The City of Tamarac will be voting whether or not to renew their contract with American Traffic Solutions in April. Read columnist Buddy Nevins investigation on them in today’s column.
By: Buddy Nevins
That’s a big scam,” Senator Marco Rubio on red light cameras, New York Times, June 5, 2015″
Cities and Counties have always insisted that red-light cameras are all about safety and not about the money it generates. Call me a skeptic, but I always had my doubts about the safety aspect in local governments’ desire to put these cameras at busy intersections.
I have never received a red light ticket and haven’t had a moving violation since I was 17, so I don’t have any personal animus toward them. I’m just skeptical.
Then I received a press release from American Traffic Solutions, which provides the red-light camera services for most cities in Florida.
The press release headline stated: “Annual Florida Report Shows Red-Light Cameras Intersection Safety Benefit Driver 36% Less Likely to be Involved in a Crash at a Red-Light Safety Camera Intersections.”
And I said to myself, self, I guess I was wrong. I shouldn’t be so skeptical. Red light cameras must be a safety device.
But curiosity got the best of me. So I downloaded the report from the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles entitled: “Red Light Camera Summary Report.”
Nevins covered Florida politics from the early 1970s to 2006 for The Fort Lauderdale News and then for the South Florida Sun-Sentinel. During much of this time he wrote a column which offered a peek behind closed doors of government and politics.
