Spokane7
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August 29, 2011 in Region
Eyman, red-light-camera foes push for city bans
Ballot-measure king finds an issue with broad support
Tim Eyman’s anti-tax initiatives have developed, he admits, “a partisan tinge” over the years. But Washington’s ballot-measure king says he finally has found an issue that unites voters across the aisle: red-light cameras.
An Eyman-led backlash against the cameras is sweeping the state and raising ethical and legal questions about their use for public safety and revenue.
Last year, 71 percent of Mukilteo voters said they wanted to ban the cameras, which snap photos of cars running red lights, and tickets are mailed to their owners. Camera measures are headed for the November ballot in Longview, Bellingham and Monroe, and signature-gathering is under way in Redmond and Wenatchee.
All but the Redmond effort have gone to court. The state Supreme Court has yet to rule on whether state law allows voters to ban the cameras, so the measures are moving forward without much legal clarity.
“Washington is kind of becoming a battleground state, because I think the red-light-camera companies know that if they lose Washington, they’ll probably lose the rest of the country,” said state Rep. Christopher Hurst, D-Enumclaw, a former police officer who says the camera revenue has become “crack cocaine” for cities.
Read the full story here.
Four dead, two wounded in Seattle shootings 
soccermomsusie on August 29 at 9:06 a.m.
Personally, I wish that they would just do away with red light laws anyway. Make them like the cellphone and texting while driving laws. We have them on the books, but we just don’t enforce them.
Whenever, I come up to a red light, I see red. I don’t mean that it just makes me angry. I see Red Communist Collectivists trying to Socialize us all with Red Rules. That’s why I NEVER OBEY RED LIGHTS!
I have so many of these tickets (I look at them as “Freedom Awards”).
I never pay the ticket and guess what? NOTHING HAPPENS!! They even send you a free little photo with a picture of you driving your Hummer through the red light. Last year, I couldn’t decide which one to use as our Christmas card, so I made a montage of them. Everyone loved it.
If Eyman is behind this, it has to be great. As an aside, every time George McGrath says, “Phony Red” at a city council meeting, I laugh so hard! Where does he come up with great lines like that?!?!
HEAR OUR VOICE!!!
monkeyman on August 29 at 9:07 a.m.
“In Seattle, cameras patrol 21 intersections and brought in $4.8 million in ticket fines last year.
Red-light cameras received a boost this year from an Insurance Institute for Highway Safety study that compared cities with the cameras to cities without. The rate of fatal accidents fell in both types of cities, but it fell 24 percentage points more in cities that had intersections with cameras.”
These are two important pieces of information. Anybody know the numbers Spokane?
More on the IIHS study - http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2011/06/iihs-study-loves-red-light-cameras-says-americans-do-too/
soccermomsusie on August 29 at 9:09 a.m.
Another thing, this is really a tax. They just wont call it that.
They are taxing Red Rule Breakers, what they would call “outlaws.”
If you tax outlaws, only outlaws will pay taxes. That should be outlawed.
HEAR OUR VOICE!!!!
monkeyman on August 29 at 9:15 a.m.
I didn’t know about this, so now would take IIHS’s data with a grain of salt - “…the IIHS first-and-foremost represents the interests of the 80 insurance companies from which it receives its funding,”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insurance_Institute_for_Highway_Safety#Criticism
Thoreau on August 29 at 10:10 a.m.
The entire idea is something out of a Kafka novel.
The courts don’t even consider running a red light a moving violation, yet they charge $124 fine.
How can running a red light not be a moving violation? !
The_Seer on August 29 at 10:11 a.m.
Soccermomsuz is in fine form today!
Thanks for the chuckles and belly laughs!
MrNatural on August 29 at 12:00 p.m.
My God!…for the first time that I can recall I am in agreement with Tim Eyman…The red light camera private-public partnership is a creepy surveillance tactic to me that has implications for the creation of other scofflaw monitoring. Here you have a purely industry driven crime and punishment business that reeks of vested interests for as much profit as it can bleed out of the community. For example just wait till someone decides to put up surveillance buoys out at the lakes to nail people for everything they can conjure up…won’t that be Big Brother Puritan society fun.
fishinjay on August 29 at 12:13 p.m.
Surveillance? You only get your picture taken if you run a red light. If you don’t want to have law enforcment taking your picture, don’t run red lights. It’s entirely within your control.
There’s far more “surveillance” involved in having a cop driving down the road looking at what’s going on around him than there is in a camera that only takes a picture when you run the light.
I wish they would put one of these cameras at the light near my house. I see people run the light every day, and every few weeks there’s another accident at the intersection from people running the light. Sooner or later it’s going to be me or my family that gets hit by one of those idiots.
Dazzeetrader11 on August 29 at 12:26 p.m.
Remember when the sole idea of these cameras was incresed safety? Remeber when SHogan said that if there was no increase in safety , the cams program would be discontinued?
Well, the data didn’t show any safety increase. SO why is there still a red light program. The basis for the program has been defeated in Spokane ( except for one intersections). Time to turn the cam soff and send the bill to the Arizona company that’s behind this.
All this was for was money. The best part is that the AZ company takes money out of the community. Time for government to grow up ( Shogan too but that appears hopeless) and put it to the vote of the people since that was hijacked by Shogan/Nicks/council/Verner (who could have prevented and stopped this) last time.
It would be voted down so quickly by the citizens it would make your head spin.
DHF on August 29 at 1:07 p.m.
I believe that it has nothing to do with safety but it is all about revenue and mind you the city of Spokane wants revenue. Maybe they got another good buy on a Dragstrip. Tim Eyman is right.
soccermomsusie on August 29 at 1:25 p.m.
Dazzee brings up a good point which now has me conflicted. The tickets go to a private company in one of the best Conservative states - AZ.
Isn’t this company just privatizing the work the Socialist police department usually does? Shouldn’t we, as card-carrying members of the Tea Party be for this privatization, especially when the money goes to Arizona?
Dazzee, leave it to you to get us all thinking!
HEAR OUR VOICE!!!
D Statler on August 29 at 6:06 p.m.
I hardly ever see any police patrolling anymore. Maybe the cameras were placed to eliminate neighborhood patrols. :^( Place a cop on that corner and get rid of the cameras. LOL Better take away their guns with bullits and give them squirtguns tho………..
philipgregory on August 30 at 8:55 a.m.
Eyman! What’s happened to you? You keep taking on fights we (the people) don’t care about!
Let speeders and reckless drivers get nailed. Who cares?
You should be going after the politicians wasting taxpayer money then demanding more - like from your once-limited license fees.
Or, how about the relentless attack on personal liberties in Washington state? They keep adding more and more laws that should be left to personal choice and responsibility.
These IMPORTANT things NEED your attention to galvanize an increasingly disgruntled but inactive populace