relative to the income of the offender.
Here in MO there ARE many who are of the me me me me me screw you mind-set and ignore red lights, putting innocent folks at risk.
Then…. there ARE many problems with those cameras!!!!!!!!!!
I would jump with Joy (oh lordy, she IS a hottie) IF those cameras were used only to RECORD intersection events to assist in determining guilt or non-guilt when the inevitable accidents do occur.
Helps the innocent and assists that the guilty pay for the mayhem they have caused.
If no wreck occurs….. no need for camera results.
Of course, that usage does not provide a revenue stream BUT……..
If the camera’s recording DOES lead to ensuring that only the truly guilty pay for the costs involved perhaps the causer of the crash has to pay a hefty fee to cover the cost of having a camera present.
Publicize that fee well.
It may coerce the brain-dead anti-social to “Drive Friendly” as the local signage asks.
Sadly, the self-centered screw others mind-set heathens (have I noted, seemingly, a few hereabouts possessing that mentality via a few comments I have read in the past?) may be so self-absorbed that nothing will reach into their brainlet and force them into a semblance of emotional maturity.
An aspect of USA society that I have noted is increasing compared to prior eras.
The issue of self-absorbing does seem to be more common, a part of if may be all of the personalization options we have now with out cells, cars, internet accounts, and all that.
ATS and local governments could easily fix this problem, having their cake and eating it too, just by declaring: “It’s for the children”! Revenue enhancement guaranteed.
” I see; it’s a flat tax for people who don’t stop.”
No, it is not a flat tax.
ATS and their ilk simply exemplify the constant attack the taxpayer is under every day. These scumbags are always trying to find a way to get into our pockets.. It’s got to stop.. It’s a relief to see such opposition to this crap.
Taxation by citation is the most regressive tax on the planet. Money taken from people sent to Arizona with nothing given in return.
Ask a family trying to live on a part-time $9.75/hr job where they can come up with the $125-$500 for the ticket, inevitable late penalty, and sharp increase in their car insurance. Sadly, far too often the answer is the medication keeping the family wage earner healthy enough to work will have to be skipped. They lost that money being 0.1 second late into an intersection with a short green and yellow. (The bulk of all citations are less than one second.)
The bottom of this family’s slide is the breadwinner is in the hospital, the kids are in foster homes, and the state is picking up the tab. This is an all-too-frequent outcome when cities get carried away issuing citations for minor technical violations having zero safety impact. The incredibly abusive enforcement of legal turns on red is another example.
The result of one city being forced to re-set the traffic lights was the MANUFACTURED red light running stopped. Violations went from 107 per day to 4.
Information available in minutes removes all doubt the cameras are detrimental to intersection safety, pro-camera studies are purposefully flawed to produce a positive result, the “red light runner crisis” is 97% MANUFACTURED by intentional light mis-timing and known intersection defects, and those worshiping the revenue have zero moral turpitude.
Excellent that you posted David kelly’s picture. Any hope of you also posting his address?