4 Comments

The red light cameras in St Pete Florida are scheduled to be removed this fall.
http://tbtpics.tampabay.com/news/localgovernment/kriseman-red-light-cameras-likely-will-be-removed-in-september/2168737

Did the public get motivated to drive safer? Of course not. The public began routing around the camera enabled intersections, so the number of citations was dropping, and the program was going to go into the red:

St Pete Mayor Rick Kriseman “At the current pace, the revenues are expected to fall below the costs of the program in September of this year…”

Since this is St Pete, they will have to find some other way to extract revenue from the locals.

I don’y really have a problem with not allowing exceptions to traffic or other violation except possble for extreme hardship. Everyone has a reason for why they break a rule that they think is good enough. The goal of the fines should be minimize total costs. Running a red increases the chance of an accident. Insanely high fines increase the avoidance to the point where sudden stops increase accidents. Reasonable fines, fairly enforced, allow individuals to decide if it is worth the cost and risk.

I do have a problem with charging the guy for petitioning for redress in the matter.

And lets not even start on why there are so many lights and so much tiime wasted at them.

OBQuiet,

A heart attack doesn’t qualify as extreme hardship?

MattS,

Sorry, I thought it obvious that I was referring to the penalty causing the hardship. Not that the hardship causing the violation.

In the given case, the person was already (perhaps)suffering from the heart attack. The ticket does not affect that.

But if the persons financial state was such that the choice came to paying the ticket or paying his families rent, I would say losing his home would be an extreme hardship.