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Jacob Harrison

PHI-107

04/5/2020

Red Light Cameras: It’s Time to Let Them Go

Red light camera traffic tickets have been the bane of Illinois motorists’ existence

since their conception in 2008. These cameras were originally put in place as a way to

calm erratic drivers down, effectively scaring drivers into driving the speed limit or not

hustling through yellow lights and ultimately causing safer drivers on the road. Most

critics of these red light cameras simply believe that the lights serve as a cash grab for

the state of Illinois. The $100 fines associated with the tickets are too menial to fight,

causing most motorists to pay the fine instead of taking time off work to present

evidence to a judge for dismissal of the ticket. Ultimately, many believe that these

tickets issued by cameras are not only inconvenient, but also actively undermine the law

while simultaneously causing drivers to be less safe on the road. These cameras have

also caused massive class-action lawsuits against the jurisdictions and have become

more of a pain for the local governments than they originally suspected. In this essay, I

will explain how these red light cameras severely inconvenience motorists, how they

cause unsafe behavior on the road, how they create issues within the municipal

government body, why they are actively undermining current state laws, and why they

should be disbanded.

In the fight against red light cameras, the most important fact to consider is the

idea that at the very root of the issue, these cameras and the tickets stemming from the
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use of these cameras are simply an extreme inconvenience to motorists. Currently,

when a red light shows at an intersection, is it universally understood that a car can no

longer cross through the intersection and must stop. In certain instances, a driver may

make a right turn at most intersections during a red light if there are no cars coming

towards them from the left. If the light has turned from green to yellow, that is an

indication that if the driver can make a stop safely before the intersection, they should

slow to a stop as the light is about to turn red. If the nose of the vehicle makes it into

the intersection before the light turns red, the vehicle can proceed through the

intersection at the same speed that they entered. Often, a red light camera will catch a

vehicle abiding by the rules of the road making a right turn at a red light or head through

an intersection at a yellow light and snap a picture. This automatically processes and

sends a ticket to the alleged “offender”. These tickets cost $100 each and the offender

can either pay the ticket online or appear before a judge and combat the charge. For an

employee that works Monday through Friday, this includes taking time off work and

sitting for hours in traffic court to dispute the ticket. For a minimum wage employee, this

$100 is often a single day or more of pay, meaning that it would have been more worth

their while to simply stay home that day instead of going to work. If a police officer

witnessed a driver breaking the law and issued a ticket, it would be up to the police

officer to show up in court and prosecute the receiver of the ticket. A camera cannot

show up to court to defend the ticket, so if a driver decides to fight the camera ticket, in

most cases the charges are simply dropped. According to an article written by a reporter

for CBS, “Illinois drivers have forked over an astounding $1 billion in red light camera

fines in the past 10 years, according to a new study, and now some lawmakers in
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Springfield are reviving a push to ban red light cameras... The two cameras in

Oakbrook Terrace raked in $5.4 million in one fiscal year. That’s 54,000 drivers

zapped at one intersection, an average of more than 147 a day.” 1 This is

astonishing, as it alludes to the fact that most motorists cannot be bothered to take

the time off to fight the tickets and instead face the financial burdens of the fine.

Many skeptics use these numbers as proof that the cameras are a cash grab for the

local and state governments. The simple inconvenience of these tickets issued by

cameras simply do not outweigh the benefit they were intended to bring.

The original intent of the red light camera sought to lower the amount of

accidents by effectively scaring drivers into stopping at red lights and not attempt to

rush through them. The idea initially came about to lower fender benders in busy

intersections. Drivers would not want to face the $100 fine so they would stop. In

theory, the idea is solid; however, in practice, this is a very flawed notion. If a

motorist is afraid of a red light camera at the intersection, they will not drive

confidently, second guessing their actions. This leads to either slowing down and

speeding up to rush through the intersection or slamming on their breaks last

second to avoid the fine. In another scenario, if the driver does not slow down,

passes through the intersection, and sees a flash in the rear-view, the understanding

that the move just cost them $100 could limit their focus and cause them to be

disgruntled and distracted on the road. A happy and focused driver is much less

likely to cause an accident while an upset driver will pay far less attention to their

surroundings. According to a recent twelve-year study by Scientific American, after

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removing red light cameras in Houston, Texas, in 2010, they found that the amount

of angled accidents such as T-bone accidents increased by 23%, but accidents of

any other category decreased by 18%. Since angled accidents only accounted for

one-third of all accidents, removing red light cameras caused the gross number of

accidents to decrease by 3% overall.2 The ineffectiveness of traffic cameras to stop

accidents is apparent and they should be done away with to promote public safety.

Red light traffic cameras, although seemingly a monetary benefit, cause the

municipal court system multiple problems ranging from time wasting to, in extreme

cases, class action lawsuits. In order to fight these red light camera tickets,

motorists are required to show up to traffic court to contest the ticket the same way a

motorist issued a speeding ticket or a parking ticket would fight the infraction. With

millions of tickets being issued yearly, this brings an elevated amount of foot traffic

to these small institutions. According to a traffic lawyer, David Brown, there are

multiple simple defenses to get these infractions dropped. “If no employee from the

company that maintains the red light camera device shows up to testify, you should

object to the photos being admitted into evidence, saying, ‘Your Honor, since no one

has appeared to authenticate the photographic evidence, I object to such evidence for

lack of foundation.’”3 The article continues by citing unclear photos, signs alerting of the

cameras not properly posted, running the light to avoid an accident, and uncalibrated

cameras as clear-cut ways to get these charges dropped. This wasted time causes a

bottleneck of motorists getting the charges dropped and takes away from the important

cases such as car booting, police issued speeding tickets, misuse of the HOV lane, and

other ticketable offenses and essentially wastes the court’s time. In extreme instances,
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the simple cost of purchasing, installing, and maintaining these cameras outweighs the

compensation that these cameras bring in. After realizing that the cameras did not lead

to a drop in accidents, multiple cities with smaller populations could not pay for the cost

of installation with the money obtained through tickets and decided to drop the use of

them altogether, tying them up in debt to the manufacturers. According to an article

from Governing, “On the legal front, a California appeals court threw out a $500 ticket in

January because drivers weren’t reliably given a 3.6-second yellow light as required by

law. The decision sets a legal precedent for challenging red light camera violations, but

it came after the city of Riverside -- which had issued the ticket in question -- scrapped

its cameras last summer. Meanwhile, lawyers are working on a settlement in a class-

action lawsuit against 20 Missouri cities and a camera manufacturer that could lead to

refunds across the state.”4 With so many tickets being dropped and class action

lawsuits being issued throughout the states, many cities lost money by implementing

these red light cameras. Cities that have not yet implemented these red light cameras

should learn from these examples and reject the idea entirely before they risk the

consequences.

The laws of the road are written specifically to promote safety, punish reckless

drivers, and most importantly to allow drivers to contest tickets, meaning that red

camera tickets may undermine the current laws in place making them unlawful. When a

driver is speeding home at night or running red lights due to their own tardiness, a

police officer sitting at an intersection can lawfully pull them over given reasonable

suspicion that the driver broke the law. Once the driver is ticketed, he or she has a

chance to appeal the ticket in court, turning the police officer into a prosecutor who must
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defend the reasoning behind issuing the ticket. As proven multiple times, a camera

cannot act as a prosecutor in court, thus making the issued ticket not legally binding.

The manufacturers of the red light cameras include companies such as American Traffic

Solutions, Inc., Redflex Traffic Systems, and Affiliated Computer Services. These are

private manufacturing subsidies that are owned by larger corporations including

Goldman Sachs and Xerox. According to an article written by World Justice Project,

these manufacturers keep up to 88% of the profits from these traffic tickets due to city

contracts.5 In other words, a private security guard working at a mall can issue a

citation to a shopper, but that shopper is not legally bound to paying that citation the

same way they would be if a police officer were to issue the citation. The companies

that provide and maintain the cameras lay a majority claim to the citation, making the

citation not legally binding in the same sense as a security guard. When a disgruntled

motorist pays the ticket, they are further lining the pockets of the fifty-billion dollar

company Goldman Sachs. According to another article from Driving Laws, “a red light

camera ticket cannot be issued for violations where the driver comes to a complete stop

prior to entering the intersection, even though the driver may have passed the stop line

or entered the crosswalk.”6 If these tickets are issued to a driver who has followed the

exact rules of the road due to a miscalibration, these companies and the city open

themselves up to a serious lawsuit for malpractice.

No matter the true reason behind red light camera tickets, be it to promote safety,

work as another form of motorist taxation, or to be a general way of keeping a handle on

the population, these cameras have failed in every which way. They are a public

nuisance, contributing to unsafe driving practices and tying cities to costly contracts that
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ultimately do not make them any money. Any city considering implementing these

cameras need simply to look at the facts presented to them. As it stands, cities all over

the country are shedding the burden of these red light cameras for good reason. The

ever-evolving world no longer has room for this costly experiment as the statistics speak

for themselves. Any sane person would urge their municipal government to do away

with their cameras for good and leave the ticketing to the power of the local authorities.

Enough evidence compounds with new studies coming out yearly proving the folly of

these systems. The facts and the people have spoken.

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References

1
Victory, L. (2019) Illinois Drivers Have Paid $1 Billion In Red Light Camera Tickets
In The Last 10 Years. Retrieved from
https://chicago.cbslocal.com/2019/10/14/illinois-red-light-camera-tickets/
2
Gallagher, J. (2018). Red Light Cameras May Not Make Streets Safer. Retrieved
from https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/red-light-cameras-may-not-make-
streets-safer/
3
Brown, D. (2020). Fighting a Red Light Camera Traffic Ticket. Retrieved from
https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/free-books/beat-ticket-book/chapter7-
3.html
4
Vock, D. (2015). Why Cities Hit The Brakes on Red Light Cameras. Retrieved from
https://www.governing.com/topics/public-justice-safety/gov-cities-hit-brakes-red-light-
cameras.html
5
Desind, S. (2013). 3 Private Companies Making Money from Red Light Tickets.
Retrieved from https://worldjusticeproject.org/news/3-private-companies-making-
money-red-light-tickets
6
McCurley, J. (2020). Red Light and Stop Sign Tickets in Illinois. Retrieved from
https://www.drivinglaws.org/resources/traffic-tickets/moving-violations/running-red-
lights-and-stop-11