A New Set of Eyes

I'm not writing anything too long or heavy to get the week started, but there was that caught my eye on a local level.

As my sidebar states, I live in New Orleans and I attended college up North at Howard University. When I moved to DC that first year two things about the city really shocked me. One, they crammed a lot of cats into that little ass city. Two, very few of those people can drive.

Now my Chocolate City folks are not going to like me saying that, but, they are some of the most aggressive, rule-breaking drivers in the world. Look, in New Orleans we don't have much room to talk since everybody here knows that signaling is only an option when making a turn, and that one-way signs are more of a suggestion than a rule. But, in DC they took things to a whole 'nother level when it came to driving.

Navigating the Beltway was a bloodsport, and even in the city proper people seemed to view their cars as gas-powered weapons of mass destruction. But, the biggest adjustment was getting used to the fact that very few people in DC paid attention to traffic lights. Seriously, a traffic light could be red for a full 30 seconds and people would still fly through it like it was green. Crossing the street on foot or in a car required the ability to keep your head on a swivel like a linebacker.

Now, when I first encountered this practice it was fairly jarring because at the time people in New Orleans obeyed the traffic lights even if we thought murder was a misdemeanor. But, since Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans residents seem to have picked up a few bad habits from all the places the "visited." I guess people must figure that if governmental assistance after a natural disaster is optional, well running a red light must be just fine.

This new belief system hasn't gone unnoticed by city officials, and their response has been to install a whole bunch of these.

I'm not sure how I feel about these red light cameras.

On one hand, I've found that fear is a great motivator for most people, and the fear of spending up to $400 will convince a lot of people to obey the traffic laws. As a reporter, I've seen far too many traffic accidents, and I know just how dangerous right angle collisions can be. While I may have issues with mandatory seat belt laws, I do support most other rules that make the streets safer for drivers.

But, a certain part of me kind of feels like it's cheating for the police and the city to get to write tickets when they haven't put in the time to catch criminals. It reminds me of a conversation I had with a young lady in college. The girl was from Philly and she told me that she'd gotten a massive ticket for speeding one time while commuting from school to her home.

What made her ticket so memorable was that she didn't get stopped by the cops, but rather she got a letter in the mail noting that she had been speeding and owed a fine. Apparently, when she used her EZPass at the toll booths on the highway a computer somewhere logged the times when she arrived at each booth. The computer then calculated her speed by dividing the distance traveled by the time elapsed.

She got a ticket based on Algebra y'all!

Just like that EZPass scam, this whole red light camera setup just seems like a moneymaker for municipalities and other entities. I mean, according to the article, the red-light cameras are only going to be set-up at a few intersections. Consequently, most people will continue to run red-lights and endanger other drivers, while the city makes a few million in new fines. If the lights really won't have a big impact on safety, can the city justify the fines and fees they assess on a struggling population? Or, is the city justified since folks are breaking the rules?

What do y'all think?