OUR VIEW: Ticketing for dollars (vote in poll)

Blow through a red light in Colorado Springs and a camera might catch you. The Colorado Springs City Council is considering red-light cameras, which would be installed this year at four major intersections. Like most new programs, this has been pitched as a safety measure.

“The police perspective on this is all about reducing crashes,” Police Chief Richard Myers told the Council Monday. “Some cities that have implemented this have had a substantial revenue increase from it. That’s not our intention or our goal.”

Why not? The city needs cash and cash results from constructive endeavors.

Scofflaws and those who inadvertently break laws and endanger others should be seen as constructive sources of revenue. People who run red lights often cause cashes. Those accidents cause a need for more fire and rescue services and more police. Because traffic violators cost the city money, they should pay. Additionally, society must impose punitive financial consequences on those who violate laws to discourage the activity. So, there is no downside to generating great gobs of cash from the those who break laws. City officials should be proud to do so.

The cameras may or may not improve safety. Studies go both ways, and nobody can make a slam-dunk case that says these devices make us substantially safer. A 2005 federal study of seven municipalities with red light cameras found a 25 percent reduction in broadside crashes. It also found a 15 percent increase in rear-end collisions due to drivers hitting the breaks to avoid tickets.

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But the cameras can generate money. One early city estimate said photo red light and photo radar systems could bring in $750,000 the first year. More cameras would likely mean more cash. Higher fines could also boost revenues. It’s an easy investment, requiring the risk of no taxpayer capital. The city will get paid for simply allowing a private company to place traffic monitoring equipment at intersections.

Councilman Sean Paige, a known guardian of individual rights, opposes the cameras with an argument that liberty is far more important than security. He is correct. Those who sell liberty for security deserve neither. Hopefully, Paige is wrong in believing traffic cameras erode liberty. One hasn’t much liberty while maneuvering through a busy urban intersection. One has a right, at that moment, to do little other than obey traffic laws and avoid harming others. At that location, one has no right to privacy and should have no expectation of it. We can be gawked at, photographed without our false teeth, and videotaped for Internet audiences or national TV shows such as “speeders” and “cops.”

Desires to enhance security often threaten liberty. Despite the police chief’s claims, this should not be viewed as a move toward safety and security. The cameras should be seen, without apology, as an opportunity to generate cash. Anyone who doesn’t wish to pay for this program has the option of obeying traffic lights. So bring on the cameras. Just make sure they show us the money.

— Wayne Laugesen , editorial page editor, for the editorial board. Friend him on Facebook