Posted
11/19/2010 10:58:00 PM
by Douglas
The red light cameras are gone in Houston, and the red light runners are free to run red lights,
unabated.The Southwest Freeway feeder road at Bellaire is one of the busiest traffic spots in the city. More drivers ran the red light than anywhere else in September; a total of 1,600 times -- more than 50 times a day the red light cameras snapped pictures of alleged red-light runners, generating a lot of money for the city.
Two things about this that is monumentally stupid. First, if one camera catches 50 people running the red light each day and sends them a ticket in the mail,
the intersection isn't any safer. And also, this:
In September alone, Houston's cameras combined netted $1.1 million, of which $330,000 went to the city.
The city only gets to keep a
third of the money? What a sweetheart deal that is, for the company that provides them.