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Florida Red Light Camera Debate To Return
August 19, 2017
Florida’s long-running debate about red-light cameras is coming back to the Legislature in 2018. Sen. Travis Hutson, R-St. Augustine, and Rep. Bryan Avila, R-Hialeah, said Friday they have filed bills to repeal parts of state law that allow local governments to use red-light cameras.
Lawmakers have repeatedly considered similar bills in recent years, but the measures have failed to pass. Supporters say the cameras help improve traffic safety, but critics contend they are used as a revenue source for local governments and private contractors.
“Red-light cameras have failed to achieve their initial purpose, improving traffic safety, and there is available data to support this,” Avila said in a prepared statement Friday. “The only beneficiaries of red-light cameras are the companies that make them and the local governments that use them as a backdoor tax.”
The 2018 legislative session starts in January.
by The News Service of Florida
Comments
10 Responses to “Florida Red Light Camera Debate To Return”
Consider this from a due process point of view: No Law Enforcement Officer would ever issue a uniform traffic citation 90 days after witnessing a moving violation, and certainly not to the owner of a motor vehicle. The Florida Statute is out of alignment with statutory and constitutional norms.
Let’s use the cameras to catch people texting and driving, that would save lives.
Re Amazed; Please, do just a little research on this topic because you are wrong on all counts
@Amazed, You are stating your feelings not Facts. The camera vendor sets them up for free. The state gets half of each ticket written. The camera vendor and city split the other half. Proven fact they do shorten the yellow to the lowest time allowed by law maybe a little less. The state of Florida gets over 30 million dollars a year from this.
Amazed…you are totally wrong…you did READ the article didnt you? you dont know what you are talking about…third party companies RUN AND MONITER the cameras and take most of the money…try google before you post….or read what you are commenting on…it said it right there in the story…
How about some simple honesty on Revenue Collection by Government. This is not about increased safety. It is simply a back door for revenue generation. It is a lot easier filling our private jails with non violent dopes and mopes to use the backdoor than to politically lower the number of non violent people in prison, or raises taxes. Those decisions would require integrity and courage. So we all know how this will end. When did we allow such weak knee solutions to problems these politicians have created all by themselves.
Re: Amazed…this is a topic I did extensive research on some years ago. Trust me, I did my homework on this and in fact numerous municipalities across the country were programming short yellow lights. Yellow lights were timed at many locations, and those with a very short duration resulted in rear end collisions at a higher than normal percentage.
In fairness to your comment, yellow lights timed at 3.75 to 4.5 seconds resulted in fewer red light runners and accidents. The companies that do get a percentage of citations issued (and they all do) found that the yellow signals set at the seconds I just quoted were no longer profitable to operate. Imagine that!
Sounds like somebody just bought some stock in a camera company or they need some revenue for their districts.
@ M in Bratt, the companies selling the cameras don’t make a dime other that what they sell them for. The local government is who makes money off of tickets and as an expense to collect more taxes. They don’t go around shortening the yellow lights. For everyone who doesn’t know how a traffic light works, there are a lot of you, the yellow light does not mean floor it. That is the signal to clear the intersection. If you accelerate through a yellow light and a cop sees it you will get a ticket. Too many people get hurt and killed because everyone on the road is impatient and in too big a hurry to get to the next light to try and run it too. Cameras help to control some of these idiots through fear of a ticket. But for the most part they don’t issue tickets based on them because there’s no proof who is driving the car.
It’s time to put an end to these cameras. Some of these company’s that provide and maintain these camera’s have gone as far as shortening the yellow cycle on traffic signals so that it is impossible to get through them before they turn red, and guess what, they give out far more tickets. These companies make a percentage of every ticket written, so the more they write, the more money they make. Something is very wrong with this picture.