Just days after I wrote about my town's magic cash machines (also known as red light cameras), it has been announced that the entire program (in operation for less than six months) is being suspended. The mayor says that the cameras were never intended to be permanent and that the decision is a result of their having achieved the desired purpose by modifying driving behavior at the affected intersections. He further says that those intersections will be monitored and the red light program evaluated with the possibility of it being reinstated at some point in the future.
Yet I can't help wondering if there are other reasons for this decision. Could it be that reigning city officials did not anticipate the public outcry that greeted this particular manifestation of Big Brother in my community and that they are hoping the outrage will diminish somewhat between now and election time?
Perhaps if and when the program is reinstated some common sense changes will accompany its administration and enforcement. I would welcome that. But any such changes will be too late to remedy the cash that has already been withdrawn from my household bank.
1 comment:
So, first they spent aaallll that money installing the stupid things, and now they're going to sit useless?
I'm not sure which makes me more annoyed: the concept of the cameras in the first place, or the fact that all the money was spent to install them and now they're not going to be used!
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