The final hearing on Daytona Beach red-light cameras is scheduled for October 6th, at 6pm, at the Daytona Beach City Hall at 301 S. Ridgewood Ave, DB 32114. 

The National Motorists Association strongly opposes red-light cameras (discussions of their many problems can be found here), and Association activists will be speaking at the hearing.

We encourage local motorists to attend this public meeting to voice your opposition to the Daytona Beach camera plans, or to support our representatives. If you would like a "script" to assist you in making a statement, they can provide one.  NMA Florida Activist contact information can be found in the Members Area at www.motorists.org or in a recent issue of the member newsletter, Driving Freedoms.

The more people who appear in opposition to the ticket-camera camera plans, the more likely those plans will be abandoned.

While many Ohio cities including Steubenville, Cincinnati, Chillicothe and Heath have shut down their photo enforcement programs, the Dayton City Commission is looking to double-down on the existing red-light camera (RLC) program.  Per this story from the Dayton Daily News, Commission members will hear a second reading next week of a proposal to add speed sensors at the current RLC installations.  If approved, the cameras will be used to cite intersection infractions at $85 per ticket as well as speed limit infractions at another $85 per ticket.

This is similar to a budget proposal by Governor Schwarzenegger in California where the state wants to add speed sensors to 500 existing RLCs, thereby generating an additional $338 million in ticket revenue during the first year of operation.  There are two fundamental differences between the California and Dayton proposals:  1) the scale of the project and, 2) California makes no pretense that the camera enhancements will be about anything other than generating revenue while Dayton is claiming that improved traffic safety is first and foremost the reason for the new proposal.

On the latter point, the Daily News article cites some improvement in accident statistics since the RLCs were installed.  It would be interesting if someone locally would issue a public records request to the Dayton Police Department, asking for actual data at the camera intersections, before and after the photo enforcement program began.  Los Angeles law enforcement made similar claims, but when a reporter from the CBS TV station in the city filed a records request, he found that of the 32 intersections with RLCs, 20 of them had increased accident rates (some nearly tripling), and only three had reductions.

If you want to influence the decision by the Dayton City Commission to possibly add speed sensors to the existing RLCs, please contact them before their meeting next week, and have your friends do the same.  Contact information for Commission members is here.

Frank Wagner, former President of the Garfield Heights City Council, was among a group of people who met this past weekend to discuss the elimination of ticket cameras in Cleveland.  Several cities have banned photo enforcement programs in Ohio:  Steubenville, Mansfield, Cincinnati and, most recently last November, Heath and Chillicothe.  Here is a story from wcpn.org about the weekend conference.

Wagner is hoping to gather enough signatures to place an initiative on the November ballot that would give voters an opportunity for an up-or-down vote on the cameras.  Ticket cameras have never passed the scrutiny of a public vote.

The NMA will keep you apprised of this anti red-light camera movement.  We are opposed to the revenue-generating ticket cameras for several reasons, not the least of which is that accident rates typically increase at camera intersections while motorists are paying for the privilege of less safety.  Simpler, more effective safety measures should be utilized, such as longer yellow light cycles, a few second all-red delay between cross traffic signals, and bigger, brighter lenses on the signals themselves.

Much more information about ticket cameras, including studies that provide actual traffic statistics at camera intersections, is available on the Ticket Cameras issues page at the NMA site.

The voters in five other Ohio cities have shown that it is possible to rid the community of the reverse ATM machines called red-light cameras.  We are hoping that Wagner and local supporters will make Cleveland the sixth city to ban photo enforcement.