Team Trump moves to ban traffic cameras in DC — as – Latest News
The Trump administration might quickly cut back freeway theft by 95% in Washington, DC.
The Big Apple wants the identical silver bullet as a result of town’s drivers may speedily be victimized by the largest bureaucratic looting spree of the century.
Trump’s Transportation Department proposes to “prohibit the operation of automated traffic camera enforcement in the District of Columbia,” which might ban red-light, pace and stop-sign cameras.
Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.) is attaching a related provision to congressional transportation laws.
The dispute over red-light and pace cameras goes to the center of the query of how a lot hurt politicians are entitled to inflict whereas they shake money out of residents’ pockets.
DC Mayor Muriel Bowser promised in 2014 to decrease the traffic-fatality charge to zero within a decade.
Her Vision Zero program slashed pace limits and imposed a dizzying array of new traffic-enforcement cameras.
Bowser’s program was a smashing success: DC authorities income from traffic-camera fines rose nearly ninefold, from $30 million in 2014 to almost $270 million final yr.
Regrettably, the quantity of traffic fatalities in DC doubled in the last decade after Browser launched Vision Zero.
Red-light cameras spark traffic collisions as a result of drivers stop all of a sudden to keep away from being fined.
Six years after cameras had been first put in in 1999, “the number of crashes at locations with cameras more than doubled,” with 400 extra collisions per yr, The Washington Post reported.
The cameras spawn related havoc elsewhere. The Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles reported that accident fatalities doubled at intersections with red-light cameras.
“A major reason red-light cameras spur carnage is because politicians endanger drivers by shortening yellow-light times to boost ticket revenue,” James Bovard writes.
DC turbocharged its income from speed-camera violations by slashing pace limits to 15 or 20 miles per hour in a lot of town.
The metropolis additionally makes use of hidden cameras at stop indicators. A single stop signal has generated more than a million {dollars} in ticket income.
Residents bitterly complain they get wrongfully ticketed until they wait not less than 4 seconds earlier than daring to drive ahead.
Due course of be damned: The DC inspector common discovered the automated ticketing system was so out of control that “drivers get speeding tickets for violations they don’t commit and for vehicles they’ve never owned,” as The Washington Post famous.
Racial minorities bear the brunt of traffic-camera penalties even in cities with black mayors, similar to Chicago and Washington.
“Residents in black neighborhoods were 17 times more likely to receive a photo [traffic-violation] ticket,” per the DC Policy Center, although black neighborhoods didn’t have larger charges of auto crashes.
The National Motorists Association warned of automated traffic tickets, “The practical results for many poor people may be a lot like putting them in debtor prisons, unable to legally drive to work.”
The DC authorities responded to traffic-ticket hardships by offering a “community service option” the place low-income traffic violators may repay tickets by working for town on the minimal wage charge.
Did town plan to put people on chain gangs to repay their pace digital camera money owed or what? Would there be bonus factors for singing “Take This Hammer” in good concord?
“Community service” traffic-penalty gangs didn’t burnish Bowser’s image.
Her authorities launched a new program final yr to support ticket victims not residing in town’s fanciest neighborhoods.
But there’s a snag. Unless you’re receiving food stamps, town received’t cut back or waive your fines.
That epitomizes modern social justice: Only people already accumulating handouts get a free go.
The metropolis has loads of working-class blacks and Hispanics, however they’re probably out of luck searching for aid from freeway theft.
And the identical peril will quickly be multiplying in New York City.
Thanks to Gov. Hochul, the Legislature in late 2024 entitled town to quadruple the quantity of red-light cameras from 150 to 600 intersections.
“The red-light camera rollout will happen fast with 50 new cameras being activated at new locations each week,” Power105.1 radio station reported in mid-January.
One commenter retorted on Instagram: “Time to take out my paintball gun.”
A significant purpose red-light cameras spur carnage is as a result of politicians endanger drivers by shortening yellow-light instances to increase ticket income.
Numerous federal research have proven that lengthening yellow lights is the best step to cut back collisions at traffic lights.
But as long as no one is monitoring the physique rely, politicians get away with openly betraying the public.
The traffic-camera peril will quickly be multiplying in New York City. AboutLife – stock.adobe.com
Actually, they don’t all the time get away with it.
The Post headlined a 2012 report proving that many of town’s red-light cameras had far shorter yellow-light durations than federal security tips advisable.
Robert Sinclair, a spokesman for AAA, which produced the report, declared, “This is supposed to be about safety, not just raising revenue, and that’s what it’s become.”
The Post aptly labeled these short yellow lights “roadway robbery.”
Unfortunately, New Yorkers have no assurance the identical recklessness received’t repeat with the new red-light cameras.
The metropolis paperwork denied it did something improper in 2012 — besides getting caught.
How many pointless car crashes and fatalities may happen if native officers repeat the identical yellow-light switcheroos?
The Trump administration’s proposal to ban automated traffic-enforcement cameras in DC ought to focus national outrage on camera-ticket regimes.
The administration ought to deny all federal transportation funding to any locale, together with New York, that knowingly sacrifices security to fill authorities coffers.
“Taxation by citation” is a license for bureaucratic tyranny.
James Bovard is the creator of 11 books, together with “Lost Rights: The Destruction of American Liberty.”
