Questions about Schaumburg’s Red Light Camera Program
July 21st, 2009 | by Brian Costin Published in Blog, Features, Public Safety
This Letter to the Editor was published in the Daily Herald on August 10th, 2009.
Recently revealed traffic safety statistics shows that Schaumburg has never had significant red light running problems. Also, the Meacham & Woodfield Red Light Camera (RLC) intersection had 0 accidents caused by red light running in 2008.
The Village Board has directed that this program be implemented only at intersections where data shows a significant number of crashes resulting from signal violations. As shown below, none of the Top Ten crash intersections within the Village can fulfill this criterion.
We reviewed approximately 800 crashes during the entire calendar year of 2008, there were only 15 signal-related crashes recorded for all ten intersections
That’s less than 1.9% of all accidents. How can red light cameras solve a problem that is virtually non-existent?
…and at the Meacham & Woodfield intersection, not even in the top ten most dangerous intersections where a red light camera was installed and collected over $1.1 million in fines, 0 red light running accidents in 2008.
In 2008, there were 26 crashes at this intersection. There were no signal violations noted. Almost all of the tickets were written for the charge of “Failure to Reduce Speed to Avoid an Accident”, which is usually interchangeable with “Following too Closely”.
So why did the Village create a program to solve a problem which never existed?
At the July 14th Village Board meeting I asked some very basic questions to find out. Unfortunately, Mayor Larson and the Village Trustees refused to answer. Here are the questions I have for our Village officials in hopes they will.
Why was the RLC program put into place, even on a trial basis, if no red light running problem of any significance ever existed? Why did Schaumburg choose to place a camera at an intersection with zero red light running accidents? Did Village officials examine the statistics before voting on the RLC program?
Did Village officials consider the 9 scientific studies the Schaumburg Freedom Coalition presented at the September 23, 2008 Village Board Meeting showing RLC are ineffective and in many cases increase accidents? If not, then what studies or data did they use to justify the program?
With the program failing to produce any public safety benefits will the Village refund any of the fines to the 10,000+ motorists who received tickets? What will the Village do with the money received?
Village officials claim it “wasn’t about the revenue”, but the accident statistics and blatant refusal to answer basic questions about the implementation of this program strongly suggest otherwise.
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