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May 20, 2011 in News, City
Red-light camera firm puts exec on leave for Web postings
A truck darts southbound through a just-turned-red light on Browne Street at Sprague Avenue on Tuesday, Jan. 5, 2010. It’s one of three intersections monitored by red light cameras in Spokane. The camera system monitors the intersection for red light runners and automatically issues tickets to the owners of cars caught running the red light.
(Full-size photo)
An executive at the company that provides red-light cameras in Spokane has been suspended after a newspaper in Western Washington discovered he misrepresented himself as a local resident on its website and made comments to promote business in the area, a company spokesman said Friday.
Bill Kroske, the vice president of business development at American Traffic Solutions Inc., based in Scottsdale, Ariz., also posted comments on The Spokesman-Review’s website. The Herald, of Everett, Wash., reported that it tracked posts made by Kroske to the company in Arizona, and that he had signed up for the Herald’s website using his real name and work email.
A reporter covering a popular debate over the “Photo Red” program noticed that one person with the screen name “W Howard” had been commenting frequently, and discovered the account was linked to a company that appeared to be using the comments to promote its business, Herald editor Neal Pattison said. The user never identified himself as an employee of American Traffic Solutions.
Company spokesman Charles Territo called Kroske someone who cares very passionately about the industry and was trying to counter misinformation about their product.
“Unfortunately, he did it the wrong way,” Territo said. “We believe that you should be authentic and honest when engaging.”
In 2010, from January through July, Kroske posted nine comments on The Spokesman-Review’s website under the name Obie1, which is registered to his email at American Traffic Solutions.
In his posts, all of which touched on the Photo Red issue, he wrote as if he lived in Spokane. He refers to critics as the “camera paranoia group” and suggests they start a campaign to get rid of the cameras “by no one running red lights so no money for the city.”
“If you are successful you can be smug…and the city will say Bravo,” according to the comment, posted Jan. 27, 2010. He posted the same comment on another store the next day.
After several people posted comments criticizing the cameras, Kroske said their response “is just why we need the cameras.”
“It is that same lack of common sense and emotional control that is found in aggressive and dangerous driving,” Kroske wrote.
In a comment that same week regarding a bill in the legislature that would cap red-light tickets, Kroske calls for “safe drivers” to unite and “Let the legislature know you are the ones they should be looking out for.”After an editorial in January 2010 questioned the cameras’ effectiveness after statistics showed crashes had increased at those intersections, Kroske implies that the increase may be a citywide trend because of “one of our worst winters in many years.”
“Accidents always go up in slippery weather,” Kroske writes, adding that the numbers “certainly aren’t consistent with reduction of accident numbers reported by the cities in Western WA.”
In his last comment, on a July blog post about Tim Eyman sponsoring a ballot measure to curtail the use of red-light cameras in Mukilteo, Kroske called the initiative Eyman’s “latest attempt is to stir people up and show he can win something on at least a small level.”
“I hope the safe drivers in Mukilteo will unite and support their police department,” Kroske writes. “However, I would recommend we have an initiative here too: one banning Eyman from ever moving to Spokane!”
This has been a learning experience for American Traffic Solutions, Territo said.
“Employees need to understand that as companies we are held to a higher standard and that posts, tweets, and blogs not only reflect on the individual but also the company that they work for,” he said.
Pattison said he was not surprised by the misuse of the Herald’s comments systems. It was almost common knowledge that the companies marketing red-light cameras were active in drumming up grass-roots support, Pattison said, but the newspaper staff was surprised Kroske registered using his company email.Steve Jones, a professor of communication at the University of Illinois-Chicago, agreed that grass-roots marketing has become common online — from fans promoting music groups to companies asking people to talk about their products.He said the latest incident represented a trickier ethical question because of the poster’s vested interest. He said it was a big step beyond the kid who promotes a band’s new album on his Facebook page in exchange for a free T-shirt, Jones said.
“You don’t have to do this deceptively,” Jones said. “My guess is he presumed if he did that, he wouldn’t have been published.”
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misjustice on May 20 at 7:58 p.m.
Obie1Kanobi? BUSTED, dude!
; )
PlanB on May 20 at 8:09 p.m.
“Counter” misinformation? Must be a typo.
Bruce (aka thatoneguy) on May 20 at 8:11 p.m.
This is Obama’s fault.
rosehips on May 20 at 8:40 p.m.
I bet this kind of thing happens all the time. I have an online business. If I wanted to, I could promote my website pretending to be a satisfied customer and I have no doubt I could profit from the deception. What keeps me from doing that? Values and integrity.
I hate red light cameras. I rented a car in NYC last summer and neither my son nor I remember me running any red lights there. It is not a common practice for me. In fact it would be a rare, inadvertent event for me.
Perhaps I got caught in an intersection when the light turned. I dunno. But two months later, or so the rental company charged my credit card for the ticket I got for the supposed infraction. grrrrr.
Bruce (aka thatoneguy) on May 20 at 8:56 p.m.
^ speaking of electronic surveillance: I remember reading that the NY (or was it NJ) state police would scan the records of the toll turnpikes – if you had one of those electronic passes in your windshield, they could find out how long it took you to get from point A to point B. If the math said you must have exceeded the speed limit, they’d send you a ticket in the mail. This was some years ago – dunno if they still do it, or if public outrage made them stop.
greenlibertarian on May 20 at 9:10 p.m.
Ha ha, but typical. If his product/service was SO GOOD, he wouldn’t have to rely on deceit to sell it.
Good riddance, idiot and scoundrel.
Scoutster on May 20 at 9:21 p.m.
You mean, some people actually CARE about what we say on here?
RedCedar on May 20 at 9:27 p.m.
thatoneguy, I’m not sure if the toll booth story is true or not, but I remember having to watch a movie (not a video, an actual film movie) in calculus class called “The Mean Policeman”, which used that scenario to illustrate the Mean Value Theorem. It seemed like a pretty dumb theorem to me. All it said was that if your average time from point A to point be was X, then at some instant along the way you had to have been going at X speed or faster.
SpokyDaBear on May 20 at 10:01 p.m.
Red Light Cameras save lives. They need to add radar to it so thet can ticket all speeders.
Pat O'Leary on May 20 at 10:22 p.m.
Who cares? He is just trying to promote his product and may be a little zealous.
monkeyman on May 21 at 12:48 a.m.
As “vice president of business development” it is be closer to fraud via misrepresentation, not just over-zealousness.
monkeyman on May 21 at 1:03 a.m.
Lools like the guy (Bill Kroske) got his phd from EWU se te ago.
He is probably a bit “old school” to have understood that nothing is really private on the web.
Teseract on May 21 at 1:37 a.m.
Just more proof that red light cameras have nothing to do with safety and everything to do with money — in the pockets of a corporation and in the budgets available to similarly slimy politicians.
Remember, Verner wants to pull $400,000 out of the fund that was sworn by the city government to ONLY be used for public safety projects and put it into the general fund.
Politicians are greedy liars, and so are the individuals that run these red light camera companies. The proof just keeps stacking up.
woamike on May 21 at 2:03 a.m.
GreenLib says:
“Ha ha, but typical. If his product/service was SO GOOD, he wouldn’t have to rely on deceit to sell it.”
I agree with you 100%.
You could also say the same EXACT thing about Obamacare and virtually every other liberal policy. As a bonus, I’ll also concede the same for about a third of ESTABLISHMENT Republican policies.
opiemuyo on May 21 at 7:50 a.m.
like finding a turd in the punchbowl, got a good scam going, and ruin it by doing something stupid. Fool.
idahocity on May 21 at 8:50 a.m.
curb corruption in the system: no more “public safety” for profit including civil asset forfeiture.