Op-Ed: Tell Salem What You Think About Red Light Photo Cams

A private company is on the verge of installing cameras in Salem that will photograph red light violations and ultimately, lead to a ticket in your mailbox. The city says they want your input.

Big brother with a telephoto zoom lens Photo courtesy: lbreport.com

(SALEM) - There is nothing like a human presence. We used to have one when we used the telephone, but now we get to speak to a machine and press buttons to say “yes” and “no”. Now is an ideal time to ask if police officers are headed the way of telephone operators.

The city of Salem is close to making a final decision on whether to implement remote traffic cameras that record a driver’s license plate, and result in a traffic citation if they “flagrantly” run a red light. They say the decision has not been made, but the council has decided which private firm gets the job. Now the city council wants input from the public.

Is that out of order somehow? If the opinion of Salem residents is truly sought, then selecting the company before the idea makes little sense, and it more than borders on insult.

A police presence on the street reduces crime. It has been proven over and over again. What can remote citations do in the end, but lead to fewer police officers on the street?

We probably shouldn’t be too surprised that the city wants the remote cameras; people who keep up on the news know we live in an age when police are increasingly using more secret equipment.

One glaring example is the use of unmarked cars for traffic enforcement. Salem and Keizer has them, OSP is buying more, and the Marion County Sheriff’s Office plays the game now with high performance Mustangs that are unmarked.

Instead of more black and whites and uniformed officers in the community, we get unmarked police cars and remote red light cameras.

People should be angry, because unmarked police cars make drivers become accustomed to pulling over for anybody who has red and blue lights on their car.

People have disappeared time and time again, often young women, and this practice by police hardly seems responsible. Last year, a woman near Grande Ronde narrowly escaped after being pulled over by a police impostor, then it happened to a woman in Portland a short time later.

I know I’m straying from the point, but in the opinion of many, police should be anything but secretive. Photo cameras will make money for Salem, and they will do it when nobody is around. They will lead to increased revenues, but it is doubtful at least anytime soon, that the cameras will make the roads safer.

** There are plenty of people who become uncomfortable over the subject, but federal funding for cops, particularly when it comes to drug enforcement, is shrinking. The so-called era of “homeland security” that the Bush administration has brought forth is punishing law enforcement and the public at large increasingly, each year.

If you send a comment slamming me for hanging blame on the president, include an explanation as to why he is right to slash away at Oregon's law enforcement funding.

In fact, the Bush administration's proposed budget cut in March '06 of $1.1 Billion, brings Oregon police the lowest funding levels in 10 years.

That is why the head of Oregon State Police, Ronald Ruecker, visited Washington D. C. in March, joining more than 100 law enforcement officials from across the country on Capitol Hill to demand the restoration of police money that they depended on for years, dollars that Washington D.C. took away.

The public hearing about the implementation of photo red light cameras on selected City intersections will happen Monday July 17th, at 6:30 PM in the Council Chambers.

Salem Police Spokesman Bill Kohlmeyer says the City has gone through a vendor selection process and selected Redflex Traffic Systems, pending Council approval. “The public hearing is an opportunity for the Council to hear from the public on this issue before making a final decision.”

He says the Photo Red Light is designed to capture still photos and video of violations where a driver flagrantly runs a red light. The light cycles are controlled by the City Traffic Engineer's office and Kohlmeyer says the contracted company has no ability to alter the cycles in any way.

Kohlmeyer further states that the system is designed to capture only violations where the vehicle is completely behind the stop line when the light turns red. “It is not designed to cite people making legal right and left turns on red or when they are caught in the intersection when the light turn reds, These situations may be law violations but they will not be issued citations using this system.” He says citations are only issued after review by the Police Department and are issued by a Police Officer.

According to statistics provided by the Oregon Department of Transportation from 2001-2005 there has been 1,162 total crashes, 595 of which were injury crashes, in the City of Salem caused by someone running a red light. These crashes have resulted in 1,005 people being injured and one fatality.

But the lbreport.com out of Long Beach, California, says accident data indicates that redlight accidents went up, in one case by five times, or stayed the same at three major Long Beach intersections with redlight cameras in the year following their activation.

The public now has a chance to offer their input. In this high tech age, people need to become increasingly involved in their government. Apathy in this case, may lead to a new law and practice that in the end sacrifices all we stand for in the first place.

It would be interesting to see what strong public input opposing the Photo Red Light implementation would really mean to the city council. Maybe they should draft a letter to President Bush asking the federal government to stop slashing away at law enforcement budgets, and they wouldn’t need to move toward such an impersonal form of law enforcement.

** State Police Superintendent Presses Congress to Stop Cutting Police Support http://salem-news.com/articles/march72006/OSP_Bush_3706.php